J. Peter Schwalm & Arve Henriksen

“Neuzeit”

(RareNoise Records RNR125)

J. Peter Schwalm – pianos, electronics, programming
Arve Henriksen – trumpets, percussion, voices

“Neuzeit” is a duo collaboration between the German electro-acoustic musician and composer J.Peter Schwalm and the celebrated Norwegian trumpeter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Arve Henriksen.

It is Henriksen’s name that will probably be best known to jazz audiences thanks to his lengthy tenure with the Norwegian electro-improvising group Supersilent, of which he was a founder member. He has also enjoyed a highly successful parallel solo career, releasing a series of ten albums under his own name in association with both the ECM and Rune Grammofon labels.

He was also a founder member of Food, originally a quartet but in recent years an electro-acoustic duo featuring the Anglo-Norwegian pairing of Iain Ballamy (saxes and electronics) and Thomas Stronen (drums and electronics) and their guests.

Henriksen is also in huge demand as a sideman and collaborator. These include successful alliances with the Norwegian female vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval and with the Birmingham based electronic duo Dreams of Tall Buildings.

The list of musicians and bands with whom Henriksen has worked is wide ranging and genuinely impressive and embraces a variety of musical genres. It’s fair to say that Henriksen has developed a unique musical voice on the trumpet and this diverse list is a tribute to his distinctiveness, adaptability and intelligence. The names include;
Jon Balke, Marilyn Mazur, Nils Petter Molvaer, Arild Andersen, Dhafer Youssef, David Sylvian, Jon Hassell, Laurie Anderson, John Paul Jones, Gavin Briars, Ryuichi Sakomoto, Bill Frisell, Terje Rypdal, Maria Schneider, Christian Fennesz, Eivind Aarset, Lars Danielsson, Sinikka Langeland, Gonimoblast and Jaga Jazzist.

Meanwhile Schwalm, based in Frankfurt, is the founder of the electro-jazz ensemble Projekt Slop Shop, a group that caught the ear of Brian Eno and resulted in a six year duo partnership between Eno and Schwalm. The pair released the album “Drawn From Life” and also composed the music for Nicolas Winding Refn’s film “Fear X”. They performed well received concerts in Europe and Japan and also worked together on a sound installation on the Spanish island of Lanzarote.

As a solo artist Schwalm has released the albums “Musikain” (2006), “The Beauty of Disaster” (2016) and “How We Fall” (2018), the last two of these appearing on RareNoise. “How We Fall” unflinchingly documents Schwalm’s experiences as a brain cancer patient.

He has also collaborated with the electro-jazz trio Chat Noir on their RareNoise albums “Thoughts For One Word” and “Hyperuranion”.

For a number of years Schwalm has been one of the remix artists at the Punktfestival, a gathering of experimental musicians that is held annually in Kristiansand, Norway. It was at the second such event in 2006 that Schwalm and Henriksen first met and the pair have often discussed the possibility of collaborating together on a duo project.

This eventually came to fruition in 2020, but with the collaborative process inevitably affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In effect the album is a direct product of lockdown. Schwalm began writing the compositions for the album in February 2020, but it soon became apparent that he and Henriksen would be unable to go into the studio to record the album in a conventional sense.

Instead the collaboration took place via telephone conversations and the submission of musical files by e-mail. Once the individual performances were recorded Schwalm hunkered down in his home studio to assemble, edit and mix the finished product.

“My idea was to offer Arve ideas that might inspire him to step into a territory where neither of us have ventured before” explains Schwalm.
He continues; “After some conversations on the phone we narrowed it down to a basic idea. Our starting point was rather formal and orchestral. It was quite formal, but at the same time a very creative working process. I soon realised that Arve is a really fast and creative performer and co-composer”.

Schwalm also says of his collaborator;
“When I saw Arve performing for the first time at Punktfestival I didn’t know him and I was absolutely amazed by his natural musical drive. He IS music. The way that the instruments he plays and his voice melt into such a unique sound is just stunning”.

These thoughts have doubtless been shared by many audience members across the globe.

The album title, “Neuzeit” (literally ‘new time’) is a reflection of the circumstances in which the work was recorded. “‘Neuzeit’ reflects the time of change after a crash” explains Schwalm. “The cards are remixed again, changes in any direction are possible. There are chances to get things right again, to re-arrange them. But of course, there is always a dark side in everything”.

The title, with its theme of ‘remixing’, also ties in nicely with the Punkt aesthetic, but the term “Neuzeit” has also been used to apply to the ‘modern era’, which began in the 16th century and marked the rise of Western Civilisation.

“I always felt that the right moment and the right basic idea to start with would come when the time was right”, says Schwalm, throwing yet another light on the title.

Although Schwalm talks of “compositions” the pieces are credited “Directions in Music by J. Peter Schwalm”, suggesting that the basic idea or shape came from the German, but that ultimately the creative process was very much a co-operative effort, with improvisation a vital component of the finished product.

The title of the opening “Blutezeit” (a composite word that references ‘bluten’ the German word for ‘blooming’ or ‘flowers’) was chosen to represent “something emerging and growing”. Schwalm’s electronics combine with the acoustically derived sounds of piano, snare drum and Henriksen’s flute like trumpet, to create a kind of electro-acoustic hybrid. In his role of producer Schwalm treats the acoustic sounds, skilfully integrating them into an electronic soundscape that perceptibly darkens as the music gathers momentum, with electronically generated pulses creating an increasingly ominous and threatening atmosphere as the music gathers momentum. It represents a promising start and sees the two musicians developing and cementing an effective creative partnership.

“Suchzeit” again features the feathery, flute like sounds of Henriksen’s trumpet, augmented by sounds that resemble resemble rushing surf. Schwalm also adds electronic elements that provide both texture and rhythm, with Henriksen’s percussion also contributing to the latter. At times the music sounds almost ‘oriental’, with splashes of melody bringing a ‘spiritual’, Zen like quality to the music. The title refers to a search for reasons and answers, so appropriate in these troubled times, with the duo at least seeming to reach some kind of musical resolution by the end of the piece.

The title track commences with percussive noises intended to replicate the sound of tentative footsteps. Acoustic piano is delicately woven into this soundscape, alongside electronics, breathy trumpet and finally Henriksen’s vocal incantations, part muezzin wail, part Sami joik. As his voice subsides Schwalm’s electronica becomes more harsh and abrasive, augmented by the sounds of percussion and trumpet. The plaintive tones of Henriksen’s trumpet solo help to consolidate the mood of ambiguity that pervades the piece as a whole, the music intended to depict the theme of
“radical change driven by world events”, a process that could variously construed as either “threatening or promising”. Damir Tomas’ cover photograph is also intended to convey a similar sense of ambiguity.

The music of the fourth piece, “Raumzeit”, is intended to suggest “a place of reflection and peace, whether physical or mental”. Acoustic piano combines with a breathy trumpet sound to create an atmosphere that is simultaneously restful and melancholic, with electronics simulating the sound of rain on an imaginary window. There’s a sense of being in a warm, safe place, but of staring out at a cold and inhospitable world, a pretty common feeling in the West during this current lockdown. The patter of snare drum and other percussion helps to move the music along and prevent it becoming becalmed.

Schwalm has described “Schonzeit” as “the pause between the onset and the finale of a Big Bang”.  The mournful ring of Henriksen’s trumpet combines with Schwalm’s soundwashes to create a suitably spacey atmosphere, with the ominous rumble of percussion suggesting some kind of forthcoming apocalypse. The cadences towards the close resemble a kind of cosmic “Last Post”.

The title of “Unzeit” means “wrong time”, a quality expressed via the dissonances of Schwalm’s acoustic piano, the halting clank of percussion and eerie theremin like noises. Henriksen’s trumpet weaves its way in and out of these desolate soundscapes on this chilly but evocative ‘miniature’.  At a little under four minutes in duration it’s comfortably the shortest track on the album.

The title of “Wellenzeit” refers to the cyclical nature of time and again replicates the sound of surf and waves to make its point. Henriksen’s trumpet at first evokes the sound of the Japanese flute the shakuhachi as it combines with the sounds of piano, electronics and percussion. The Norwegian later adopts a relatively more conventional trumpet sound as the music builds to an anthemic, wide-screen opulence, reaching a fidgety peak before fading away once more with a repeat of an earlier theme.

The title of the closing “Zeitnah” simply means “soon” and features the duo at their most stark and lyrical, with a combination of acoustic piano, softly brooding trumpet and a soupçon of subtle electronic embellishment. Henriksen’s trumpet playing is beautiful in its vulnerability as the duo deliver their message of hope for the future, however fragile that hope may appear to be.

On first listening “Neuzeit” might appear to be a superficially pretty and soothing ‘ambient’ album, but it’s a recording that reveals hidden depths with subsequent visits. As alluded to previously it’s fair to say that Henriksen has developed a unique approach to the trumpet and that he developed a distinctive sound that is very much his own, simultaneously wild and beautiful. As the architect of the music here Schwalm has utilised these qualities brilliantly, encouraging Henriksen’s creativity and weaving the Norwegian’s distinctive sounds into his own artfully assembled sonic landscape.  It’s a highly effective creative partnership, with Henriksen, the virtuoso musician, combining with Schwalm, the painter in sound, to create music that is both soothing and unsettling, a soundtrack for its time, but also somehow timeless.

It’s not a jazz record in the conventional sense but Henriksen’s many admirers will find much to enjoy here. It’s also an album that is likely to appeal to fans of David Sylvian, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and other musicians at the jazz / ambient end of the rock spectrum.

 

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