The Timeless Nowhere ［4LP+2CD］

The Timeless Nowhere contains four separate albums comprised almost exclusively of unreleased material, by trumpeter, composer, producer, and conceptualist recorded between 2009 and 2019. Only Towards Language: Live at Punkt (2018) has appeared before, exclusively in digital form. Acousmograph, Captured Under Mountainsides, and Cryosphere, are unique to this collection. Though technically a retrospective of the last decade, each recording easily stands on its own. The set includes a fine liner essay by John Potter (ex-Hilliard Ensemble), explicating sources for each album. Captured under Mountainsides includes a dozen haunted tracks that reflect the breathtaking natural world the composer grew up in. The origins of these works were drawn from travel. There are three studio exceptions: The Painter, the Poet and the Past dates from the 2012 Places of Worship sessions with Jan Bang and Erik Honore. Tun - Old Remains of Settlement, was recorded with Skuli Sverrisson and Hilmar Jensson during the recording of 2015s Saumur. Tili Cordata, with Bang, was influenced by the track Opening Image from 2004s Chiaroscuro. Acousmograph was recorded solo. Henriksen helms trumpets, wordless vocals, piano, celeste, harmonium, synthesizers, and provides edited field recording, organic and electronic sounds. The title track of the box is included here. It was inspired by Polish composer Krzysztof Pendereckis Stabat Mater (1962) and St. Luke Passion (1963-66), touching on the formers lyric while revisioning the 12-tone experimentalism of the latter. Dimly Lit Frescoes, is a composed demo for the collective Supersilents 2017 installation at Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum during Norways Ultima Festival. Henriksen, a founding member of the ensemble in 1998, with Helge Sten (Deathprod), Stale Storlokken, and Jarle Vespestad, continues to work in it. Cryosphere was co-produced with Bang, who re-used, re-layered, re-mixed and re-invented material generated by Henriksen and percussionists Audun Kleive, Helge Norbakken, and Ingar Zach. The rest comes from Bang and a couple of his students who sampled a series of concert performances, then re-encountered and manipulated it five years later in a studio. Finally, Towards Language: Live At Punkt (Studio), was cut with a quartet whose other members are Bang (samples, liver sampling), Aarset (guitars and electronics) and Honore (live sampling and synth). About half of it contains live improvisations. Henriksens key processes --re-imagining existing material, re-inventing musical artefacts -are foundational precepts for these selections. It challenges the entire notion of what live means in this context. There is a brief, gorgeous trumpet quote from Over The Rainbow in Traces of Words, which was inspired by a lyric melody from composer Tigran Hamasyan. Patient Zero, is a live improvised ballad that abstracts and re-combines elements of blues, jazz and Norwegian folk music. While The Timeless Nowhere does provide fans with a roadmap to hidden corners and unopened cupboards in his discography, it also counts as a wholly new work given the strategies applied in its presentation, and therefore offers the uninitiated a deeply-rounded, expansive introduction to the gorgeous variety of Henriksens work. ~ Thom Jurek