"Listen as if you were being told a secret." Federico Fellini
This week's feature album comes from trumpet player, composer and musical conceptualist Jon Hassell.
Seeing Through Sound is a companion piece to Hassell's 2018 release Listening To Pictures, and the second volume in the Pentimento series. Pentimento is defined as the "reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over" and this is evident in the innovative production style that 'paints with sound' using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating palette.
In classic Hassell fashion, the title can be interpreted in a myriad of a ways, but perhaps the most pertinent at the moment is the human instinct to sing and play through a rain of difficulties. A future blues of indeterminate and ever-shifting shape.
This album presents eight new tracks by the music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing.
Seeing Through Sound is out July 24 on Hassell's own label Ndeya. If you're a PBS member, tune in this week for a chance to win a copy. Not a member? Join up today!
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
Lianne La Havas - 'Weird Fishes'
Barda - 'Qanun'
Jorja Smith - 'Rose Rouge'
Courtney Marie Andrews - 'If I Told'
Pearson Sound - 'Cobwebs'
Dana Gavanski - 'At Last I Am Free'
Fergus Sweetland - 'Change Mode'
Thibault - 'Drama'
Easy Browns - 'Rounding Up A Bunch Of Cats'