Molvaer, Nils Petter

Baboon Moon

Label: Thirsty Ear Country: USA

"Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer has his own very individual sound, influenced as much by the poetry of Scandinavian nature as by electronic calculation, and last but not least by colleagues like Miles Davis und Jon Hassell.

Molvaer's new album Baboon Moon marks the self- assured new start of a musician who has already travelled a long way. On his last album, "Hamada", he switched to and fro between very harmonious and extremely brutal passages, while on Baboon Moon these two opposite poles blend into a unified whole again.

In order to arrive at this point,he formed a new band. Stian Westerhus is one of Europe's most innovative, and in the meantime most sought-after guitarists. He not only plays in the post-rock band Jaga Jazzist, but also runs the industrial-improv duo Monolithic together with Motorpsycho drummer Kenneth Kapstad.

Erland Dahlen has played his way into the hearts of alternative-rock fans as drummer of the Norwegian psychoblues band Madrugada. He contributed this deep and earthy but also progressive blues feeling to Eivind Aarset's Sonic Codex Orchestra first of all, and now he brings it to Molvaer's trio. If Molvaer describes his new formation as the best band he has ever had.

Improvisation is an important factor in the trio's exploration of new soundscapes, but this music no longer has anything to do with jazz as the term is generally understood. Molvaer calls it free, black prog rock."-Thirsty Ear

"A highly original composer/stylist with the courage to radically reinvent himself." BBC "Stunning growth and unexpected directional shifts make Hamada one of Molvær's most moving and challenging records to date." AllAbout Jazz ·"He mixes his evocative landscape sound with a fiercer, even threatening quality im- parted by startling percussion eruptions and formidable resources" The Guardian UK