DANIEL HERSKEDAL - Out Of The Fog

If silence were music, what sound would it have? Over time, there have been many answers, from John Cage to Miles Davis, from Max Richter to Talk Talk. Every so often — and it must be said, quite rarely — a new path is added to the inventory: this year it's that of Daniel Herskedal and Emilie Nicolas, a magic poised between jazz, folk and the singer-songwriter tradition.

“Out Of The Fog” is an album born in Norway but one that travels far. Daniel Herskedal's bass tuba has long been on the move between the lands of the Levant and the valleys of Lapland; the landscapes explored by Emilie Nicolas's voice, on the other hand, have so far had more to do with synthetic worlds and urban horizons. The encounter could have led them anywhere, but, aided by their two travelling companions, Eivind Aarset and Helge Norbakken, it ended up carrying them into a bubble outside time and space, an intimate and all-encompassing dimension in which their usual stylistic directions interpenetrate to generate something unique.
It's an atypical alchemy among the four musicians, with an instrument that's often underappreciated — the bass tuba — alternating with the flugelhorn with no hint of attention-seeking, while the guitar moves discreetly behind the scenes, carving out that role as weaver of atmospheres which has long been Aarset's stylistic trademark. Voice and drums thus remain in the foreground, but here too the parts are unconventional: Nicolas's presence tiptoes in, a slender voice matched by masterful expressive control; Norbakken's rhythmic layers, meanwhile, broaden the sound with a multitude of percussion, leaving the steady chime of the cymbals as a distant echo of nostalgia.

The ten tracks on the album conjure up a wealth of suggestions, from the trumpet echoes of silence masters Fresu, Henriksen and Molvær (all of whom, incidentally, have recorded with Aarset) to echoes of other places and other eras, whether it's Hassellian fourth worlds or forays between David Sylvian and the new age sounds concocted a few decades ago at Materiali Sonori.
If the languid call-and-response of "Out There" is the most effective gateway into the album's mood, the driving 7/8 of "Free" is the moment of greatest melodic immediacy, with Herskedal's bass lines wedging themselves beneath Nicolas's voice, which is indeed looser than ever on the chorus.

There's no point in attempting a rundown of the standout tracks: "Out Of The Fog" is one of those cases where every listen seems to yield a different set of favorites. It's perhaps better to point out the technical peculiarities of individual tracks, like the use of quarter tones that colors the harmonies of "Uneven Terrain" and makes it the most overtly Middle Eastern section. Or the polyrhythmic constructions of "Tundra", which seem to drop you into the middle of a Nik Bärtsch sequence before the electronic cathedrals erected by Aarset send the track veering off down an entirely different tangent.

Yet another testament to the vitality of the Norwegian jazz scene, this collaboration is anything but a work for insiders only. Its instantly gripping sound could in fact serve as an entry point into the varied output of the artists involved. Live events in our country currently seem unlikely, but anyone wishing to experience the project in a live setting shouldn't miss the video recording of the concert held in Norway this past May at the Stavanger jazz festival: the audio quality isn't top-notch, but the quartet's synergy comes through with full intensity.

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02/12/2022