JON HASSELL

It´s funny how some albums just sound and feel like their artworks look. This is one of those, and I´ve spent many a nights looking at the pink and turquise alien surface of this record thinking about how much dough Eno and Hassell had to pay for their unofficial space journey before recording this little gem. -They surely found inspiration outside our little blue planet for this unique sounding music - no doubt about it. Possible musics is just about the best description of this album, if one doesn´t want to come off as sounding absurdely glib.

Glib is, however, perhaps the best way of actually describing the tunes herein. To me it sounds like I´m sitting on some sort of old school Zeppelin balloon made for space travels - slowly and steadily circling around a planet with such remarkable colors, that you´d think it was overpopulated with flamingos and peacocks. This record sounds otherworldly like no other album in my collection, and with a healthy dose of eastern percussions in the back simulating a two stroke engine´s muffled monotony, the whole spaceship metaphor suddenly takes on another form, and you are there! Right there overhead the pinkish crackled surface.

Now to the head honcho here: the trumpet. First time I listened to this album some 8 years ago, I didn´t hear anything sounding like a trumpet. I bought the album solely based on the front cover, which in all fairness is scorchingly beautiful, but it took me some time to fully understand that those wailing and yearning notes emanated from a trumpet. It´s here this review may become too glib for your tastes, but trying to express how the main ingredient of Possible Musics sounds like - demands unconventional imagery and ludacris statements, so here goes. The trumpet sounds like:

Some sort of elephant synthesizer

An electric violin played backwards

A hyperactive fly caught in one of those plastic toy saxophones

Or if you stretch and twist the end of an inflated balloon whilst pressing the air out of the sucker

Add to these slightly bonkers metaphors - that every note and beat of this record is processed and filtered through the mad genius of Brian Eno. He works like a sodastream machine - infusing bubbles into your off kilter drink. On the other hand it sounds like the album was recorded in a vacuum - far far away from gravity and other mundane things. On possible musics, I often picture Eno as an enormous wall of raspberry jam that every sound and instrument needs to pierce through. It covers them in this gooey substance making everything seem in unison, although some of the music here quite frequently acts altogether skewed and sonically challenging - like outbursts from an alien planet put into notes. You can hear how the trumpet sometimes wrestles its way through the sticky jam, and then suddenly breaks through sounding like: DIIIIUUUUUHHHHH DUUUUIIIIIIIIHHHHHOO UUHHIIIHHH

Along with the two stroke engine drums, which in some cases sound like they were recorded from the insides of a matchbox by tiny Indians, - the wailing of the trumpet becomes otherworldy. Like music from dreams - illustrations and thoughts from the back of your mind.

Come to think of it, this albums almost sounds like a slow and jazzy version of King Crimson´s The Sheltering Sky. There´s a similar vibe going on, although the emphasis on tranquility and gentleness is all the more apparent on this album. This is one of the most unique sounding records I have, and if you´re just remotely interested in the artwork - you should definitely go for it. It´s made by the same colors. Oh damn I almost forgot it again! This album is made by real humans and not colors.

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The best track is Charm (Over "Burundi Cloud"), a twenty-one minute epic, where Hassell's trumpet often sounds like a human voice, wailing over the rhythms.

This has to be heard to be understood.

The percussion is great, but then any album that I've heard with Nana Vasconcelos on it has had great percussion. And the music is intriguing, but if you are new to Hassell's work, I would recommend starting with one of the better albums, like "Possible Music". "Power Spot" or "Citi".

I suspect even those with a contempt for "ambient" music might just find something to latch on to here. In my case, I came to appreciate music of this nature when I got hooked on the ambient first. There is music here which surpasses mere "wallpaper". Challenge yourselves and you may be rewarded.

Here, his band, and the music style is Caribbean/Latin influenced fusion. In much of it, you can hear many of the sounds that would spice up Hassell's later works. And the band, rooted by percussionist extrordinaire Nana Vasconcelos and bassist Miroslav Vitous, provide an excellent foundation for Hassell's breathy trumpet playing.

While the entire album is nice, the best track is the title track, Earthquake Island. While Hassell's trumpet is played through synthesizers on the whole album, only here do we get the mult-harmonized sound that became his trademark in the years to come.

This is a nice album, but nowhere near his best.

The only piece of any interest is tha last track, played by a mostly different group. This one is in the more familiar Jon Hassell style, a lush hypnotic rhythm, with Hassell's treated trumpet soloing over it. But it is way too little, and too late to save the album.

But it's Hassell's playing that takes center stage. And while the style is similar to his previous albums, his playing seems somewhat more animated, while still retaining the trancelike nature.

Still, this is a good album. Particularly, the opening track, where the backing loops are derived from snippets of Hassell's own trumpet sounds, is a very enjoyable and weird piece.

The style reminds me greatly of Miles Davis' experiments in rock/funk/jazz fusion. If you listen past the extreme computerized treatments of Hassell's trumpet, his phrasing and solo style is very reminiscent of Miles' later works. And it doesn't hurt that bassist Daniels Schwartz here sounds similar to Marcus Miller.

Best track: While I enjoy the entire album, I would have to single out Warriors, one of the most aggressive Hassell pieces I've heard, as my favorite.

This album is very much in the same style of the Fourth World series, with Hassell's computer treated trumpet playing over synth loops and Abdou Mboup's tuned drums. The whole album is at once eerie, disturbing, and strangely soothing. The treated sound on the trumpet is mostly a lush harmonized sound, that gives it a moaning quality, like a distant train. Much of the tape loops are sampled sounds from an old Hollywood orchestration.

Hassell's albums are a favorite of mine to play in the car, when driving late at night. Cool stuff.