Strjon

AMG Review of Strjon

Ned Raggett
All Music Guide

If Arve Henriksen's latest album had appeared on ECM, nobody would bat an eye, but Strjon's release on Rune Grammofon is no surprise either, and not only because of the Norwegian trumpeter/keyboardist's previous efforts on that label. In its own low-key way, Rune Grammofon has assumed a strong position as a home of experimental work that touches on various permutations of the electronic avant-garde in Scandinavia, and Strjon, Henriksen's third release for the label, continues this reputation. The music is a combination of old and new, drawing in part on Henriksen's initial recordings as a teenager in the town of Stryn, but then re-recorded and reworked more recently by the trumpeter and two collaborators, keyboardist Stale Storlřkken and guitarist Helge Sten. The resultant mix has both obvious roots perhaps reflective of the younger Henriksen's listening -- Miles Davis and Chet Baker are partial role models to be sure, though hardly the sole reference points -- and more involved collages at play, as can be heard in the unsettled chopped-up loops of "Black Mountain." Here, flecks of Henriksen's trumpet become the fragmentary basis for a crumbled rhythm overlaid first by elegant string synths and then heavy Kraut/prog keyboard snarls. Elsewhere, everything from church organ hymns ("Ancient and Accepted Rite," which as a title for such a piece can't be beat) to dark ambient chill (the title track, a cold rise and fall of droning sound that could easily be a Mick Harris piece in miniature) appears. The whole album is a testimony to controlled and careful elegance without simply being an undifferentiated wash of sound, but on a song like "Green Water," where Henriksen's trumpet softly moves over an irregular electronic rhythm that's part gamelan gone utterly minimal, part Ryuichi Sakamoto circa 1984, it's simply breathtaking.