4TH WORLD WONDERS

“Fourth World” is a term that describes the possibility of music in truly global terms, beyond First World, beyond Third World, beyond classical, beyond pop, beyond any genre. Initiated by trumpet explorer extraordinaire Jon Hassel back in the late 1970s, Fourth World is a mutant combination of ancient and futuristic, a kind of contemporary folk music from “unknown and imaginary regions”. The third evening curated by Discrepant for maat Mode uses the possibilities of the “4th World” concept as a trigger to explore a forever-mutating sound world that depicts alternate civilisations and dimensions: a utopian/dystopian parallel free of North/South concepts of poor and rich; a total breakdown of the cultural status quo; atypical dimensions.

Star Searchers
We should be grateful to live in the same era as Spencer Clark. At a time when we hear that there is nothing new left to be done, his musical career has shown us that there are myriad worlds awaiting discovery. Earlier this century he created a sound fantasy with The Skaters and after that pursued a new alchemy under various aliases (Charles Berlitz, Fourth World Magazine, Monopoly Child, Typhonian Highlife, etc.).
If in Possible Musics Jon Hassell began creating sounds for his “Fourth World”, Spencer has been creating “possible worlds” where his music can exist in his own “Fourth World”. His new album, Avatar Blue, is a 2-hour, 30-song pro-Earth odyssey about the ocean and special effects — a futuristic, eco-friendly record. It is life on earth as we have never heard it. It goes beyond the perception of what we have seen or what we have known; it is an aquatic neo-future life, with a world-building structure and sounds and narratives that go along with it. Dive in and get wet!

LAGOSS
Lagoss is a new project by Discrepant label’s founder Gonçalo F. Cardoso (Gonzo, Visions Congo, Papillon, Prophetas) and Tenerife electronic stalwarts Tupperwear (Mladen Kurajica and Dani Tupper). Diving deep into various phantom island mythologies (the elusive St. Brendan’s Island being a recurring motif), Lagoss borrow from the exotica playbook of ideas and twist it inside out into a bubbling melting pot of sounds, shapes and patterns that eventually confuse, amaze and (occasionally) scare the inattentive listener.
With a live show built like a schizophrenic booklet of moods, with 50+ vignettes describing the various habitats and moods of the local (imaginary) archipelago, Lagoss hopes to offer grand visions of brave new old worlds, independent from the obvious, atypical lines of thought. There is no such thing as a break from mother nature: fauna and flora take it all, a continuous buzz of local predators, big and small, constantly preying on everyone and anyone — humans are just temporary guests. A nautical almanac of remote notions from a forsaken land, built and rebuilt on layer upon layer of green and blue death — forget Martin Denny, there are no armchair xylophone grooves here.