Selected episodes from Alice Coltrane’s extraordinary devotional television series Eternity’s Pillar, newly released on Blu-ray by Exotic Material.

In 1985, KTTV Channel 11, an independent commercial television station in Los Angeles, began broadcasting Eternity’s Pillar every Sunday after midnight. Across the series, Alice Coltrane, appearing as Swamini Turiyasangitananda, presented devotional wisdom, meditation and music in an ecumenical context.

The programmes bring together solo performances on piano, harp, organ and OB-8 synthesizer, music composed from scripture, readings from Coltrane’s Endless Wisdom, chanting with members of the Vedantic Center, dance, meditation and vivid 1980s video effects. Created, directed, written and scored by Coltrane herself, the series offers a remarkable window onto her musical and spiritual life during a period in which she had largely withdrawn from the commercial music world.

Broadcast between 1985 and 1988, Eternity’s Pillar remained little seen outside Los Angeles. Seventeen surviving episodes have now been digitised from original U-matic broadcast master tapes held by the Coltrane archive and presented together for the first time in a limited-edition Blu-ray release from Exotic Material.

For this special release event, Cafe OTO presents a selection of restored episodes from the newly released edition, celebrating one of the most extraordinary and under-seen chapters in Alice Coltrane’s life and work.

As part of the programme, Kevin Le Gendre and Kodwo Eshun come together for a conversation around Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s extraordinary audiovisual and spiritual world. Jaganathan’s current Rhythm, Race, Revolution programme at Mosaic Rooms includes a session journeying with and through Alice Coltrane’s work, while Eshun has written and spoken about Coltrane as part of a Black sonic tradition of radical transformation, “holy amplification” and speculative possibility, most notably in More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction. Taking Eternity’s Pillar as a point of departure, they will consider music, devotion, moving image, Black radical imagination and the ways Coltrane’s work opens onto other forms of listening, learning and collective life.

Programme notes:

Tonight’s screening brings together episodes 18, 20 and 16 of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s Eternity’s Pillar, followed by a conversation between Kevin Le Gendre and Kodwo Eshun.

Beginning in 1985, Eternity’s Pillar was broadcast on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles every Sunday after midnight. Alice created, directed, wrote, scored and presented the programmes herself. Across the series, she appears as Swamini Turiyasangitananda, bringing together musical performance, spiritual teaching, meditation, scripture, dance, communal practice and vivid early video effects.

The programmes belong to a period in which Alice had largely withdrawn from the commercial music world and was devoting herself to the Sai Anantam Ashram and Vedantic Center she had established in California. They offer a rare opportunity to hear her speaking at length in her own words and to see how music, spiritual life, television and community came together within her work.

Seventeen surviving episodes have now been digitised from the original U-matic broadcast masters held by the Coltrane archive and released on Blu-ray by Exotic Material.

The three episodes have been selected to show different aspects of the world Alice created through the series.

Episode 18 moves through the collective life of the ashram, combining music, movement, chanting and outdoor devotional practice with the programme’s distinctive visual language.

Episode 20 is structured around Alice’s conversation with the singer and minister Reverend O. C. Smith. Their exchange, alongside music, prayer and chanting, shows the programme working as a form of spiritual gathering and conversation.

After the break, episode 16 returns the focus to Alice herself as a musician and teacher. Her playing and cosmological reflections bring together many of the ideas running through the preceding episodes. Ending here leaves Alice’s own voice and thought in the room before the live conversation begins.

Taken together, the episodes move from collective practice, through dialogue, and finally back to Alice. They show the range of Eternity’s Pillar while allowing connections to emerge between its music, devotional teaching, communal life and approach to television.

Running order

8pm: Episodes 18 and 20
10-minute break
Episode 16
Kevin Le Gendre and Kodwo Eshun in conversation

Kevin Le Gendre is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in Black music, literature and culture. He has previously interviewed Alice Coltrane and presented the BBC Radio 3 documentary Alice Coltrane: Her Sound and Spirit. His essay “Highest Song of Bliss” appears in the book accompanying Exotic Material’s Blu-ray edition.

Kodwo Eshun is a writer, theorist and artist whose work explores music, moving image, Black cultural history and speculative thought. He is the author of More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction and a co-founder of The Otolith Group.

With thanks to Abiba Coulibaly for connecting Cafe OTO with Nick Wrigley and Exotic Material, and to the Coltrane archive for making these restored programmes available.

Programme selected by Mo Dafa, Senior Producer and Programmer at Cafe OTO.