Towards Language is the second album released by trumpeter/composer Arve Henriksen in 2017. The first, Rímur, was a collaborative experimental effort with Trio Mediæval on ECM. While Henriksen has become a familiar presence on that label, Rune Grammofon is the home of eight of his nine solo albums. Here he reteams with longtime sonic collaborators Erik Honoré and Jan Bang --who assisted on his albums Chiaroscuro (2004), Cartography (2008), and Places of Worship (2013) -- and guitarist/sonic architect Eivind Aarset. (The latter two also played with him on Tigran Hamsayan's Atmosphères.) Henriksen's solo approach has always been deliberately slow; because of his loose embouchure, each note is the result of intense concentration and emotional openness bordering on fragility. He is unrelenting when it comes to expanding the tonal and textural palettes of his horn. "Patient Zero," at just over two minutes, is a haunting, elegiac melody above Aarset's seamless chord articulations. "Groundswell" emerges even more haltingly before strummed electric guitar, dirgelike handclaps, and a synth bassline and drone offer a delicious, warm rhythmic backdrop to seduce the listener. When he solos, Henriksen pushes directly at the rhythm section members; his bamboo flute-inspired phrasing increases in force intuitively to give them a broader surface as they all increase the volume and tension. He winds through and around them, using his voice through the horn to moan and cry, without losing the sense of restraint. As a result, it's more exotic than anything on Jon Hassell's pioneering Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics.

1		Patient Zero
2		Groundswell
3		Towards Language
4		Demarcation Line
5		Transitory
6		Hibernal
7		Realign
8		Vivification
9		Paridae

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