In a career that, from an international perspective, began with Norwegian noise improv group Supersilent's debut, 1-3 (Rune Grammofon, 1997), trumpeter Arve Henriksen's ascendant trajectory has gone from strength to strength, milestone to milestone. It's been a long wait for Places of Worship, the follow-up to his leader debut for ECM Records, Cartography (2008), but it's not as if Henriksen hasn't been busy.
Still, six years is a long time. In its own gentle way, Cartography signaled a paradigm shift for Henriksen, following his first three recordings as a leader for Rune Grammofon, beginning with 2001's Sakuteiki and culminating on 2007's Strjon. Henriksen began collaborating with producers Jan Bang and Erik Honore—co-Artistic Directors of Punkt, the live remix festival now celebrating its ninth year in Kristiansand, with Henriksen a regular participant—in a reverse-engineered approach to writing, with compositions stemming from extant material: some real-time, some sampled; some improvised, some composed.
With Bang and Honoré back and Henriksen returning to Rune Grammofon, Places of Worship represents the next logical step for their appealing combination of cutting-edge futurism and timeless traditionalism. Elements of Norwegian folk music imbue these ten relatively short pieces as much as classical references, and an improvisational approach that uses Jon Hassell's Fourth World music as one of its many cornerstones. Organic sounds are both juxtaposed and combined with textures only possible through technology, while Henriksen's performance—on trumpet, where embouchure and extended techniques result in still recognizable timbral breadth, and in his equally inimitable falsetto singing—remains steeped in lyricism of almost painful beauty, his melancholic melodies feeling somehow familiar while being completely and utterly his own.
Despite the use of orchestral samples on "Adhān," which unfolds like a rose in the early morning light after Henriksen's a capella trumpet intro, layered over a field recording, and the synth bass-driven groove of "Saraswati," a gentle spirituality underscores the aptly titled Places of Worship. Usual suspects like Eivind Aarset show up in real (the brooding "Alhambra") and sampled (the ethereal "Abandoned Cathedral") form, but Place of Worship's biggest surprise may be "Shelter from the Storm," a love song written, played (with the exception of Henriksen's horn) and, most significantly, sung, with dark vulnerability, by Honoré.
Clearly, Honoré should sing more often. He may be nearing 50, but like Henriksen, Bang and the rest of Places of Worship's participants, surprise seems endemic to his work, but especially in recent years where, thanks to the success of Punkt, there seems to be yet another paradigm shift taking place on the Norwegian scene.
Places of Worship is the inevitable consequence of Punkt's expanding network and relentless experimentalism. If Henriksen's nascent vision was already well-formed on Sakuteiki, it's Punkt's laboratory-like nature that has ultimately led to where Henriksen is today. Henriksen's voice may dominate Cartography and, now, the equally superb Places of Worship, but a selfless desire to work with others to expound and expand now persistently defines and redefines that vision. More evolution than revolution, Places of Worship continues Henriksen, Bang and Honoré's sculpting of some of the most hauntingly beautiful, innately spiritual and extraordinarily captivating music coming from their distant, Northern European home. - John Kelman / allaboutjazz.com
Places of Worship signals trumpeter and composer Arve Henriksen's return to Rune Grammophon and furthers his collaboration with both Jan Bang and Erik Honoré. Here his experimentations with sound, space, and texture offer listening environments that reflect various sacred spaces the world over, hence its title. While these tracks are impossible to separate from the influences of Jon Hassell's Fourth World Music explorations or the more murky moodscapes of Nils Petter Molvær, they are also more than a few steps removed from them. Henriksen never separates himself from the environmental information provided by his natural Nordic landscape. The lush, wild, and open physical vistas of its geography provide an inner map for the trumpeter and vocalist that amounts to a deeply focused series of tone poems. The sonic backdrop in "Adhan" transforms his trumpet's role to that of a cantor or muzzein, calling others to prayer though he cannot see those whom his call might reach. The crisscrossing rhythmic palette in "Saraswati" is equal parts North Indian and Northern European. His wordless vocal, which hovers atop the loops, samples, strings, and droning double bass, is eclipsed only by his horn as it creates a mantra-like quality. On "Lament," Honoré's backdrop samples frame the trumpeter's falsetto singing voice in a hymn that evokes early orthodox Christianity and Norway's Sami ritual prayers. Guitarist Eivind Aarset, pianist Jon Balke, and percussionist Ingar Zach join the trio on "Alhambra," the only track recorded away from the Punkt studio and improvised live. Though there are more players in the mix, it is less subsumed in ambient effects, and equates the music of North Africa with that of the Sephardim and a poignant flamenco. "Abandoned Cathedral" is the sound of an "interior" emptiness," as a layered trumpet, unidentifiable sampled sounds, and Henriksen's falsetto reflect the ghosts of previous inhabitants. The set closes with the Honoré -penned "Shelter from the Storm," which features his own lead vocal and piano as well as the leader's horn. It is the only departure from the tone poem structure of Places of Worship; it amounts to a sung prayer that recalls the later songs of Bill Fay. This album is less murky and dark than much of Henriksen's work either with Supersilent or solo. Despite its authoritative command of the languages it speaks, it carefully hews a meditative space for the listener at heart level inside the music; it is both inviting and enveloping. - Thom Jurek / allmusic.com
Some month ago I should have written a review of the new album of Arve Henriksen, the next after the beautiful Cartography published in 2008 for the historical ECM.
In my defense I would to say that it is never too late to listen a CD of good music. Arve Henriksen is a refined trumpeter, with a jazz formation, and if you’re thinking it is strange its presence among the reviews of this site, you must know that the Norwegian composer showed a passion for electronic instruments and synthetic sounds already in previous years.
After a masterpiece as Cartography, already soaked of computer sounds thanks to the collaboration with Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, Henriksen composed a new album which opens to a dialogue between traditional and electronic instruments.
Of Cartography the Norwegian composer retains much of the formula: ambient tracks, very large, sounds stretched and relaxed, perfect blend of. electronic sounds. Even the group is the same, at least as regards the technological collaborators, which used a large amount of instruments and sound transformations: programming, live sampling, synthesizers, synth bass and samples, all harmonized with the trump of Henriksen.
t is simplistic to limit the contribution of Bang and Honoré to a simple collaboration, since their contribution is much important, essential for the album final result, for its sophistication and the amazing balance of the parties. Moreover, the beauty of Henriksen’s works in that beautiful and delicate balance among the soft melodies performed by trumpet and the amalgam of discrete electronic sounds.
Already in Cartography we had enjoyed the fine balance of weights, the compositional skills of Henriksen, his capacity to paint sound pictures, without suffocating the natural prominence of the trumpet with details, indeed emphasizing it, letting us appreciate every single note.
I wanted to show some track more exciting than others, but in the end I realized that a verbal autopsy would stifle the heat that radiates from the whole album, from start to finish, on every single piece, without a break. However I cannot deny that some sound passages have embraced me more than others; so, I think to the opening of Adhān which seems to open up the doors of a place where we all want to be (0:51), or to the sounds of the Portal supported by the fullness of the bass synth, the sampling of The Sacristan, the electronic details of Saraswati, the voices and the continuous dialogue between tradition and innovation.
The only downside, if one may say so, is that formula which Henriksen inherits from Cartography, which is not displeasing, mind you, but which in 2008 had already found a summary of perfection. - Alex Di Nunzio / musicainformatica.org
Tracks
01. Adhān (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré)
02. Saraswati (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré)
03. Le Cimetière Marin (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré)
04. The Sacristan (Henriksen/Bang//Honoré)
05. Lament (Henriksen/Honoré)
06. Portal (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré)
07. Alhambra (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré/Aarset)
08. Bayon (Henriksen/Bang/Honoré)
09. Abandoned Cathedral (Henriksen/Bang)
10. Shelter From the Storm (Honoré)
ARVE HENRIKSEN trumpet, field recording, voice
JAN BANG samples, programing, live sampling
ERIK HONORÉ samples, synth bass, synthesizer, drum programming, live sampling, vocal
LARS DANIELSSON double bass (2)
EIVIND AARSET guitars (7, 8)
JON BALKE piano (7)
STAHLQUARTETT: Jan Heinke·Alexander Fuller·Michael Antoni·Peter Andreas (2)
Recorded and mixed at Punkt Studio, Kristiansand
Rune Grammofon – RCD 2147 (Norway)