Manafonistas

on life, music etc beyond mainstream

2014 29 Nov

Hasselliana and other December delights

von: Manafonistas Filed under: Blog | TB | 1 Comment

„I wanted the mental and geographical landscapes to be more indeterminate – not Indonesia, not Africa, not this or that … something that COULD HAVE existed if things were in an imaginary culture, growing up in an imaginary place with this imaginary music…. I called it ‘coffee-colored classical music of the future´… . What would music be like if `classic´ had not been defined as what happened in Central Europe two hundred years ago. What if the world knew Javanese music and Pygmy music and Aborigine music? What would `classical music´ sound like then?“ Famous words of the composer, trumpet player and music philosopher Jon Hassell.  The re-release of the month December, POSSIBLE MUSICS, was listed among the genre-crossing 100 masterpieces of the 20 the century in DIE ZEIT when Konrad Heidkamp was still alive. I think he even wrote the review. Ars longa, vita brevis. I met Jon Hassell more than once and wrote a kind of non-review of the album telling stories of floating tanks and leaving it all up to you. I didn’t want to retell the old facts again and again. Lajla has written a review about a German philosophy book thst tries  to appear clever, but fails on many levels, the thriller of the month goes much deeper,  will carry a well-known name and will  have a record player on its cover – and the album of the month is the most Enoesque (meant as a compliment) album of Thomas Köner ever filling white spaces between Music For Airports and Neroli. You wouldn’t call that „drone music“ anymore. To quote another review: „Köner“, to borrow the words of Canadian poet Anne Carson, „moves each note through time `like a needle stitching together the two moments that compose nostalgia´“, the strike of the piano keys and their enhanced echo. Like Music For Airports‘ „1/1″, the titular artist does not play the piano—Robert Wyatt did for Eno, the far less-known Ivana Neimarevic for Köner – but Köner does the celestial shaping. Each note connects the listener to the dramatic action but each echo separates him from it. It is a captivating meditation on the longing in the life of sound.“ (Stephen Fruitman)

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1 Comment

  1. Michael Engelbrecht:

    Das Label Glitterbeat brachte POSSIBLE MUSICS (1980) am 21. November 2014 auf CD und Vinyl neu heraus. Das Album wurde neu gemastert, und das 12-seitige Booklet enthält sowohl ein exklusives Interview mit Jon Hassell wie auch einen kurzen Essay von Brian Eno. Die 180g Vinyl-Version hat ein Gatefold-Cover und eine beigelegte CD.


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