The last music I heard from this genre-blending Norwegian master of the tuba and bass trumpet was on The Voyage. My review of the album remarked the now poised and rippling, now urgent ostinato quality of the date, distinguished as it was, overall, by Herskedal’s patience of poetic melodic exposition and extraordinary control of tonal range and both musical and emotional overtone.
Much the same might be said about the present release, which retains long-time Herskedal collaborator Helge Andreas Norbakken (pc) but replaces the earlier touches and colouring of Bergmund Waal Skaslien (p), Eyole Dale (vla) and (occasionally) Maher Mahmoud (oud) for contributions from Eivind Aarset (elg) and Emilie Nicolas (v).
The left-field Aarset will be known to many through his diverse electro-ambient excursions on, e.g., ECM and Jazzland. He burns a touch on the ostinato-sprung Tundra but generally is in relatively tempered mode, with the initial, quietly chorded repetitive figures of Sleep Later a rarity in his oeuvre.
Born in 1987, Nicolas has four Norwegian Grammys to her name, highly rated as she is in advanced Norwegian pop circles for her jazz-aware vocals and electronically treated sound. Here, her soaring yet intimate and reflective upper-register vocals and “sound figures” would often seem to be double-tracked.
The pair’s collaboration came about after Herskedal heard Nicolas cover his tune The Mistral Noir from Slow Eastbound Train (2015). The results are certainly notable, often verging on the wide-screen cinematic. Herskedal offers his characteristic depth and breadth of measured yet impassioned sound and line while the compelling voicings find Norbakken at his inventive best: sample the initial dance-infused and pan-folkish strains of Uneven Terrain, which later moves into a classic, echoing Nordic rubato mood.
Nicolas’s upper register and cleanly intoned English vocals serve the overall concept well, in that winsome manner that seems (to my ears, at least) to characterise a fair portion of Nordic female vocalising today: sample the concluding Stay With Me.
Discography
(1) Out Here; Lost; Free; Out Of The Blue; Found; Uneven Terrain; I’ll Sleep Later On; (2) While I Look For You; (1) Tundra; Out From The Sea (43.15)
(1) Herskedal (brass); Emilie Nicolas (v); Eivind Aarset (elg); Helge Norbakken (d); (2) as (1) but Nicolas out. Giske, 11-13 June 2021
E2 Music E2M1006
