Largely thought of merely as a mostly stillborn offshoot of Brian Eno's larger ambient music series, the Fourth World series of albums, in collaboration with trumpeter Jon Hassell, is actually an entirely separate beast.
Fourth World, Vol.
1: Possible Musics starts off from the same basic idea as Hassell's previous solo albums, like Earthquake Island and Vernal Equinox: a blend of avant-garde composition, jazz soloing, and African and Middle Eastern rhythmic forms.
This album adds only Eno's characteristic production touches, like the reversed echo that adds a ghostly, unreal edge to Hassell's trumpet solos on the side-long "Charm (Over Burundi Cloud)." The rest of the album, including the African hand drummers on the hypnotic "Delta Rain Dream" and the swirling, almost speech-like solos of "Griot," is pure Hassell.
Although this album was never a chart hit and has become surprisingly underappreciated over the years, its influence on what has since become known as tribal techno is incalculable, as has its influence on those art rockers who have picked up a world music vibe.
Peter Gabriel in particular owes a fair chunk of his royalty checks from Security onward to Jon Hassell.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ChemistryBrian Eno, Jon Hassell | Brian Eno, Jon Hassell | Play | 06:54 | 15 MB | 0 MB |
| 2 | Ba-BenzéléJon Hassell | Brian Eno, Jon Hassell | Play | 06:17 | 14 MB | 0 MB |
| 3 | Rising Thermal 14° 16' N; 32° 28' EBrian Eno, Jon Hassell | Brian Eno, Jon Hassell | Play | 03:08 | 7 MB | 0 MB |
| 4 | Charm (Over Burundi Cloud)Jon Hassell | Brian Eno, Jon Hassell | Play | 21:30 | 49 MB | 0 MB |
| 37 mins | 86 MB | |||||
| 0 mins | 0 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roberta Bayley | Photography |
| 2 | Michael Brook | Bass |
| 3 | Greg Calbi | Mastering |
| 4 | William Coupon | Photography |
| 5 | Cream | Design |
| 6 | Aïyb Dieng | Congas, Ghantam, Ghatam |
| 7 | Brian Eno | Composer, Guitar, Keyboards, Moog Synthesizer, Performer, Primary Artist, Producer, Prophet Synthesizer, Synthesizer, Treatments, Vocals |
| 8 | Paul Fitzgerald | Electronics, Electronic Sounds |
| 9 | Jerome Harris | Bass |
| 10 | Jon Hassell | ARP Synthesizer, Composer, Loops, Performer, Primary Artist, Producer, Prophet 5, Prophet Synthesizer, Trumpet |
| 11 | Michael Jay | Engineer |
| 12 | Percy Jones | Bass |
| 13 | Tina Pearson | Handclapping |
| 14 | Gordon Phillips | Handclapping |
| 15 | Pete Sobol | Assistant Engineer |
| 16 | Andrew Timar | Handclapping |
| 17 | Naná Vasconcelos | Congas, Drum Loop, Ghantam, Ghatam, Loops |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |