Track: "Mombasa". Album: "City: Works Of Fiction". Release date: 1990, by trumpeter Jon Hassell.

Jon Hassell is 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."

Beginning in 1972, Hassell studied classical Indian music under the tutelage of Pandit Pran Nath, modifying Nath's vocal techniques to the trumpet to develop the Fourth World concept, which he introduced with 1978's Vernal Equinox.

The jazz-inspired Earthquake Island appeared a year later, and in 1980 Hassell issued Possible Musics/Fourth World Vol. 1, a collaboration with Brian Eno. (A sequel, Dream Theory in Malaya/Fourth World Vol. 2, was quick in forthcoming.)

Through Eno, he also began working with a series of experimental pop acts, appearing on records by Talking Heads, David Sylvian, and Peter Gabriel; in 1982, Hassell additionally scored Magazzini Criminali's Venice production of Sulla Strada, earning an Ubu Award for Best Music for a Theatrical Work.