Jon Hassell -- Classic Or Dud?

what does everyone think of "fascinoma" where hassell goes to lengths to record himself and the bad without treatments? even has a version of nature boy.

some people love the techno/pop fusion experiments of City and Dressing for Pleasure, they're not bad commercial music, but the drum machine & techno sounds bind them to the time, unlike the earlier records.

great discography at the website - http://www.jonhassell.abelgratis.co.uk/HTML/discs1.html

(I(I(I(I think I've said all of this before.)before.)before.)before.)

if you're talking about City and Dressing for Pleasure, I'm with you. the drum machines dominate. there are some fantastic percussionists on his other records though, have you heard Flash of the Spirit? 10 piece percussion ensemble from Burkina Faso...

No, seriously -- I've always wondered if the more "traditional" rhythm beds and generally obtuse textures of Possible Musics saved it from MLITBOG's fate.

Milton, I always liked Power Spot -- more driving rhythms and all. What's your beef?

Rockist has a point about the occasional stiff rhythm on some of these records, but this music is primarily about impossible texture & references to things that almost don't exist, so I don't mind.

Huh — I consider myself fairly sensitive to those, but never noticed on Power Spot.

this music is primarily about impossible texture & references to things that almost don't exist

Exactly — it's as if no one told them exotica was devoid of substance.

he did the music for the practice

I listened to Power Spot again last night, the last two tracks are fantastic... it's not the DX7 sounds, there's just some looped sequences that wear me down a little on some tracks. But the album ends brilliantly, those last two pieces...

It occurs to me that it isn't Voiceprint I didn't care for but rather Dressing For Pleasure — I did notice, however, that one track on the latter sampled the section of Miles Davis' "Sivad" (the part that showed up on Get Up With It as "Honky Tonk"). It hit me that maybe he was drawing the comparison a little too obviously with that...

's a Simon Reynolds article about multi-culture v. mono-culture and the types of fusion that Hassell, Eno and Byrne were/are undertaking. Fourth World, ahoy!

City is transitional, first time he introduces outright drum machine sounds to reference uhm 'the City' but at least the rest of the sounds are still abstract, and it's got some good playing... still...

(He has studied Indian classical music though hasn't he?)

I'm thinking about the way he will frequently finish a line he's playing, with a strong sort of feeling of closure, and then there's often (usually?) some sort of echo effect. You get that sort of sound a lot in Arabic singing, or especially Qur'anic recitation, without effects, just as a result of acoustics.

you kidder.

Maybe I've had too many whiskey sours this evening, but that's how it sounds to me at this moment.

DJ never back announced the piece, either, I didn't find it again for another year...

BTW, milton, I think you were talking about "Wing Melodies" which has sequences and triggers both -- and digibells to boot. But I like it.

Sometimes the first one, Vernal Equinox is my very favorite, it's so minimal; no harmonizer on the trumpet yet, just occasional subtle Buchla. the concept is already there, intensely technological yet primal music.

I like Earthquake Island though some don't, it's very much in the tradition of other 70's jazz fusion records. The harmonizer shows up for the first time. Great band; Rockist, I fully recommend this record if your complaint of the other records involve stiff rhythms. Liner notes: 'Including Nana (Vasconcelos)' Imaginative Percussion'.

Eno set him off on a path towards fragmented, studio-only creations. The three EG records are progressively less about live performance, by Aka-Darbari-Java, apart from one other drummer who was probably sent home after one or two sessions, it's all Hassell & a sampler. I've got it on now, an incredible record, sound of the mirror.

My problem with Power Spot is that it tries to reintroduce live performances, but the sequencers are still leading, and win out, till the very end... Flash of the Spirit is my other favorite because you can tell they started by recording the live band, and the treatments came later...

I want to speak in parentheses...

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).

No, no, I just saw it announced, without any details.

great site. no sound samples though.

Whaaa??!?

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...

I have it -- I just don't think I ever noticed that. That's a fantastic description of the record, btw.

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...

RIP

Oh shit no way

that’s a big one - RIP to a total legend

RIP, boo, loved those last few

Rest In Peace. He was on top to the very last, just a legend

rip. great last album

The one before that, too! And I haven’t even listened to the one before that, yet. But still clearly on top of his game and exploring new territory to the very end. That’s all I could hope for anyone

no!!!!

This was the statement, BTW:

PRESS STATEMENT from Jon Hassell's Family
JULY 26, 2021
Family Statement:
Our beloved Jon M. Hassell - iconic trumpet player, author, and composer - has passed away at the age of 84 years on June 26th 2021. After a little more than a year of fighting through health complications, Jon died peacefully in the early morning hours of natural causes. His final days were surrounded by family and loved ones who celebrated with him the lifetime of contributions he gave to this world– personally and professionally. He cherished life and leaving this world was a struggle as there was much more he wished to share in music, philosophy, and writing.
It was his great joy to be able to compose and produce music until the end. We thank all those who contributed to ensuring that he was able to continue expressing his ideas through his final days and maintain a quality end of life.
Jon Hassell was able to leave behind many gifts. We are excited and committed to sharing those ongoing with his fans across time and support his enduring legacy. All donations to Jon Hassell’s GoFundMe will allow the tremendous personal archive of his music, much unreleased, to be preserved and shared with the world for years to come. We also hope to provide philanthropic gifts of scholarship and contributions to issues close to Jon’s heart, like supporting the working rights of musicians.
As Jon is now free of a constricting body, he is liberated to be in his musical soul and will continue to play in the Fourth World. We hope you find solace in his words and dreams for this earthly place he now leaves behind. We hold him, and you, in this loss and grief.
FOURTH WORLD IS
A KIND OF PHILOSOPHICAL GUIDELINE, A CREATIVE POSTURE, DIRECTED TOWARDS THE CONDITIONS CREATED BY THE INTERSECTION OF TECHNOLOGY WITH INDIGINOUS MUSIC AND CULTURE.
THE UNDERLYING GOAL IS TO PROVIDE A KIND OF CREATIVE MIDWIFERY TO THE INEVITABLE MERGING OF CULTURES WHILE PROVIDING AN ANTIDOTE TO A GLOBAL "MONOCULTURE" CREATED BY MEDIA COLONIZATION.
THE UNDERLYING PREMISE IS THAT EACH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' MUSIC AND CULTURE - THE RESULT OF THEIR UNIQUE RESPONSE TO THEIR UNIQUE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT - FUNCTIONS IN THE SAME WAY AS, AS AN "ELEMENT" IN THE PERIODIC TABLE OF CHEMISTRY: AS PURE BUILDING BLOCKS FROM WHICH ALL OTHER "CULTURAL COMPOUNDS" WILL ARISE.
IN OTHER WORDS, THESE CULTURES ARE OUR "VOCABULARY" IN TRYING TO THINK ABOUT WAYS TO RESPOND TO OUR PLACE IN THE NEW GEOGRAPHY CREATED BY OUR MEDIA WORLD, AND MUST BE RESPECTED RELATIVE TO THEIR IMPORTANCE TO OUR SURVIVAL.
Jon Hassell
####

goddamn

and yeah, was still making great music. but also left behind a ton of great records i don’t imagine i’ll ever really get tired of listening to

rip

We will never hear another person like him ever again.

Absolute legend. Respect.

So sad.

I keep discovering new and unexplored (by me) corners of his work. I had been listening to The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things By The Power of Sound (from the late 80s) just this week - what an amazing record.

As Jon is now free of a constricting body, he is liberated to be in his musical soul and will continue to play in the Fourth World.

Oh shit, RIP

Ah shit. RIP. What a genius.

Oh no! RIP Jon ;_;

RIP Jon. That was a lovely statement from his family

he made so many ridiculously good albums you can go through decades of his work without finding anything shit, Fascinoma is a personal fave of mine.

Ronu Majumdar's "Hollow Bamboo" album on the Water Lily label has a real nice guest spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zeaTh0f0E4

New York Times w/ details I didn’t know:

Fascinated by electronic music, he made tape collages and won a grant to study with the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen for two years in Cologne, Germany. His classmates included musicians who would go on to start the German band Can; he took LSD with them

I knew he studied with Stockhausen around the same time as Holger Czukay, didn't know about the LSD though!

... and David Johnson, who was in the original line-up of Can.

RIP. what a life.

84 is pretty good. But given that he was creating music at such a high level, it’s hard not to feel a little sadder about this. His last few records betrayed no signs of slowing down whatsoever – in retrospect, I find it remarkable that his music sounded every bit as exotic, brooding and other to the very end.

RIP to one of the greats.

Have we ever polled his albums? I only get this topic when using the search.

The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound----

not seeing this one on Spotify. Author/critic Jon Savage says it's a fave of his

It's wonderful. Listen to it a lot.

Nice tribute mix from Low Light: https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/last-night-the-moon-came-a-tribute-to-john-hassell/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGFJhExa4Qc

Chaser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcuISx7vDk

I miss this guy already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sjEnihSdI

"caracas night september 11, 1975"

Highly recommended tribute: https://astralindustries.bandcamp.com/album/ai-32-the-fifth-world-recordings

Some live stuff coming out — sounds pretty pretty good ...

https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/

just reading up on some of his credits, turns out he played on a pair of duncan sheik tracks? sounds like a bad david sylvian song hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISt0LotIIEo

the link between bad 90s radio rock and new weird america that ilm needed today

Some live stuff coming out — sounds pretty pretty good ...

https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com🕸/

Just now relistening to Brilliant Trees for the first time in a while and his tone when he first appears is unmistakable.

aahhhh xpost that's too bad re:forthcoming live stuff. that material *is* worth revisiting. this is the cd edition i picked up years ago and it's p spiff.

also yes ned! love him so much on that material. words with the shaman probably already mentioned as such, but i am officially stating my vote for "classic hassell" across the board for all of the sylvian collabs. stating the obvious perhaps, but it's nice to be right for once!

sounds like a bad david sylvian song

funny because one of the few things I know about duncan shiek is that he's a big sylvian fan and stated in interviews after Barely Breathing became a huge hit that he was surprised to get any commercial success as he thought of himself as a Sylvian type.

Never understood why Alfred had such a bad reaction to Brilliant Trees. Hassell’s work there (and on Words w the Shaman which was stapled to my CD edition) is so, so good.

Even though I love that he went out on top, I miss this guy.

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

aka/dabari/java >>>>>>

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

That one is killer. A discography listen sounds just the thing. Lately, I've been listening to *Last Night the Moon* and goddamn.

agreed, so great, very subtle/minimal

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

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.

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.