Jon Hassell’s First Posthumous Album to Arrive This Fall

Ndeya, the record label founded by the late Jon Hassell, will release the avant-garde composer’s first album of new music since his death in 2021. Due October 2, Music Is Invisible (Pentimento Volume Three) will complete Hassell’s final trilogy, following 2020’s Seeing Through Sound and 2018’s Listening to Pictures. Listen to an excerpt of one of the tracks, “Blue Ya-Ya,” and watch its video of black-and-white live footage below.

Music Is Invisible (Pentimento Volume Three) features Hassell performing as part of a trio with Rick Cox and John von Seggern. They recorded the album at London’s St John at Hackney Church on May 23, 2015, which would become Hassell’s final live performance. The four-song record was edited and mixed by Jeff Rona, who fine-tuned the audio beyond the traditional sound board recording approach of a live album.

A press release notes that “themes, motifs, and riffs from Hassell’s two final albums, Listening to Pictures and Seeing Through Sound, occur throughout these unique, semi-improvised mutations, making this a fitting final volume in the late career renaissance of the Pentimento series. ‘Pentimento’ is defined as ‘the appearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over,’ a methodology that Jon applied in a musical sense throughout his career, refining and developing his approach over time.”

Hassell died on June 26, 2021, from natural causes after suffering “long-term health issues.” He was 84 years old. In addition to being heralded for his music, Hassell was also respected within the music industry for his invention of the “Fourth World” musical aesthetic, which the late composer described as “a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.”

Read about his 1977 full-length Vernal Equinox in The 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time.