Those who only know Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen from his work in the experimental trio Supersilent—with Helge Sten aka Deathprod and Ståle Storløkken—will not be surprised by the ambient proximity of the album »Touch Of Time«. Henriksen recorded the album as a duo with Dutch pianist Harmen Fraanje, with whom he has been playing regularly for several years. The two musicians embark on lyrical, dialogical explorations of the possibilities of trumpet and piano that refuse to be pigeon-holed as »jazz«.
Sometimes one leads, sometimes the other. This is music that caresses the ears like a gentle breeze, but is pulled out of the zone of pure euphony by deliberately placed dissonances and subtly underlaid electronic effects. The result is a musical impressionism that, on the one hand, confirms the cliché of the cool, Nordic sound with which ECM has always been associated, but which makes up only a small part of the label’s repertoire. On the other hand, the album is further evidence of the turn towards more introspective, atmospheric sounds that has been observed across all adventurous genres in recent years.
