Track Listing

1. Dealer
2. One World
3. Smiling Stranger
4. Big Muff
5. Couldn't Love You More
6. Certain Surprise
7. Dancing
8. Small Hours

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1427 in Music
• Released on: 1990-04-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 38 minutes

Customer Reviews

Martyn's best, and one of the finest albums ever!
Rating: 10/10

Best tracks: "Dancing", "One World", "Small Hours", "Dealer"

Don't get me wrong, Solid Air is a decent, fine album; but John Martyn's best? It doesn't come close to One World, which is a total masterpiece and simultaneously the gifted singer-songwriter's most satisfying journey into experimentation and his most accessible too. Rock, folk, dub and ambient all combine to create a luscious, quietly funky, atmospheric and dreamy work which sounds astonishing turned up loud. The lavish, inviting textures of the opening "Dealer" set the scene perfectly; layers of riffs, funky bass and synthesiser gel seamlessly, creating something that's fleet of foot, airborne and stunningly amorphous. Miraculously, the title track is even better; a deeply haunting, strange and beautiful work of wonder, which just slinks and slides into some kind of blissful state of ethereality; listen to it on headphones in the dark and be taken away. "Smiling Stranger" and "Big Muff" are two delightful, inventive detours into reggae-inflected, mutated funk, the latter was even co-wrote with Lee "Scratch" Perry; both are entirely captivating, addictive and things to get lost in. "Couldn't Love You More" and "Certain Surprise" are the kind of simple, purely lovely songs that adorned Martyn's preceding album Sunday's Child; both are wonderful things, full of melodic splendour, but the following "Dancing" is something else altogether; imagine the pop song free from the restrictions of gravity and given full rein to glide into the heavens. This remains my favourite ever John Martyn song and it's one of the most joyous, wonderful songs ever written, the sound of a blissful summer's day. "Small Hours" is an incredible closer; recorded by a lake at midnight, you can almost feel the chill of the night air and the peace and harmony of the country in its washes of ambient beauty. Easily Martyn's most perfectly formed, musically delectable and satisfying album, One World is a wonderful experience.

Aren't we lucky!
Aren't we lucky those of us who have discovered John Martyn? This is my favourite album of his and a perfect bridge between the more jazz folky "Solid Air" and the harrowing "Grace and Danger". All the tracks are gems including the acoustic declaration of unconditional love "Couldn't Love You More" and the catchy pop of "Certain Surpise" to the echoplex driven rhythms of "Big Muff" and "Dealer". Best of all is "Small Hours"; the ultimate 3 am track. I remember playing this album incessantly one summer and it took me a while to realise the background chattering geese sounds on this evocative final track were coming from the record and not from outside my student digs window! Oh, the nostalgia!

A Masterpiece
One World was the first John Martyn album is bought. I was actually looking for something else, which turned out to be his earlier work such as the aweseom 'London Conversation' and 'Bless the Weather'. But one World was a pleasent suprise, encorporating a few different styles to make one superb sound. his ever present guitar style is here, along with the some smooth dub sounds - for example, lee scratch perry collaborated with John on 'Big muff'.
a lot of the songs were recorded in the early hours and the mood is captured so well.
an album thats in my 'Top 20' of all time. If youre looking for a more folk, bluesy and ever so softly - jazzy, john martyn, i recomend 'Solid Air' and 'Bless the Weather'.