Recording of the Week, Daniel Herskedal & Emilie Nicolas, 'Out of the Fog'

Pictured: Emilie Nicolas & Daniel Herskedal (Photo by Sara Teresa)

Norwegian tubist Daniel Herskedal has been cultivating a unique musical world of his own for quite some time now. Besides bringing the unlikely instruments of the tuba and bass trumpet into leading jazz combo roles, his genre-defying approach has him pushing the boundaries of his chosen instruments while exploring new, vivid sonic territories that straddle classical, jazz, soundtrack music and now even pop. From early, more jazz-oriented releases like 2015’s Slow Eastbound Train and even 2019’s Harbour, to the multi-layered solo performances of 2020’s Call for Winter, Herskedal’s catalogue is truly one-of-a-kind in jazz circles. For his latest project, he’s collaborating with Emilie Nicolas, a singer-songwriter (and fellow Norwegian) and pop artist with more of an electronic-leaning sound, while she’s equally been cited as drawing inspiration from jazz vocalists herself. The pair’s resulting project, Out of the Fog, is out now on Edition Records’ genreless ‘E2’ imprint.

(Photo credit: E2)

The pair’s collaboration actually came about after Herskedal heard Nicolas cover his tune ‘The Mistral Noir’, originally a piece for multi-tracked bass trumpet on Slow Eastbound Train, and was commissioned as part of the Trondheim Jazz Festival and Molde Jazz Festival in 2021. For the studio recording, they also enlisted the help of guitarist Eivind Aarset and drummer Helge Andreas Norbakken, the latter of whom is a regular in Herskedal’s jazz groups while Aarset is a legend of Norwegian left-field jazz circles in his own right – check out our review for his excellent 2021 album Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey here. The sound palette for Out of the Fog – complementing its minimalistic yet evocative album art – is lush yet understated, with the compositions themselves often structured around Aarset’s ambient guitar swells or Herskedal’s trademark multi-part horn arrangements, and with his careful breath control never bringing out the full blaring sound of his brass instruments his parts can sometimes have quite an ambiguous sound to them.

Norbakken, too, keeps things remarkably low-key throughout Out of the Fog, sometimes little more than a low-end kick and lightly accented percussion. Aarset’s electric six-string parts also add an occasional edge to Herskedal’s tunes, like the light bluesy swing on ‘I’ll Sleep Later On’ or syncopated rhythms on ‘Found’. Herskedal’s compositions have always had a somewhat lyrical quality to them, and with Nicolas’ vocal contributions they’re only elevated; the solemn opener ‘Out Here’ starts out in misty territories, with Nicolas’ vocals coming in to begin guiding the listener through the piece as the arrangement opens up.

Even with this decidedly obscure set of sounds things are anything but monotone – listen on the second track ‘Lost’, which climaxes as Nicolas reaches up through her register and the three instrumentalists accompany her with equal energy. ‘Found’, too, features Nicolas’ stratospheric vocal melodies and Herskedal’s trumpet lines wrapped tastefully in a thick layer of reverb, ringing out like a foghorn. There are a couple of instrumental cuts too; little more than some wordless vocal lines appear on the lumbering and earthy ‘Uneven Terrain’, while ‘Tundra’ appears later in the tracklist as a more urgent, cinematic number.

Herskedal is described as the mastermind behind Out of the Fog, and for sure his fingerprints are all over these tunes as he continues to push the limits of his chosen low-end-heavy instruments, while Nicolas’ ostensibly pop-heavy style feels more than at home in the washes of aethereal sounds. A record like Out of the Fog doesn’t release every day; deeply impressionistic and atmospheric instrumentals coupled with surprisingly earwormy choruses, it simultaneously makes for a unique entry in both Daniel Herskedal and Emilie Nicolas’ respective catalogues.