Jon Hassell - fourth world volume two: dream theory in malaya (1981)

It'd be wrong to say that Dream Theory In Malaya was jazz/ ethnic. It was much more than that. Jon Hassell was a musician researcher delving into the realms of Jung-ian psychology. Dream Theory In Malaya was expressionist, futuristic, impressionistic, surrealist. It was folklore set in a sub-chamber in a void. It was a subconscious dream.

"Chor Moire" was a futuristic camouflage for a world-ethnic music, vivisected and rearranged, miraged from a shapeless reality. "Courage" was an ectoplasmic ethnic-ritual stream, floating over a jungle landscape, formulating the turmoil of the spiritual-dance "Dream Theory". The end of the journey was the ghostly landscape of "Datu Bintung at Jelong".

The focus had shifted from the jungle to the sky, it was a subliminal landscape, reflections made out of aether.

It reflected both towards the future and towards an unimaginable past. "Malay" was an impressionistic sketch, it was the memory of hundreds of small streams running in the jungle to connect with a bigger whole. By "These Times", all that was left was a whisper, an inaudible gust of wind. By "Gift of Fire" the spiritual forces had gathered again, ready for yet another day of dance, condemned to be repeated in eternity, like seashell resonance. Get it here.