The title track was written in the studio. During the sessions for Pharoah Sanders's Thembi, Lonnie Liston Smith saw a Fender Rhodes for the first time, sat down at it, and came up with a drifting progression that Sanders asked him to finish; they recorded it there and then. Two years later Smith, still playing with Miles Davis, signed with Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman and made Astral Traveling his own.

The first Cosmic Echoes are George Barron on soprano and tenor, Joe Beck on guitar, Cecil McBee on bass, David Lee Jr. on drums, James Mtume and Sonny Morgan on congas, Badal Roy on tabla and Geeta Vashi on tamboura. Six pieces, all Smith's: the title track, Let Us Go into the House of the Lord, Rejuvenation, I Mani (Faith), In Search of Truth, Aspirations.

Alex Henderson at AllMusic writes that the record leaves no doubt Smith was his own man with his own ideas, and that he had a band to carry them out; he counts it among Smith's most essential albums. Sounds of the Universe calls it deep, deep funky jazz. The next record, Cosmic Funk, would add Smith's brother on vocals and move toward the groove; this one is the spiritual jazz record.

Japanese CD edition from Solid's Flying Dutchman series.