Jon Hassell

Two of the most memorable albums from the trip-hop and acid jazz era are by cornettist Graham Haynes (Transition) and trumpeter Ben Neill (Goldbug). Dressing for Pleasure preceeded them both. Usually, an adjective like "suave" doesn't sit easily on an ethnomusicologist whose knack for directness is grounded by his sense of beauty; neither does a label like "acid jazz." But this is Hassell's only album to fit its musical moment, following his appearance on the soundtrack of the crime film Trespass. The feel of a fully committed band is especially amazing – Hassell and drummer Brain work with an army of bassists (six, including Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and enough programmers (three) to field a dot com startup on a coffee break. Hassell's horn flits through a sexy blend of trip-hop's hard drum programs topped with soft, impassive electronic textures like a bird circling over a crowded intersection. Woodwind player Kenny Garrett and guitarist Gregg Arreguin provide thematic voices, too, but melody is rarely enough in this genre.

"Jon Hassell’s 1980 album Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics, produced alongside Brian Eno, is perhaps the most common entry point in the trumpeter’s catalog, arriving during the latter’s ascendance as a pop theorist and alchemist. But Hassell’s 1977 debut contains many of the same ideas in a more muted and subtle form. Inspired by raga music, particularly the work of the vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Hassell processes his trumpet sound and focuses on notes that change in tiny increments, giving his melodies a slippery quality where you’re never quite sure where they are coming from or where they might go next. The background is filled with quiet twitches of rattles and bells, gurgling talking drum, and snippets of bird songs, creating a bed of sound that is hard to pin down but easy to absorb as a whole. Sources stretch in all directions, from the “Shhh/Peaceful” jazz of Miles Davis to Indian classical music to twinkling New Age, but the music’s refusal to be any one thing makes each listen feel like the first one." - Mark Richardson

A companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures, this second volume in the Pentimento series presents eight new tracks by the music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing. Pentimento is defined as the “reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” and this is evident in the innovative production style that ‘paints with sound’ using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating new palette.
In classic Hassell fashion, the title can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but perhaps the most pertinent at the moment is the human instinct to sing and play through a rain of difficulties…

Overwhelmingly interesting and extremely variant, Jon Hassell's Dream Theory in Malaya is rescued from the stereotypical new age recipe, thanks to its ever-changing instrumental structure and the use of numerous eccentric instruments that emerge as the album progresses. The album's concept is taken from an anthropologist's 1935 study of a tribe of Malaysian aborigines who made it part of their daily routine to discuss the dreams they had the night before. To this story line, Hassell has created a novel and extraordinary set of instrumental meanderings that even includes a refurbished and re-fragmented set of rhythms that was believed to be created by the Semelai tribe. The mixture of bowl gongs, bells, and assorted drums captures the primeval spirit of the album, while Hassell's use of the trumpet on all of the tracks implements some of today's modern sound amongst the percussiveness…

A companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures, this second volume in the pentimento series presents eight new tracks by the music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing. Pentimento is defined as the “reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” and this is evident in the innovative production style that ‘paints with sound’ using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating new palette.