The summer of 1990 was very hot – in London. No rain, no fog, no bad vibes under a clear blue sky. We lived in the Pearl Hotel on West Cromwell Road, Klaudia (she was the photographer) liked the special atmosphere in that old hotel with its sweet raga sounds flooding the entrance area. I thought Harold Budd’s masterpiece THE PEARL would be the icing on the cake. (Yesterday I got his new album, JANE, and it is definitely beautiful). Breakfast was terrible, fucking was great. Within seven days we interviewed writer Peter Ackroyd, the late master of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Simon Jeffes, and trumpet player Jon Hassell – in Brian Eno’s artist residence in South Kensington. We talked about his musical life, the ups and downs of his career, key moments, his time in Cologne with Stockhausen, his time in New York with Brian, and his then new album CITY: WORKS OF FICTION. These quiet days in London came to mind cause this Saturday I will present Jon Hassell’s surreal urban landscapes and Nils Petter Molvaers breakthrough album KHMER in the radionacht of the Deutschlandfunk. If you want to get in the right mood for the show, read Italo Calvino’s book „THE INVISIBLE CITIES“. Or listen to the early and best stuff of Massive Attack. By the way, the Pearl Hotel doesn’t exist any more.
