Fourth World

United States · 1980s

Dreamy Chill Sentimental Sad

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Description

Fourth World is a term coined by trumpeter-composer Jon Hassell to describe a "unified primitive/futuristic sound" that blends ambient minimalism, non-Western traditional musics, and studio electronics into an imagined global music.

The style is characterized by modal drones, cyclical hand percussion, and timbral experimentation (often through harmonizers, delays, and pitch-shifting) applied to acoustic instruments—famously Hassell’s processed trumpet—alongside sampled or evoked elements of African, Indian, Southeast Asian, and other traditions. Rather than ethnographic authenticity, Fourth World proposes an imaginative, post-geographic sound world where the studio acts as a cultural crossroads.

Musically it favors slow to mid tempos, layered polyrhythms, pentatonic or raga-like modality, microtonal color, spacious reverbs, and textural foregrounding. The result is meditative and sensuous, at once ancient-sounding and hyper-modern.

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Influenced by

Ambient

Ambient is a form of electronic and electroacoustic music that prioritizes tone, atmosphere, and texture over conventional song structures and rhythmic drive. It typically features slow-moving harmonies, sustained drones, gentle timbral shifts, and extensive use of space and silence. Rather than drawing attention to itself through hooks or beats, ambient is designed to be as ignorable as it is interesting, rewarding both background listening and focused immersion. Artists often employ synthesizers, samplers, tape loops, field recordings, and subtle acoustic instruments, with reverb and delay creating a sense of place. Substyles range from luminous, consonant soundscapes to darker, more dissonant atmospheres.

Minimalism

Minimalism is a style of Western art music that emerged in the United States during the 1960s, characterized by the use of very limited musical materials, steady pulse, and extensive repetition. Composers often build pieces from short cells or motifs that are repeated and slowly transformed through additive or subtractive processes, phase shifting, and gradual changes in harmony, texture, or register. Harmony is typically consonant (often modal or diatonic), though just intonation and extended drones are also common. The result is music that foregrounds process, clarity, audibility of structure, and a hypnotic sense of stasis and flow. Typical ensembles include keyboards, mallet percussion, strings, winds, voices, and electronics or tape. Minimalism influenced a wide array of later styles, from ambient and new age to post-minimalism and minimal techno.

Hindustani Classical

Hindustani classical is the North Indian branch of the Indian classical tradition, centered on the concepts of raga (melodic framework) and tala (cyclical rhythm). It emphasizes improvisation within strict aesthetic and grammatical boundaries, unfolding a raga through a gradual, architected performance arc from free-rhythm exploration to metrically grounded elaboration. Performances typically proceed through an alap (slow, non-metrical exposition), jor and jhala (rhythmic intensification on plucked instruments), and a composed piece—bandish or gat—set to a tala cycle, followed by improvisations (vistar, tans, bol-bant) that resolve emphatically on the sam (first beat). Signature ornaments such as meend (glides), gamak (oscillation), and andolan (slow vibrato) articulate microtonal nuance (shruti). The style encompasses vocal genres like dhrupad and khyal, and instrumental idioms on sitar, sarod, sarangi, bansuri, and shehnai, supported by a sustaining drone (tanpura) and tabla or pakhawaj accompaniment. Beyond the concert hall, Hindustani classical has deeply informed sub-classical and popular forms across South Asia and, through mid-20th-century cultural exchange, popular and art music worldwide.

Gamelan

Gamelan is a traditional Indonesian ensemble music, centered on tuned metal percussion (metallophones and gongs), drums, and soft-sounding melodic instruments. It is most closely associated with the islands of Java and Bali, where distinct courtly and village traditions evolved. Its sound is defined by cyclical structures marked by gongs (colotomic cycles), interlocking figurations, and modal systems (laras) called sléndro and pélog. Textures are “stratified,” with a core melody (balungan) surrounded by elaborating parts. The result ranges from serene, floating atmospheres to dazzling, kinetic brilliance, depending on region and context. Beyond ceremony and theater (wayang), gamelan has influenced global composers and experimentalists, while continuing to thrive in Indonesia as a living, communal art.

African Music

African music is a broad, pan‑continental umbrella that encompasses thousands of local traditions, court and ritual musics, and modern popular styles from across Africa. It is characterized by layered polyrhythms, cyclical forms, call‑and‑response vocals, timeline bells, and a participatory performance ethos where dance and music are inseparable. While rooted in ancient indigenous practices, the modern category of “African music” took shape in the recording era as regional styles such as highlife, jùjú, Congolese rumba/soukous, and Afrobeat spread beyond their homelands. Over time, electric instruments, brass sections, and later drum machines and DAWs were integrated, producing contemporary scenes like kwaito, Afrobeats, and amapiano. Across the continent, core sonic features include interlocking ostinatos, off‑beat phrasing, and groove‑centric vamps rather than heavy functional harmony. Timbres range from resonant harps and lutes (kora, ngoni) and wooden idiophones (mbira, balafon) to talking drums and hand percussion (djembe, dunun, shekere), with strong regional variation in scales, tunings, and vocal techniques.

Jazz

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

Electronic

Electronic is a broad umbrella genre defined by the primary use of electronically generated or electronically processed sound. It encompasses music made with synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, computers, and studio/tape techniques, as well as electroacoustic manipulation of recorded or synthetic sources. The genre ranges from academic and experimental traditions to popular and dance-oriented forms. While its sonic palette is rooted in electricity and circuitry, its aesthetics span minimal and textural explorations, structured song forms, and beat-driven club permutations. Electronic emphasizes sound design, timbre, and studio-as-instrument practices as much as melody and harmony.

Experimental

Experimental music is an umbrella term for practices that prioritize exploration, process, and discovery over adherence to established genre norms. It embraces new sound sources, nonstandard tuning systems, indeterminacy and chance operations, graphic and open-form scores, extended techniques, and technology-led sound design (tape, electronics, computers, and live processing). Rather than a single style, it is a methodology and ethos: testing hypotheses about sound, structure, and performance, often blurring boundaries between composition, improvisation, sound art, and performance art. Listeners can expect unfamiliar timbres, unusual forms, and an emphasis on how music is made as much as the resulting sound.

Has influenced

Worldbeat

Worldbeat is a pop-oriented fusion that blends contemporary Western production (pop, rock, dance, and electronic) with rhythms, instruments, scales, and vocal styles drawn from diverse musical traditions around the world. It typically features layered percussion, polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, and multilingual or code-switching lyrics, while maintaining accessible song forms and hook-driven choruses. Arrangements often juxtapose drum kits, bass guitar, and synths with instruments such as kora, mbira, oud, sitar, djembe, balafon, or charango. As a retail and radio category in the 1980s–1990s, worldbeat served both as a creative space for cross-cultural collaboration and a marketing umbrella, attracting praise for bridge-building and criticism for occasional exoticism or unequal credit-sharing.

World Fusion

World fusion is a broad, exploratory approach that blends musical traditions from different cultures with contemporary forms such as jazz, rock, ambient, and electronic music. Rather than being tied to a single folk lineage, it privileges hybrid instrumentation, modal and rhythmic vocabularies from around the globe, and collaborative performance practices. Compared with the more pop-oriented worldbeat, world fusion tends to be more improvisational, texture-driven, and studio- or ensemble-focused. It commonly juxtaposes instruments like oud, kora, sitar, tabla, duduk, and frame drums with electric guitar, synthesizers, and jazz rhythm sections, often emphasizing modal harmony, drones, polyrhythms, and odd meters.

Downtempo

Downtempo is a mellow, groove-oriented branch of electronic music characterized by slower tempos, plush textures, and a focus on atmosphere over dancefloor intensity. Typical tempos range from about 60–110 BPM, with swung or laid-back rhythms, dub-informed basslines, and warm, jazz-tinged harmonies. Stylistically, it blends the spaciousness of ambient, the head-nodding rhythms of hip hop and breakbeat, and the cosmopolitan smoothness of lounge and acid jazz. Producers often use sampled drums, Rhodes or Wurlitzer electric pianos, guitar licks with delay, and field recordings to create intimate, cinematic soundscapes. The mood spans from soulful and romantic to introspective and dusk-lit, making it a staple of after-hours listening, cafes, and relaxed club back rooms.

Ambient House

Ambient house blends the spacious textures and meditative pacing of ambient music with the gentle propulsion of house. It typically features a soft four-on-the-floor kick, airy pads, dub-style effects, and environmental samples that create an immersive, blissed-out soundscape. Tempos are often moderate (roughly 100–120 BPM), with subdued percussion, warm sub-bass, and sparse melodic motifs that prioritize atmosphere over dance-floor intensity. The result is a style suited both to late-night listening and to the "chill-out rooms" that historically complemented more energetic club spaces.

Nu Jazz

Nu jazz is a late-1990s movement that blends contemporary electronic production with the improvisational language and harmony of jazz. It keeps jazz’s extended chords, modal colors, and live soloing, but places them over programmed beats, sampled textures, and synth-driven arrangements. Typical tracks feature warm Rhodes or piano voicings, roomy horns, and deep bass sitting alongside house, broken beat, or downtempo grooves. The result is music that feels both club-ready and listening-focused, bridging intimate jazz sensibilities with modern electronic sound design.

Jazztronica

Jazztronica is a hybrid style that fuses the improvisational language, harmony, and timbres of jazz with contemporary electronic music production and rhythms. It often balances live instrumentation—such as saxophone, keys, bass, and drums—with programmed beats, sampling, and synthesis. Producers and bands in this genre draw from jazz-funk, acid jazz, and fusion, then layer in elements of downtempo, house, hip hop, broken beat, and IDM. The result ranges from head‑nod, beat‑driven tracks to club‑leaning grooves and cinematic, atmospheric pieces. Hallmarks include extended jazz chords, swung or syncopated drum programming, elastic basslines (both electric and synthesized), and textural sound design that supports improvisation and groove.

Chillout

Chillout is a broad, downtempo-oriented style of electronic music designed for relaxation, decompression, and after-hours listening. It emphasizes spacious atmospheres, gentle grooves, and warm timbres over intensity or virtuosity. Emerging from the “chill-out rooms” of UK and Ibiza clubs, the sound blends ambient pads, soft 4/4 or broken-beat rhythms, and melodic fragments drawn from lounge, jazz, bossa nova, and Balearic traditions. Typical tempos range from about 70–110 BPM, with extended chords, subtle basslines, and abundant reverb and delay to create a sense of depth and calm. Though often used as an umbrella for related styles (ambient, downtempo, trip hop, lounge), chillout retains a distinct focus on mood: it privileges texture, space, and gentle momentum, making it a staple for late-night sets, beach bars, and home listening alike.

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