it sounds like a modern update of The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things By the Power of Sound (which did the same thing to live versions of things from the 1980-1983 fourth world trilogy).
― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:58 (nineteen years ago) link
No, no, I just saw it announced, without any details.
― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 13 May 2005 21:14 (nineteen years ago) link
great site. no sound samples though.
― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 13 May 2005 21:36 (nineteen years ago) link
Whaaa??!?
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Saturday, 14 May 2005 05:21 (nineteen years ago) link
ok I bought Maarifa Street last night -- it's great. Fuzzy, liquid, and weird again. All the sharp techno edges and slickness of City & Dressing For Pleasure have been dropped, everything's muted and gauzy and mysterious again, although the tracks are still a lot more straightforward than the original trilogy; the rhythmic backing is less alienating & weird, in support for the lead trumpet, but it fits, it works
co-produced by Peter Freeman, who also played bass & laptop in the original concerts. the rhythms are slow & dubby, especially the bass lines; One track samples a dub filtersweep hit from Pole's CD1 for the downbeat (it's such a generic 'dub' sound that I wouldn't have noticed if not for the liner notes).
the album packaging is incredible, a huge sprawling tree filled with dozens of people. when you look very closely, it dawns on you that it's a sprawling multi-racial orgy. it's by Mati Klarwein, same guy who did Earthquake Island & Bitches Brew.
fits the music perfectly, this is an unusually erotically charged album even for Hassell, feels almost awkward listening to this by myself. it's all about the trumpet playing here, and no one sounds like Hassell, I love this record...
― milton parker (Jon L), Saturday, 14 May 2005 20:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 14 May 2005 20:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Saturday, 14 May 2005 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
I have it -- I just don't think I ever noticed that. That's a fantastic description of the record, btw.
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Sunday, 15 May 2005 01:38 (nineteen years ago) link
I'd forgotten Richard Horowitz was on Surgeon... have you heard Horowitz & Sussan Deihim's Azax Attra : Desert Equations? that is one classic record, definitely related to the fourth world series...
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:18 (nineteen years ago) link
just found this interview online:
RH: I met Paul thanks to Brion Gysin... I had been working on my music in between Paris and Morocco since 1969 when I received my first infusion of magnetic ecstatic blood thunder and I knew I was on to something...
http://www.richardhorowitz.com/press2.shtml
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:33 (nineteen years ago) link
wow, she sings on Eros as well, RS, let me know if you want to trade (all these things are way out of print)
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:56 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009LI7U/qid%3D1116131185/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-2848508-8628646
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 15 May 2005 03:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Monday, 23 May 2005 01:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― xxx, Monday, 23 May 2005 16:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 23 May 2005 17:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS, Monday, 23 May 2005 18:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 23 May 2005 18:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS, Monday, 23 May 2005 18:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 23 May 2005 18:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 11 July 2005 11:24 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't like that tree painting on the package. If it's meant to be celebratory of life energy and sexuality and so forth, for me it just comes across as grotesque (and something about the stylized figures turns me off too). A piece of the 60s better left in that era.
― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Saturday, 6 August 2005 00:13 (eighteen years ago) link
after the first two weeks with Maarifa I just went back through the catalog and listened to the first five albums like crazy... I hear rumors that Dream Theory is getting reissued. hope so.
weird that Eno, Budd and Hassell all have new albums out within months of each other. Budd & Guthrie's Mysterious Skin is particularly good.
― milton parker (Jon L), Saturday, 6 August 2005 04:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 26 April 2007 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaybabcock, Thursday, 26 April 2007 05:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 26 April 2007 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― pauncy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link
the new one
total winning streak, same mood as 'Maarifa Street' but even fuzzier & spaced out. and live percussion this time, not hearing loops, it's all gauze
he also put up a linked autobiography on his website which is very readable. strewn with polaroids of his muses.
― Milton Parker, Monday, 13 April 2009 22:30 (fifteen years ago) link
That sounds promising. I've been appreciating Fascinoma a little more, recently.
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Thursday, 16 April 2009 19:59 (fifteen years ago) link
So, so glad I got to see him play live.
― WmC, Thursday, 16 April 2009 20:30 (fifteen years ago) link
i went down to see him in london a couple of years ago and was super disappointed. he was on fine form but the other two guys he was playing with were lameorama.
i couldn't get out quickly enough and as the lights came up i made a swift exit and stood on someone's toe. i turned round to apologise and it was brian eno. oops!
― stirmonster, Thursday, 16 April 2009 20:43 (fifteen years ago) link
And that's why you should never go see Jon Hassel in London, you might step on Brian Eno's toes.
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Thursday, 16 April 2009 21:05 (fifteen years ago) link
(Twenty-five years or so of listening to his music and I still have not learned how to spell his last name.)
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Friday, 17 April 2009 19:59 (fifteen years ago) link
living with it this week, new album is a lot more traditional & upfront. a lot more recognizable. less mysterious but that doesn't stop it from being beautiful. whereas late 70's / early 80's Hassell is too exotic and mutant to recognize as anything, you just fall into them with no compass, but this telegraphs itself a bit more directly.
I need to hear Fascinoma, that was clearly a reset for him. there's a track on here that quotes Ellington's 'Caravan', a quote that familiar should be too bald to work but here it doesn't sound like a reference, it just sounds perfect
― Milton Parker, Friday, 17 April 2009 21:00 (fifteen years ago) link
You've never heard Fascinoma at all, or just not lately? I guess you know he coves "Caravan" on Fascinoma (one of my favorite tracks on that album). My favorite part of that album is probably still Jacky Terrasson 's piano playing, but I've come back to appreciating Hassell's playing on it more.
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Friday, 17 April 2009 21:20 (fifteen years ago) link
(I don't mean to act so shocked that you might not have heard Fascinoma, but you seem to have heard everything lse b him.)
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Friday, 17 April 2009 21:21 (fifteen years ago) link
(Can't see the end of the line when I type, incidentally. I think that makes me nervous and I start making misakes.)
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Friday, 17 April 2009 21:22 (fifteen years ago) link
(Exactly.)
It's the only one I haven't heard. When it came out, after City & Dressing For Pleasure I just wasn't as excited about a new Hassell record. Definitely going to pick it up next time I see it.
― Milton Parker, Friday, 17 April 2009 21:37 (fifteen years ago) link
the latest one is a pretty incredible how-much-can-we-strip-away experiment - kind of like a d'n'b record without any rhythm track at some points. 2nd song is like watching blood coagulate. really something else.
― worm? lol (J0hn D.), Friday, 3 July 2009 13:33 (fourteen years ago) link
this prompted me to give last night... another listen. still fantastic. and the dnb w/o any rhythm track is pretty much spot-on for the more dubby, less fusiony material. but sloooooowed down.
love this album.
― original bgm, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 13:50 (fourteen years ago) link
the new one is indeed sick
― omar little, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 23:39 (fourteen years ago) link
you know which one's good? Sulla Strada, music for a 1982 Italian dance production. I got it when it finally came out in 98, but it felt peripheral at the time, a lot of the fragments are simple looped textures & resampled tracks from Fourth World Vol. 1 & 2, but coming back to it this month, that is precisely why it is so great. a lot more overt in its use of directly appropriative sampling (both of ethno-folk music & self-remixing) than on any other record of his, except Aka Darbari Java (which is the one of his I've been playing most this year)
― Milton Parker, Monday, 21 December 2009 02:43 (fourteen years ago) link
The Washington Post's pop music critic Chris Richards put this in as his tenth fave cd of the year---he described it this way : With his 15th studio album, the esteemed jazz trumpeter evaporated Miles Davis’ cosmic slop into a resplendent sonic mist.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 21 December 2009 03:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm talking about the 2009 one “Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street”
Actually I think he's just playing with the same sonic mist as In A Silent Way, but that's one of my favourite kinds of weather so I love it.
― Tim F, Monday, 21 December 2009 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
duncan shiek is that he's a big sylvian fan
yeah i definitely got that sense after listening to the two tracks with hassell and almost made me want to check out some of his other stuff to see if he had some good sylvian-inspired deep cuts
― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 15:50 (one year ago) link
aka/dabari/java >>>>>>
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 21:09 (one year ago) link
decided to listen through the whole catalog and spend time with some of his records i've only glancingly heard and wow what a knockout
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 21:10 (one year ago) link
That one is killer. A discography listen sounds just the thing. Lately, I've been listening to *Last Night the Moon* and goddamn.
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 21:15 (one year ago) link
agreed, so great, very subtle/minimal
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Wednesday, 10 May 2023 22:26 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2CO0kFhjwE
i'm glad the living city was given its own release. i don't know that i would've ever heard it otherwise and it's one of the very best hassell things
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 14 May 2023 18:00 (one year ago) link
First heard Hassell w/his track Amsterdam Blue (Cortege) on the soundtrack for the The Million Dollar Hotel. I don't think it appeared anywhere else.
― omar little, Sunday, 14 May 2023 18:05 (one year ago) link
he was a genius, such a rich catalog.
Hadn't heard *The Living City* before. Some deep weirdness going on in there. The bassline on the opening track is like having a fly in a tooth cavity.
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Sunday, 14 May 2023 20:12 (one year ago) link