Live performance by the Jon Hassell Performance Group, Avignon, France, June 1982. John Hassell: trumpet; Michael Brook: processing, kalimba; J. A. Dino Dean: log drum, percussion; Miguel Frasconi: udu, glass, keyboard (Casio 202).

As you will tell by the end of this track, most of the "hiss" on this recording is actually a field recording of a rainstorm.

Hassell in Avignon 1982_1

Live performance by the Jon Hassell Performance Group, Avignon, France, June 1982. John Hassell: trumpet; Michael Brook: processing, kalimba; J. A. Dino Dean: log drum, percussion; Miguel Frasconi: udu, glass, keyboard (Casio 202).

Hassell in Avignon 1982_2

Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba: Ba Power
Release date: April 24th 2015
Glitterbeat Records
www.glitterbeat.com

Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba’s fourth album Ba Power (and his first for Glitterbeat Records) is a striking, career defining record marked by mesmerizing songs, razor-sharp riffs and full-throttle emotions. Following two years of worldwide touring for the much heralded Jama Ko album, Bassekou’s band, Ngoni Ba, has turned up the volume and dynamics significantly and Bassekou’s masterful ngoni playing has achieved a new level of intensity that can only be called: afro-rock. Distortion and wah wah and propulsive rhythms are now the defining backbone of his songs and the heat lightning vocals of his wife Amy Sacko, more than ever serve as the passionate and perfect foil. This is not the same Ngoni Ba. This is indeed: Ba Power.

When asked what Ba Power means to him, Bassekou told us:
"Ba", in Bambara means "strong" or "great" and it also means "group.” I called the album Ba Power because I think the messages on it are very important and strong, and it is also definitely the album with the toughest sound I've ever made. I want these songs to grab as many people as possible.”

Without question Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba has revolutionized the sound and narrative possibilities of the ngoni, the lute-like instrument that is essential to Mali’s Griot culture. Griots are esteemed musician/storytellers whose lineage stretches back centuries. Bassekou was born into this resonant tradition but his relationship to it has been anything but static. From the beginning of his career, through his invention of a previously unheard repertoire built around the melodies and rhythms of four interlocking (and at times electric) ngonis, Bassekou has demonstrated his respect for the past by radically pulling it into the future. 

Ba Power contains all the swagger, precision and wide-eyed excitement that the title implies. It is the album where Bassekou’s music engages with the world in ways he could have only imagined 10 years before. It is the album where he confirms his status amongst the 21st centuries most relevant musical artists.

I think African music and culture deserve to be spread to the broadest audience possible.
That is what I want to accomplish with Ba Power.
--Bassekou Kouyaté


Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - Siran Fen

A Dreems edit of Jon Hassell. Free DL for the peoples. 

for the wav hit this link :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5fad2ne9qra343l/Chemistry%20-%20Re%20Dreamt%20by%20Dreems%20%5BPRECISE%20MASTER%5D.wav?dl=0


Jon Hassell - Chemistry (Re Dreamt By Dreems)

Taken from Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba's new album 'Ba Power'
Order now: https://glitterbeat.bandcamp.com/album/ba-power

Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba’s fourth album Ba Power (and his first for Glitterbeat Records) is a striking, career defining record marked by mesmerizing songs, razor-sharp riffs and full-throttle emotions. Following two years of worldwide touring for the much heralded Jama Ko album, Bassekou’s band, Ngoni Ba, has turned up the volume and dynamics significantly and Bassekou’s masterful ngoni playing has achieved a new level of intensity that can only be called: afro-rock. Distortion and wah wah and propulsive rhythms are now the defining backbone of his songs and the heat lightning vocals of his wife Amy Sacko, more than ever serve as the passionate and perfect foil. This is not the same Ngoni Ba. This is indeed: Ba Power.

When asked what Ba Power means to him, Bassekou told us:
"Ba", in Bambara means "strong" or "great" and it also means "group.” I called the album Ba Power because I think the messages on it are very important and strong, and it is also definitely the album with the toughest sound I've ever made. I want these songs to grab as many people as possible.”

Without question Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba has revolutionized the sound and narrative possibilities of the ngoni, the lute-like instrument that is essential to Mali’s Griot culture. Griots are esteemed musician/storytellers whose lineage stretches back centuries. Bassekou was born into this resonant tradition but his relationship to it has been anything but static. From the beginning of his career, through his invention of a previously unheard repertoire built around the melodies and rhythms of four interlocking (and at times electric) ngonis, Bassekou has demonstrated his respect for the past by radically pulling it into the future.

Ba Power contains all the swagger, precision and wide-eyed excitement that the title implies. It is the album where Bassekou’s music engages with the world in ways he could have only imagined 10 years before. It is the album where he confirms his status amongst the 21st centuries most relevant musical artists.

I think African music and culture deserve to be spread to the broadest audience possible.
That is what I want to accomplish with Ba Power.
--Bassekou Kouyaté


Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - Waati

A trip into the Fourth World with an icon of experimental music.

For more, visit Resident Advisor: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=270

EX.270 Jon Hassell

OM LP 09

A1 Jorge Reyes - Plight 
A2 Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma - Mille Voix 
A3 Iona Fortune - White Tigress	

B1 O Yuki Conjugate - Cloud Cover	
B2 X.Y.R. - Middle Of Nowhere 
B3 Jon Keliehor - Subcontinent	
B4 David Cunningham - Blue River
	
C1 Larry Chernicoff - Woodstock, New York 
C2 Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz - Desert Equations (For Brion Gysin) 
C3 Jon Hassell - Miracle Steps	
C4 Vulgata - Ethel I 

D1 Afro-Disiak - Tambours D'Eau 
D2 Rapoon - The Same River Once	
D3 Javier Segura - El Sueno Perdido	

Optimo Music presents "Miracle Steps (Music from the Fourth World 1983 - 2017)", a 2 x LP compilation of Fourth World music compiled by JD Twitch & Fergus Clark. Also available as a digital release. 

This compilation had been on the label’s to do list for ages but it was only when Twitch and Glasgow’s Fergus Clark started crossing swords over what actually constituted Fourth World music that the project really got going. Twitch decided that co-compiling the release with someone who had a slightly different take on things might make for a more interesting finished release, and so it came to pass that a cohesively thrilling compilation quickly materialised as each of them drew from a wealth of different artists and eras.


For the uninitiated, here’s an extract from Fergus Clark’s sleeve notes honing in on how the term Fourth World (an idea conjured up by Jon Hassell in the early 80s) might be defined -


“What we have attempted to gather across this compilation is a body of work which we feel directly resonates with both the literal definition of ‘Fourth World’ music and indeed our own interpretation of this unique sonic vision; from the work of the late Jorge Reyes, a Mexican musician who combined pre-hispanic instruments with synthesisers and digital sampling, through to the work of organic ambient ensemble O Yuki Conjugate. There are tracks which utilise custom, home-made instruments and there are tracks built from scratch using the latest in digital technology, but the undercurrent tying each piece together is this deeply personal feeling of intrigue and mysterious elation. Strange and unparalleled, this feeling manages to eschew geographic borders and rigid genre movements in favour of something which manages to evoke an inner sanctum, a musical private place for both reflection and assessment. This is music grounded in nor the past nor the present, music which manages to sound futuristic yet remarkably nostalgic. “


JD Twitch is one half of Glasgow’s Optimo (Espacio) and runs the Optimo Music and Optimo Trax labels.

Fergus Clark is a writer, occasional DJ and avid music fan. He is a founding member of the music and art collective 12th Isle.

The 2 x LP version will be housed in a gatefold sleeve designed by the redoubtable Glasgow based visual artists Al White & Jamie Johnson.

Released on vinyl (and digital) on April 14th 2017. Distributed by Kompakt.

OM 09 LP - Various - Miracle Steps (Music From The Fourth World 1983 - 2017)

First track from the new Jon Hassell album 'Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One)' - Out now:
http://smarturl.it/listeningtopictures

pen·ti·men·to / noun
Reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.

Forty years since its creation, Jon Hassell's Fourth World aesthetic remains a powerful influence on modern electronic music. Continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing, fragments of performance are sampled, looped, overdubbed and re-arranged into beguiling unexpected shapes. Hassell applies the painterly technique of ‘pentimento’ to the arrangements, teasing out texture by the overlaying of sound upon sound, or a carefully timed reveal of the delicate bones pinning the frame of a track together.

The release of this new album also sees the launch of Jon’s own label, Ndeya (pronounced “in-day-ya”), which will be a home for new work as well as well as selected archival releases, including re-presses of classic sides and some astonishing unreleased music.

FURTHER READING ON JON HASSELL:

Fourth World in the 21st century: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2984
Brian Eno on Jon Hassell: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/nov/09/jazz.urban
https://www.jonhassell.com/

Jon Hassell - Dreaming

'Fearless' taken from the forthcoming Jon Hassell album 'Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two)' out July 24 on NDEYA.

Pre-order here: https://ndeya.ffm.to/seeingthroughsound

FURTHER READING ON JON HASSELL:
Fourth World in the 21st century: www.residentadvisor.net/features/2984
Brian Eno on Jon Hassell: www.theguardian.com/music/2007/nov/09/jazz.urban

https://jonhassell.com/
https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJonHassell/
https://twitter.com/ndeyarecords
https://www.instagram.com/ndeya_records/

Jon Hassell | Fearless

From the album Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two), released on Ndeya 24 July 2020 https://ndeya.ffm.to/seeingthroughsound

jonhassell.com/
jonhassell.bandcamp.com/
www.facebook.com/OfficialJonHassell/
twitter.com/ndeyarecords
www.instagram.com/ndeya_records/

Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two) MP3

Jon Hassell | Unknown Wish

Glitterbeat is committed to global sounds and artists that don’t necessarily rubber-stamp our pre-conceptions of what regional music sounds like.  We live in a world of ever increasing intersections and the global musical conversation does not operate according to straight, predictable, and easily delineated rules. It is a conversation that is being reinvented and revolutionized each day.

Music to trip to. Music to meditate on. Music to upgrade your DNA. Music to get your whole family dancing. Music to teach you. Music to live by. Music to die to. MUSIC TO MULTIPLY YOUR MIND.

CULT LEAD BY @vonparty & @dreemsdreems

Miguel Frasconi is a composer and improviser whose instrumentarium includes glass objects, electronics and instruments of his own design. His glass objects are struck, blown, stroked, smashed and otherwise coaxed into vibration, while his unique approach to composition takes a similar approach, yet solely in the sonic domain. His array of activities have included collaborations with the Balinese composer Dewa Berata on music for a large-scale shadowplay, with operatic tenor John Duykers on unique music/theater events, and with the Tibetan songwriter Techung, with whom he has toured throughout India. He has composed chamber music, most recently for Ensemble IPSE; operas, most recently for Experiments in Opera; and numerous dance scores, most notably as music director for dance pioneer Anna Halprin. In 2017 his live score for Ripe Time’s production of Haruki Murakami’s Sleep was performed at the BAM Next Wave Festival. Miguel has works closely with composers John Cage, Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, James Tenney, Joan La Barbara, and Jon Hassell. In 2012 the New York Times called his CAGE100 Festival @ The Stone "one of the best observances of John Cage's 100th birthday" and included performances by his Noisy Toy Piano Orchestra and John Cage Variety Show Big Band. He was a founding member of The Glass Orchestra, the internationally renowned ensemble featuring all glass instruments (1977-86), and the San Francisco sound-sculpture band Mobius Operandi (1990-95) and has performed as a keyboardist with the Paul Dresher Ensemble (1988-95) and the Philip Glass Ensemble (1992). His music has been released on New Albion, Porter, and Clang.

The weekly RA Exchange is a series of conversations with artists, labels and promoters shaping the electronic music landscape.

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