“As Yet” by In Sonitus Lux is Like an Ambient Jazz Expedition into Jon Hassell’s Fourth World

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In Sonitus Lux, As Yet cover (cropped)

When “As Yet” by In Sonitus Lux starts out and gets going I couldn’t help but think of “Delta Rain Dream” by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno from Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics. Similar processed horns in the distance but with the Hang (a steel percussion instrument) giving a steady texture as distorted synth swells echo out and stretch into mysterious shapes and fade out like a blast of gas fire from the local oil refinery towers. Science fiction writers Lucius Shepard and Ian McDonald write about the kinds of worlds this music would suit well: those where technology didn’t turn out to be a Utopian panacea to solve all human problems but had the usual unintended consequences well have to live with yet it didn’t all turn into cyberpunk-esque dystopia or life under Skynet. Where corporate and military science backfired and space exploration created not the world of Star Trek but a string of human settlements with their own cultures and subcultures because that’s what humans do better than anything else when adapting to new environments. It’s music for a synthesis of ideas and society while capturing the spirit of that path into a future we never really could have predicted. Listen below and then feel free to delve further into this project’s interesting body of work at the link provided.

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