Jon Hassell: Music Is Invisible

His profile elevated for the world to see and hear as Brian Eno's creative partner on Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (Editions EG/Polydor, 1980), trumpeter-composer Jon Hassell went on to make a name for himself with a litany of increasingly ambitious projects work, not only under his own name, but in other collaborative scenarios such as Dressing for Pleasure (Warner, 1994).

Hassell even deigned to perform live as the years wore on and Music Is Invisible is just one of those instances. And in reality, this album is taken from his final stage appearance, recorded with Rick Cox and John von Seggern at St. John at Hackney church, London on 23 May 2015. The 40-plus minutes was carefully edited and mixed by Jeff Rona in such a way that themes, motifs and riffs occur throughout semi-improvised mutations echoing Hassell's two previous (and otherwise final) studio albums, Listening To Pictures (Ndeya, 2018), and Seeing Through Sound (Ndeya, 2020). 

As a fitting final volume in the late career renaissance of the iconoclastic artist, Music Is Invisible also stands on its own terms as an immersive and transportative listening experience from the very commencement of the program in the form of "Blue Ba Ya." 

Eleven minutes and then some is certainly an ambitious start to a concert or a recording, but the slightly shorter "Club Gris Gris" and the even more abbreviated "Broadway Boogie Woogie"—the shortest and most visceral of the four cuts—ultimately pace the album effectively and render the finale of "Electric Forest" a most dramatic denouement.

In fact, the latter selection may stand as the logical extension and culmination of the "Fourth world music," the aesthetic described by Hassell as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." The mesh of this cerebral/visceral duality reaches an apogee through the often-tactile presence of the audio on Music Is Invisible. 

The stereo spectrum seems to expand and contract as necessary to accommodate the waxing and waning of the sonic textures of Hassell's trumpet, Cox's guitar and von Seggern's drums, all those interwoven with bass, keyboards and electronics (from all three). The atmosphere the trio conjures is palpable, equally enticing and intoxicating. 

Likewise, the graphics of the sleeve, like the aural art it encloses, reflects and thus recapitulates the dynamic overall progression of Music Is Invisible (not to mention the aptly-named triptych of which it is a part). An evocative cover painting titled "Leh C'est Beau" by Mati Klarwein may look familiar to music fans who have perused the latter's striking 1970s album sleeves for Miles Davis (Bitches Brew, Columbia, 1979) and Santana (Abraxas, Columbia, 1970). 

As with the remastered edition of Hassell's solo debut Vernal Equinox (Lovely Music Inc., 1977), Music Is Invisible contains a candidly thought-provoking essay by the Memphis, TN native (in LP and CD editions), prose that actually inspired this very title, one-third of The Pentimento Trilogy (Ndeya, 2026). 

Whether the components are heard individually, in sequence or at random, the prescience of this late artist's vision is unmistakable.