JON HASSELL/FARAFINA – flash of the spirit (CD, LP Vinyl)

First ever reissue and remastering of Jon Hassell & Farafina's prescient, "Fourth World" masterwork. Propulsive Burkinese rhythms meet revelatory, ambient soundscapes. Co-produced with the legendary studio team of Brian Eno & Dainel Lanois. Hassell´s command of microtonal shadings enabled him to blend into the West Africans' distinctive sonic colorations, which would not have been possible for a player whose intonation conformed strictly to Western music's equal temperament." - Robert Palmer, New York Times - Composer and trumpeter Jon Hassell has been an elusive, iconic musical figure for more than half a century. He's best known as the pioneer and propagandist of "Fourth World" music, mixing technology with the tradition and spirituality of non-western cultures to create what he termed the "coffee-colored classical music of the future." In 1987 he joined with Farafina, the acclaimed percussion, voice, and dance troupe from Burkina Faso, to record Flash of the Spirit. While the album is a natural extension of those "Fourth World" ideas, and a new strand of Possible Musics, it also a distinctive outlier in the careers of both artists; an unrepeated merging of sounds whose influence still reverberates today. *Glitterbeat