Jon Hassell -- Classic Or Dud?

Ronu Majumdar's "Hollow Bamboo" album on the Water Lily label has a real nice guest spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zeaTh0f0E4

New York Times w/ details I didn’t know:

Fascinated by electronic music, he made tape collages and won a grant to study with the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen for two years in Cologne, Germany. His classmates included musicians who would go on to start the German band Can; he took LSD with them

I knew he studied with Stockhausen around the same time as Holger Czukay, didn't know about the LSD though!

... and David Johnson, who was in the original line-up of Can.

RIP. what a life.

84 is pretty good. But given that he was creating music at such a high level, it’s hard not to feel a little sadder about this. His last few records betrayed no signs of slowing down whatsoever – in retrospect, I find it remarkable that his music sounded every bit as exotic, brooding and other to the very end.

RIP to one of the greats.

Have we ever polled his albums? I only get this topic when using the search.

The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound----

not seeing this one on Spotify. Author/critic Jon Savage says it's a fave of his

It's wonderful. Listen to it a lot.

Nice tribute mix from Low Light: https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/last-night-the-moon-came-a-tribute-to-john-hassell/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGFJhExa4Qc

Chaser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcuISx7vDk

I miss this guy already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sjEnihSdI

"caracas night september 11, 1975"

Highly recommended tribute: https://astralindustries.bandcamp.com/album/ai-32-the-fifth-world-recordings

Some live stuff coming out — sounds pretty pretty good ...

https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/

just reading up on some of his credits, turns out he played on a pair of duncan sheik tracks? sounds like a bad david sylvian song hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISt0LotIIEo

the link between bad 90s radio rock and new weird america that ilm needed today

Some live stuff coming out — sounds pretty pretty good ...

https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com🕸/

Just now relistening to Brilliant Trees for the first time in a while and his tone when he first appears is unmistakable.

aahhhh xpost that's too bad re:forthcoming live stuff. that material *is* worth revisiting. this is the cd edition i picked up years ago and it's p spiff.

also yes ned! love him so much on that material. words with the shaman probably already mentioned as such, but i am officially stating my vote for "classic hassell" across the board for all of the sylvian collabs. stating the obvious perhaps, but it's nice to be right for once!

sounds like a bad david sylvian song

funny because one of the few things I know about duncan shiek is that he's a big sylvian fan and stated in interviews after Barely Breathing became a huge hit that he was surprised to get any commercial success as he thought of himself as a Sylvian type.

Never understood why Alfred had such a bad reaction to Brilliant Trees. Hassell’s work there (and on Words w the Shaman which was stapled to my CD edition) is so, so good.

Even though I love that he went out on top, I miss this guy.

duncan shiek is that he's a big sylvian fan

yeah i definitely got that sense after listening to the two tracks with hassell and almost made me want to check out some of his other stuff to see if he had some good sylvian-inspired deep cuts

aka/dabari/java >>>>>>

decided to listen through the whole catalog and spend time with some of his records i've only glancingly heard and wow what a knockout

That one is killer. A discography listen sounds just the thing. Lately, I've been listening to *Last Night the Moon* and goddamn.

agreed, so great, very subtle/minimal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2CO0kFhjwE

i'm glad the living city was given its own release. i don't know that i would've ever heard it otherwise and it's one of the very best hassell things

First heard Hassell w/his track Amsterdam Blue (Cortege) on the soundtrack for the The Million Dollar Hotel. I don't think it appeared anywhere else.

he was a genius, such a rich catalog.

Hadn't heard *The Living City* before. Some deep weirdness going on in there. The bassline on the opening track is like having a fly in a tooth cavity.