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​Fourth World Aesthetics


In Appreciation of the Music of Jon Hassell
and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead

Fourth World in the 21st Century

Jon Hassell 1997 Interview

Brian Eno on Jon Hassell

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​Living in the Dreaming

“Dreaming” is a strange, abstract piece of music from a guy who only makes strange, abstract pieces of music and who’s been operating on the fringes for many years. But Hassell called it “Dreaming” for a reason. And while it doesn’t hit the pleasure centers like a great pop song might, “Dreaming” is a warm, enveloping, comforting listen. It’s not as shapeless as ambient or as rigorous as most experimental music, but you feel like you can fall into it and just live there." (Tom Breihan in Stereogum)

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​Fourth World Philosophy and Aesthetics

Fourth World Thinking
​and the Philosophy of Whitehead

Abstract of Thesis by CP Daniels
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"Over the past few decades, issues associated with how to understand the diversity of religions and the religious ‘other’ have been at the forefront of Religious Studies. There have been numerous critiques of both the ‘New Comparative Theology,’ which advocates practical engagement in dialogue and/or textual comparison between traditions, and ‘Theologies of Religions,’ which is a more theoretical approach to how the diversity of religions are, or should be, understood. These critiques have centred around accusations of imperialistic hegemony, the use and reification of categories, and whether the variety of religions can, or should, be understood in a manner that acknowledges rough equality in epistemic and soteriological value. This thesis argues that the particular theological perspective and methodology of John Cobb Jr., based on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, manages to avoid most, if not all, such critiques by advocating a form of complementary, transformationist, pluralism. Cobb understands the diversity of religious perspectives as potentially complementary rather than contradictory, and argues for mutual transformation of the traditions involved, based on the understanding that each has something to be learned from the other. The process approach and perspective presupposed by Cobb is not only uniquely suited to address the issues of religious diversity but also promotes equal openness to the religious ‘other.’ To illustrate this, I undertake a comparative experiment between a Whiteheadian metaphysic and Indigenous ontology to show that a process based, relational metaphysic is better capable of interpreting and accommodating Indigenous ontology/epistemology than the traditional Western, materialistic/mechanistic view. The experiment reveals how universal relationality and interconnectedness in process terms are exemplified through various Indigenous concepts, language structures, cultural and religious practices, and epistemology. I contend that process thought not only provides a better understanding of religious pluralism but also meets the challenge posed by Indigenous scholars who call for a Western perspective that reconciles the contemporary worldview of science with the relational ontology of Indigenous cultures and facilitates a recognition of Indigenous peoples as equal partners in inter-religious and inter-cultural encounters and dialogue."

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Last Night the Moon Came
​Dropping Its Clothes in the Street

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Fourth World Aesthetics
and the Music of Jon Hassell

I borrow the phrase Fourth World Aesthetics from the musician Jon Hassell.  He defines Fourth World Aesthetic as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques" which takes us into unknown and imaginary regions that unite the intellectual and the sensual.

The combination of indigenous and electronic sounds, thus taking them out of their original contexts as embedded in local communities, is controversial.  Some might consider it a prime example of first-world appropriation: that is, reducing indigenous cultural traditions to objects for western consumers, diluting them in the process, without respect for the sources themselves.  Perhaps so.

But there is also something inevitable about the cross-fertilization of musical styles, and Hassell's use (in my view) is responsible and sometimes quite beautiful.  Moreover, his idea of Fourth World offers a metaphor for many who might otherwise be trapped in "First World" thinking and feeling.

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​Let the Fourth World name an imaginary world, in an imaginary place, where the intellect and the senses are not separated, and where a momentary freedom is gained from the habitual constraints of inflexible, authoritarian, dualistic, everyday thinking. 

And let this imaginary world and place be formed by elements of fantasy as derived from an encounter with indigenous cultures of the world.  Thus the Fourth World has a quality of radical interconnectedness and relationality.  All things are "living" in some way and present in one another even as the are different, such that the whole flows.  If inflexible, authoritarian dualistic thinking imagines the world mechanistically, the Fourth World presents the world organically.  Or, more actually, the possibility of living in an organic world.

Of what does this Fourth World consist?  What are its building blocks?  It resembles Whitehead's notion of an extensive continuum filled with possibilities: states-of-affairs that can be.  The possibilities are its building blocks.

More specifically it consists of unknown and imaginary regions which, as felt in the imagination, offer possibilities for liberation in the spirit, say, of black quantum futurism.  See The Metaphysics of Justice: Moor Mother and Black Quantum Futurism.  We can consider these possibilities as possibilities for the future but also as having been possible in the past.  Thus they reveal a radical contingency to the world.  See Living with Radical Contingency.

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Fourth World Music takes us into those regions.  Places where the moon comes and drops its clothes in the street.  The regions may seem dream-like and exotic, but they are exotic, but they are exotic only as compared to the overly determined categories of authoritarian, dualistic, everyday thinking.  In the imaginary world they are "normal" and the authoritarian, dualistic, everyday thinking is profane.

Jon Hassell takes us into one kind of Fourth World Music, but there are many other kinds.  May a thousand moons shine.

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Quotes from Jon Hassell

A unified primitive/futuristic sound

​Trumpeter Jon Hassell was the originator and unrivaled master of the musical aesthetic he dubbed Fourth World -- in his own words, "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques."

Music from unknown and imaginary regions

 Drawing on minimalism, electronics, ethnographic recordings and his own background, Hassell presented a sensuous amalgam of sound, taking a strand of music from an indigenous culture and allowing it to form the mutant combination of ancient and futuristic that has been Hassell's métier since the late '70s. Hassell described it as music from "unknown and imaginary regions." ​

Combining "Third World" Music with "First World" Technology

"In those days, the Cold War days, there was the First World and basically the unspoken Second, which was the Soviet empire," Hassell once explained to an interviewer. "Anything outside of those two was called Third World, and it usually meant less developed countries. And those less developed countries were places where tradition was still alive and spirituality was inherent in their musical output, for lack of a better term. [Fourth World] was like '3 +1.' The idea was the merging of the traditional and spiritual side from the Third World with the First World technology, using the harmonizer and that kind of thing." ​

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Jon Hassel interviewed by Jason Gross in Perfect Sound Forever (1997)

PSF: The record really has an 'other-worldly' quality to it like it's transporting the listener somewhere.

That was me. That's what I was trying to do. I was trying to transport myself. The exotic is central to me. I don't understand why the 'exotic' doesn't have the automatic appeal for everyone that it does for me. In fact, I think it does but it's just not acknowledged. I put that experience first and foremost. It's not as though I have a 'real life' with glimmers of exoticism--like living in a Victorian house with exotic trophies around the room--it's more, 'If something really feels good, then why don't you do it all the time instead of only doing it on Saturdays?' Fourth World is an entire week of Saturdays. It's about heart and head as the same thing. It's about being transported to some place which is made up of both real and virtual geography. It's about a beautiful girl and a beautiful situation at the same time.

PSF: You have erotic aspects to your work then?

The title of the last record I did, Dressing For Pleasure, is a code name used in the fashion/fantasy/fetish world. I like the idea that there are an infinite number of results to 'dressing for pleasure' and only one - nakedness- for 'undressing for pleasure'. It has to do with creativity in ornamenting one's life.

I felt that it was time for me to break out of the grey norms of 'new music' in titling, subject, etc. I was also coming to terms with the reality of what was actually going on in my life. All the music I've done is --in some sense-- an accompaniment to my fantasy life. This goes back to that Western dichotomy between the sensual and the intellectual. I've tried to merge those things. It's saying that all of these things are connected-- not spirituality over here and sex over there. It's all one thing which has become divided because of an over-reliance on verbality and abstraction at the expense of feeling and spirit .

PSF: Could you talk about the ideas behind Dream Theory?

The title itself comes from an account of visiting a tribe in Malaya. They had this culture of 'dream people.' The Senoi was one of the tribes. Their ideas about dreams were that they were as important to daily life as anything else was. They would gather in the longhouse each morning and children would recount their dreams and they would be interpreted then. For instance, a child's dream of falling would be interpreted as a gift from the God that would teach you to fly. They're instructed to continue the dream. So the next night would be another sequence and it would become like 'dream work.' You could control attitudes and events based on how you led yourself to dream them. What an interesting way to interpret that. In standard Freudian terms, those dreams of falling would reveal 'underlying anxiety'. Through their eyes, it's a gift--something to be thankful for, something to work with. Imagine how a culture would develop with that kind of framing of experience versus the dark view from Vienna, under all those rain clouds.

PSF: How did you see your ideas about 'Fourth World' develop over the next few years?

I wanted the mental and geographical landscapes to be more indeterminate- not Indonesia, not Africa, not this or that. I thought I was more successful in trying to create something that COULD HAVE existed if things were in an imaginary culture, growing up in an imaginary place with this imaginary music. It was made up of different elements and sometimes it would tilt toward a known territory like Southeast Asia as, for example, with Dream Theory In Malaya.

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