25 years after his last ECM recording, the inspirational 'Power Spot', Jon Hassell, together with the collective of mutable personnel that he's fronted since 2005, returns with an album whose long but memorable title comes from a 13th century poem by Rumi.
It is conceived as a continuous piece, almost symphonic, with a cinematic construction and drifting clouds made out of many motifs. Core material is drawn from a session near Avignon in April 2008, with detail added in Los Angeles. Live recordings from Courtrais, Belgium and London, as well as a remix of a piece originally created for a Wim Wenders movie, are also integrated into the atmospheric, filmic flow, along with short samples snared throughout 2008.
Hassell is a hugely influential musician, his idea of a borderless 'Fourth World' music firing the imaginations of players of all artistic persuasions. He has worked with musicians from Peter Gabriel to the Kronos Quartet, Ry Cooder and Bono, and his trumpet performances have featured on recordings with Bj�rk, Baaba Maal, Ibrahim Ferrer, David Sylvian, the Talking Heads and many others. But the primary work has been the development of his own sound universe, with his trumpet, which long ago absorbed the inflections of raga (courtesy of Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath), at the heart of his explorations. Brian Eno: Jon Hassell is an inventor of new forms of music - of new ideas of what music could be and how it might be made. His work is drawn from his whole cultural experience without fear or prejudice. It is an optimistic, global vision that suggests not only possible musics but possible futures.
Personnel: Jon Hassell (trumpet, keyboard), Peter Freeman (bass, laptop), Jan Bang (live sampling), Jamie Muhoberac (keyboard, laptop), Rick Cox (guitar, loops), Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche (violin), Eivind Aarset (guitar), Helge Norbakken, Pete Lockett (drums)
