6 MOONS OF JUPITER

This is one of those albums that encapsulates the very raison d'etre of a reissue label like Finders Keepers, or Trunk for that matter. John Hill's Six Moons Of Jupiter is a dizzying cocktail of avant-garde jazz, cosmic psychedelia and electronic experimentation, intermittently augmented by the poetry of Susan Christie who recites text over parts of certain tracks. There are drum-fuelled beat tracks like 'Io' or the David Axelod-like 'Amalthea', and then there's some woozy, electroacoustic soundscaping on the hazy, effects-laden 'Ganymede', all of which are ideal fodder for library hounds, but 'Callisto' and 'Elara' mark the real creative peaks here, eschewing the kind of exotica-appeal that tends to taint reissues with a hint of kitsch. The latter of these compositions draws a certain amount of influence from Messaien's Turangalila Symphonie in its ambitious, often erratic harmonies and its mingling of conventional and electronic instrumentation.