Sunday, June 14, 2020

The New Hassell


Legendary ambient pioneer Jon Hassell, who's signature sound has both been confounding and enrapturing me since at least 1980, has a new album coming out, Seeing Through Sound, a companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures and the second volume in his Pentimento series. 

"Pentimento" is defined as the reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.  Hassell paints with sound, and uses recombination and musical gene-splicing to overlap nuances and create his own sonic palette.

The opening track, the hypnotic Fearless, has a metronomic, almost Can-like rhythm, and blurry, noirish texture of sound emerging like car headlights from the fog.

“Listen as if you were being told a secret” - Federico Fellini

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