Arve Henriksen
Places of Worship
Rune Grammofon *** 
Norwegian trumpeter Henriksen, well known for his work with Supersilent, David Sylvian, Terje Rypdal, and Nils Petter Molvær, here presents a series of tone poems and mood pieces located around religious buildings and ruins. It’s music that takes the idea of the “aura” of a place and runs with it. Line-ups range from duos and trios, to extended quartets and a bigger group, with the trumpeter adding field recording (birds twittering) and descant voice to his keening shakuhachi-inspired signature flute-like trumpet sound with collaborators including samplers Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, Lars Danielsson, the Stahlquartett, Eivind Aarset, Jon Balke, Ingar Zach and samples of work used include music by Christian Wallumrød, and the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. It’s fashionable, design-elegant, minimalist and an often quite slow-moving collection of 10 tunes recorded at the Punkt studio in Kristiansand. Yet it’s engrossing and while set in sacred places Places of Worship is hardly obviously liturgical music in any recognisable sense although there are flickers in this direction, an early Renaissance character to ‘Lament’, and again on ‘Abandoned Cathedral’. Honoré’s folk-like vocal on the beautiful duo with Henriksen, ‘Shelter From The Storm’, (not the Dylan song incidentally but a ballad Honoré and vocalist Greta Aagre interpreted much less effectively on 2012's Year of the Bullet ) is worth the price of the album all by itself. MB
Arve Henriksen and Jan Bang play the Risk weekend at Town Hall, Birmingham on 3 November.
Tickets www.thsh.co.uk