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First new album in nine years by a musical visionary and hugely influential figure in new music. Forty years since its creation, Jon Hassell's Fourth World aesthetic remains a powerful influence on modern electronic music. Continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing, fragments of performance are sampled, looped, overdubbed and re-arranged into beguiling unexpected shapes. Hassell applies the painterly technique of ‘pentimento’ to the arrangements, teasing out texture by the overlaying of sound upon sound, or a carefully timed reveal of the delicate bones pinning the frame of a track together.
The release of this new album also sees the launch of Jon’s own label, Ndeya (pronounced “in-day-ya”), which will be a home for new work as well as well as selected archival releases, including re-presses of classic sides and some astonishing unreleased music.
Unreleased tracks and version excursions 1981 – 1986.
Inspired by Eno’s “vision of a psychedelic Africa”, English dub producer Adrian Sherwood and master Jamaican percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah collaborated on a series of studio experiments under the African Head Charge moniker, resulting in groundbreaking albums such as Environmental Studies and Off The Beaten Track. The otherworldly sounds they conjure up have touchstones in Count Ossie’s mystic revelations, Can’s ethnological forgery series and the post-punk underground, but ultimately inhabit a genre of their own creation.
These radically different versions of early AHC classics and been lovingly restored and sequenced from the original master tapes by On-U archivist Patrick Dokter. This compilation first released in 2016.
Guitarist and Producer Godriguez (producer of Sampa the Great's “The Great Mixtape") marshalled together some of the best musicians of the new generation in Sydney: A head priest of the Cuban Ifa religion, the step-son of Australia’s greatest ever funk and soul musician, Australia's leading drummer in this new generation and a deeply emotionally gifted pianist from New Zealand. These disparate backgrounds culminate with incredibly sensitive musical and emotional connections to form GODTET.
From Godriguez: "I’ve always wanted to make a triptych. I got obsessed with Francis Bacon and then wanted to make a musical triptych. When GODTET started I wanted there to be no preconceptions, the music and the sessions. I just wanted it to become what it was going to become and go where it was gonna go. I definitely didn’t plan a three part oeuvre. But here we are…
GODTET III feels like the distillation of the GODTET sound. It feels like the essence and definition of our sound... for now. Whilst the whole GODTET concept for me is about organic development and evolvement and to remain always searching, this album feels like the end of an era. Like everything is now for many people I think. Its been 3 years of very intensive playing, recording and gigging. The first record felt like an explosion of our minds meeting for the first time even though we’d all played together for years in various contexts. An explosive release from the lack of freedom in the musical contexts we’d previously been involved in.
The second record found us exploring improvising with a sample loop as a launch pad to playing. Marrying the worlds of beat production and improvised band. Then in reaction to only improvising we recorded a through-composed suite.
GODTET III saw us return to the beginning where we recorded purely improvised with no sample or composed or preconceived launchpads. It is interesting comparing the first record and GODTET III. Both came from open improv but are quite different. You really can hear a distinct subconscious concept of what the GODTET sound is or has become. You can hear 3 years of intensive playing, recording and gigging. GODTET III is the final album of this initial triptych where the GODTET sound was forged. It is the end of an era.
What best sums up GODTET is the fact that at the very same sessions for III we simultaneously were playing and improvising a brave new world for GODTET. You will hear this soon too. But for now let us relish in what has been the culmination of 3 intensive years as we present you the final piece of the GODTET triptych: GODTET III."