Arve Henriksen: Towards Language review – pushing the trumpet's sonic capacities

A veteran of the mysterious avant garde Norwegian improvisational outfit Supersilent, Arve Henriksen is a trumpeter who rarely sounds as if he’s playing the trumpet. Instead, his instrument is muted and put through various FX units to create otherworldly sounds. On Patient Zero, he plays without a mouthpiece to sound like a bamboo flute; on Vivification, his ghostly improvisations sound like they’re being played on an ocarina; on Groundswell, he sounds like he’s slowly releasing air from an inflated balloon while someone plays Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew slowed down to 16rpm.

The sonic atmosphere he creates with sample-manipulators Jan Bang and Erik Honoré can be faintly terrifying – the three of them should be given a horror movie soundtrack immediately – but also occasionally beautiful. On the final track Paridae, when Henriksen’s falsetto voice performs in tight medieval harmonies with his breathy, spittle-flecked trumpet over soft hymn-like chords, the effect is truly heavenly.