Reviews RCD2061

With his third solo album the Norwegian trumpeter/composer/vocalist Arve Henriksen has definitely become the cutting-edge figure whose every parp and grunt is awaited with devotion. There are echoes of ”In A Silent Way” here; of Bach and the baroque, and of shamanic Sami folk. This is a fully-realised, ambitious album. 5/5.
Independent On Sunday (UK)

”Strjon” evokes a kind of New Town utopianism: dignified and airy, its stark yet humanistic architecture gleaming in the pine-scented air. Technically, Henriksen is a jazz trumpeter; yet there´s no blaring fanfares or spit sprays here. He barely sounds like he´s playing at all. each breath-gentle yet perfectly placed note rising lightly from his instrument or layered over wordless chanting. Supersilent buddies Helge Sten and Ståle Storløkken back him on keyboards, guitar and rattles and chimes, creating worlds where the plangent optimism of Open University meet the eerie isolation of Bowie´s ”Low”.
Plan B (UK)

Some of the music features a dreamily isolated Henriksen, some brings slowly flailing rock riffs in behind him, some is spooky organ-churning Gothic crypt-music, some distantly but tantalisingly, jazzy. The two-minute title track simply sounds like a distant army on horseback, but there are moments in ”Glacier Descent” and the tender ”In The Light” that suggest that long-gone, lyrical, early Miles Davis sound. He´s in a world of his own, in every sense. 4/5.
The Guardian (UK)

”Strjon” is no pictorial record of a place, but track by track it builds up an evocation as fresh and as vivid as a summer flower caught in an ice crystal. By the time he reaches the title track, which rises mysteriously out of one silence and disappears into another, one begins to feel that here, too, is the story of a soul as well as a place, a kind of creative autobiography expressed through the half-remembered harmonies of somewhere that existed long before birth and persists even when unseen.
The Wire (UK)

As part of legendary avant-jazz outfit Supersilent, trumpeter Arve Henriksen has garnered a reputation as one of the most striking young musicians of his generation. From the brooding decaying riffage of ”Black Mountain” to the glorious vocal loops of ”Glacier Descent”, Henriksen´s mysterious music is as beautiful and strange as the alien landscape it attempts to depict. 8/10.
Rocksound (UK)

His trumpet tone is stark, unadorned and beautiful, and thrown into relief by washes of electronica or drifting, sustained chords. Cooly detached, it draws the listener in completely, and just stops short of a full-on religious experience. One piece, "Glacier Descent", covers the ground of 2001: A Space Odyssey in seven minutes, from the first stirring of primal consciousness to the burblings of the star-child via a host of angelic voices. Extraordinary.
Manchester Evening News (UK)

Arve Henriksen has established himself as one of the most original trumpeters to emerge over the last decade, manipulating his horn to produce a sublimely fluid and supple sound that sometimes sounds like anything but a trumpet (his meditative debut, Sakuteiki, found him imitating the sound of the shakuhachi with stunning accuracy). Most of the tracks here benefit from that malleability as they drift, roll and thunder with aerated power. Additional contributions from guitarist Helge Sten and Supersilent keyboardist Ståle Storløkken bring increased depth to the trumpeter’s gorgeously introspective improvisations. Once again, Henriksen has made music that sounds like nothing else on the planet.
Downbeat (US)

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