"The most regulating, stimulating, and inspiring piece of ambient music ever recorded."

"From the very first statement of the motif which carries throughout the entire work, I can feel my heartbeat slow down. My breathing deepens, and I begin to feel the magic of the world spread beneath my fingers. This album is palatial, and stepping into it gives you the same reverent feeling of entering a silent cathedral. And in case you forgot the cathedral was a holy space, the first cries of Pharoah Sanders’ tenor saxophone call you to prayer. The influence and teachings of Coltrane are immediately evident in Sanders’ playing, the young disciple who carried the torch from his mentor onwards into the new millennium. I should mention that Pharoah Sanders lived a life twice as long as John Coltrane’s, and this dichotomy of the two men’s lives unfolds across my two favorite albums. A Love Supreme captures the frantic energy of a man in the peak of his artistic dominance, blazing across the universal tapestry with a fire that no one could match. But Promises presents a man who has seen his star rise and fall, a man who has spent his life searching, a man who at the end of his life speaks his few essential truths with the certainty of someone who has accomplished everything he could ever hope for. Promises is the last album Pharoah Sanders released before his death, his swan-song."