Jon Hassell: City - Works of Fiction

OK, just for a change, I'm live-blogging this CD, which I bought from Record Collector in Broomhill (£11.99) soon after it came out in 1990. The first track is one we've had already in its 12" single re-mix incarnation. Oh, look, "poetic" sleeve notes: "Metal fatigue is a euphemism. The same vibrations express sympathy or illness depending on their target. At night the broken glass looks like a field of stars. Seen from the towers, the tail lights of a car cruising for prostitutes can spell out short words, like L-U-V." Someone thinks he's J.G. Ballard.

Second track is called Pagan, and it's got bass a bit like Stanley Clarke. It still sounds pretty urban, not the kind of thing you'd associate with dancing naked on the sea shore or ancient rites on the solstice. Noodly jazz. "Harvests improved," say the sleeve notes (by Glenn O'Brien — probably this one, "the style guy", hmmm, I don't think he and I are going to get on).

Mombasa. At the beginning it reminds me of the kind of music you might here on the soundtrack for a Michael Mann film, or Ry Cooder's score for Walter Hill's Trespass. I'm kind of surprised somone like Mann hasn't approached Hassell for a soundtrack at some point. Maybe they did, and he turned them down. Hassell played a very rare show at the Southbank Centre a year or two ago. I think we had Hilary and her family staying or something, so I couldn't go, and now I'll probably never see him. Actually the rhythm track on this is like some of Eno's '90s stuff (the stuff I don't like much): The Drop and suchlike.

[Interruption: Lucy wants her massage. I'd better wash my hands.]

Tikal opens with what sound like hand drums. Another musical reference might be Klaus Schulze's early '80s stuff, with Michael Shrieve's percussion. Quite a mood/landscape piece.

Whereas In the City of Red Dust has more of a dynamic, a narrative, edited together like a film, with occasional staccato bursts of action. The title makes me think of Cities of the Red Night. I wonder, idly, if this album ever got played live.

By the time of Rain, my attention is just starting to wander a little. I'm thinking of the bloggers who write well about this kind of music: Colin Buttimer, mapsadaisical and sometimes City of Sound. All of them fans of Ballard and Burroughs, you can bet. If I tried to emulate their style it would come out horribly gauche.

With Ba-Ya D, we're back on what I think of as 'classic' Hassell; the ground he marked out with his early Eno collaborations, the coffee-coloured fourth world music of some imagined souk of the future. Checked to see if Wikipedia has an entry for Fourth World. It does: "a term used by trumpeter Jon Hassell to describe a style of music employing modern technological treatments and influenced by various cultures and eras".

Warriors is the longest track on the album. There's a mix of different eras of Miles in the opening minutes: early '70s and late '80s. But it's far from pastiche. I'm starting to like this now.

And generally I'm enjoying this approach to listening and writing at the same time. I may try it again soon.

Finally, Out of Adedara, another piece in the familar Hassell style. I google Adedara to see if it's a real place. Doesn't seem to be.

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Listen to none of this album at Last.fm

Comments

[mapsadaisical]

I'm honoured even to be mentioned in the same sentence as Colin - who was entirely responsible for turning me on to Jon Hassell (via his reviews of Arve Henriksen's solo work). Thanks!