Jon Hassell, the avant-garde composer and trumpet player, has died at 84. His family confirmed the news on his Facebook page, writing: “After a little more than a year of fighting through health complications, Jon died peacefully in the early morning hours of natural causes. His final days were surrounded by family and loved ones who celebrated with him the lifetime of contributions he gave to this world — personally and professionally.”

Hassell was a pioneer in what he called the “Fourth World” musical aesthetic, which he described as “a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.” It started with his first album, 1978’s Vernal Equinox, which soon led to Hassell collaborating with Brian Eno on 1980’s Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics. That in turn led to Hassell working with Talking Heads, Tears For Fears, Peter Gabriel, and David Sylvain.

He continued to put out music for the next few decades, collaborating with the likes of Daniel Lanois, the Kronos Quartet, and Farafina. In 2009, he released Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes Into The Street and then wouldn’t put out another album for nearly a decade. He returned in 2018 with Listening To Pictures and put out a new full-length in 2020 called Seeing Through Sound.

The contributions to a GoFundMe which was set up last year to assist Hassell, will now “allow the tremendous personal archive of his music, much unreleased, to be preserved and shared with the world for years to come.”