Last Night The Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street

 

 

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... A play on the title of the album but also a personal metaphor for how sublimely beautiful this recent release of Jon Hassell's actually is. It is truly supreme. "Last Night..." is probably one of the most incredibly detailed "quiet" or ambient albums that has ever crossed my joyful path. As befits the ECM label, Hassell's work here is a gorgeous montage of elements of jazz, third world, FOURTH world ( as he describes it ), ambient and experimental. His music is none of those genres, in themselves, and yet something of all of those genres, altogether. And befitting the composer, Hassell has indeed, worked quite successfully in each and all of them. That he has always been able to meld all these idioms together, creating unforseen worlds of imagination and transport, is an indication of his enormous talent and boundless imagination. He doesn't just 'pastiche' or even 'montage' as he himself suggests, but literally 'metabolizes' those various catalysts and produces something quite beyond the sum of the varied parts. I whole-heartedly agree with Gary Furhman that "Last Night ..." is hardly the culmination, if that is to be read as a summary or a finishing, of Hassell's life work. Instead it IS a wonderfully adept and effortlessly rich assembly of everything he's pretty much worked on his whole life. It is the un-self-conscious work of a master with enormous amounts at his intuitive disposal.

Hassell's pedigree goes as far back as the 60's when he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Indian vocal master, Pandit Pran Nath. He has also worked with Minimalist composer, Terry Riley, on his seminal and now classic "In C". He appears on the original recording of it as one of the players. Hassell later went on to work with another giant of contemporary music, Brian Eno, when they collaborated on the equally influential and ground breaking "Fourth World Vol.1: Possible Musics". Other popular and experimental rock musicians followed such as Talking Heads and David Sylvian. He later worked with an ever-evolving kaleidoscope of jazz and avante garde musicans, such as Bluescreen and Federico Tiezzi's "Magazzini", never standing still for a moment and always developing his sound and compositional concepts to high degrees of refinement. "Last Night ..." is music of vast sonic depths, with an audio picture that is dynamic and immensely spaced and yet it is hearteningly intimate at the same time. Without the slightest hint of artifice or pretence Hassell presents some of his finest work, ever, here on this disc.

"Last Night" is a rich tapestry of live and studio tracks. Without looking at the credits it is almost impossible to determine what tracks are which, so impeccable is the sound production, even on the performance pieces. The 'live' arena has been a favourite forum for Hassell in which to improvise on the spot. Live performance brings out something extraordinary in talented musicians, gelling instincts and intuition into immediate forms of expression untampered with by the cogitating mind. Four of the tracks here are recorded that way. Every single piece on this album is beautifully made and compels one to keep hitting 'repeat' when the disc finishes. Of particular note are the tracks "Abu Gil" with Eivind Aarset's shockingly simple but eery guitar figures setting an otherworldly atmosphere, the title track itself, with it's repeated, hypnotic string motifs around which Hassell's trumpet elegantly flutters in close proximity, a moth to the flame, and the utterly evocative blue jazz of "Blue Period".

If you enjoy the more recent work of Brian Eno ( "Drawn From Life", "Another Day on Earth" and "Small Craft on a Milk Sea" ), you will really get a lot out of this album. If you've never heard Eno's music and yet you still enjoy something hushed and exquisitely fashioned, something that fills the room with an exotic ambience full of farflung imagination, then this is one to check out. Other standout Hassell albums worth looking into are "Fourth World Vol.1: Possible Musics", "Dream Theory in Malaya", "AKA-Darbari-Java", "Power Spot" and "Dressing For Pleasure" ( with Bluescreen ). Jon Hassell was never one for fame and all that entails but has chosen to work quietly and steadily with utmost artistic integrity throughout his impressive and lengthy career. "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street" bears exquisite witness to that.

Suggested 'other' music of the same weave: >>>

Fripp and Eno. "The Equatorial Stars"
Steve Roach. "Sigh of Ages"
Paul Schutze. "Apart"
Harold Budd. "She Is A Phantom"
David Sylvian. "Approaching Silence"
Zakir Hussain. "Making Music"
Anouar Brahem. "Thimar"

I've bought every Jon Hassell recording i could get my hands on, and each of them has been surprising in one way or another. The surprise here is that it combines the meditative side of his work -- which the title points to, being a quotation from Jalaluddin Rumi -- with the more ambient side that was exemplified by his 1980 collaboration with Brian Eno, "Possible Musics". It works as ambient because it has no hard edges, but also rewards close listening because of the subtlety of the "montage". That is Hassell's own term for this work, and it does bring together varied contributions from several musicians, but weaves them all together quite seamlessly. Hassell's treated trumpet makes its distinctive statements but without dominating the other parts of the mix.

The other musicians here are mostly unfamiliar to me, but they are all welcome; Kheir-Eddine M'Kachiche's violin is especially intriguing. It does sound like a careful studio mix, including samples and loops, not like a live performance, but that's fine with me. Especially for a 64-minute scoundscape like this, now that ECM's prices are more reasonable than they used to be.

The Amazon description is quite accurate, but i'd hesitate to call this the "culmination" of Jon Hassell's musical path. Even though he's over 70 now, i expect to be surprised again by whatever he does next.

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