Thomas Fehlmann on ‘Dreaming’ from Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) (2018)

As much as i like to listen to one of his first releases Vernal Equinox from 1977, I’d like to point the direction to his recent album Listening To Pictures and the tune ‘Dreaming’ in particular. It has a wonderfully humbling, unifying effect on people wherever I bring his music into play. Unifying also in a sense that Hassell would find a receptive crowd from any highbrow jazz or culture festival to an eclectic dance club in some factory space. His music evokes serenity, and achieves it by assembling deep, worldly grooves with gritty, challenging elements, dropping out of the metre to be blown into perspective with Hassell’s trumpet. A band of technically advanced players/operators adapt on the highest level of feel and vibe and help to catapult him into a better now. I know this sounds all shamelessly pompous but it’s the truth. I saw him and his band live not too long ago at the Atonal Festival in front of a huge club crowd not waiting for the next bass drum, and it worked.