Arve Henriksen - Places of Worship

Award-winning Norwegian trumpet-player Arve Henriksen is a shamanic virtuoso; the beatific call of his horn’s hushed, shakuhachi-influenced timbre mirrored in the siren ethereality of his angelic singing voice. Whether summoning Miles Davis-inspired lyricism from the beguiling audio-viruses of long-time avant-garde improvisers Supersilent, or dealing in refined fourth-world seductions across an incredible series of solo albums dating back to 2001’s Sakuteiki, his art is instantly recognisable and totally irresistible. With twinned instruments harmonising to connote splendid visions of awe-inspiring landscapes, the effect is both wondrously real and fantastically oneiric.

Nowhere are these conjuring gifts more conspicuous than on Places of Worship, where the liminal spaces between spiritual and physical worlds – found among the relics and remnants of various religious sites and buildings – become the inspiration for a remarkable sequence of mesmeric tone poems. Backed by contributions from an all-star Scandinavian cast, including regular conspirators Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, Places of Worship is a poignant modern-day liturgy. It is lushly alive with craftily-nuanced chiaroscuro and haunting atmospheres, contemplative of a universal spirituality transcending borders and cultural boundaries.

The opening “Adhān” finds Henriksen accompanying a particularly chirpy avian choir with breathy flute-like rasps. A transfigured Islamic call to prayer and morning songbirds combine on a summons pregnant with sacred reverence. Correspondences between the divine and creation’s physical gifts are explored further on pieces such as “Saraswati”, “Alhambra” (boasting some moody rippling acoustic arpeggios courtesy of guitarist Eivind Aarset) and the ominous ‘Bayon’. Eddying sluices of burbling electronics, synth-bass driven grooves and barely-there percussive patter cede here to sudden, devastatingly effective chord changes. Here, this opens up soporific zones for ritualistic communion and inviting personal contemplation. This is without plateauing into the new age over-sentimentality which just occasionally blights Henriksen’s more saccharine work. Pockets of near-silence freight presentiments of benevolence and bliss, as his zephyrs of whispering brass emanate in distant echoes of Davis’ Sketches of Spain and Jon Hassell’s Vernal Equinox.

Yet, for all its expertly-webbed membranes of stuttering circuitry,  hypnotic Middle-Eastern-accented dub throbs and sweeping string samples, it’s the human voice which provides Places of Worship’s standout moments. A jittering mirage of Fennesz-like drones undulates gently beneath Henriksen’s stunning choirboy soprano on “Lament”. It casts the mind’s eye to the spectacular Nordic vistas depicted in Johan Christian Dahl’s romantic panoramas and Knut Hamsun’s most scenic prose, complemented by soaring trumpet that stirs up dramatic images of mountain peaks, rolling hills, rugged coastlines and chasmic glacial fjords. 

But best of all is “Shelter from the Storm”. Explored here are the complexities of desire, and the need for meaning and human connection in an increasingly confusing world. This is all captured in Honoré’s world-weary serenade, recanting Henriksen’s painfully poignant lyrics in tones reminiscent of David Sylvian (another regular Henriksen collaborator), as plaintive brass sobs imploringly over a piano’s minimalist refrain. Such depth and intensity is prevalent throughout Places of Worship, which despite its surfeit of surface sweetness, asks so many profoundly important, deeply spiritual questions. The closing hymnal is a fittingly philosophical amen to this beguiling fusion of the sacred and secular.