CCMusic.com

In a world where being loud seems to be the only ticket for attention, Arve Henriksen has somewhat quietly and without much ado established himself as an important, major player on the European jazz scene. In his 20 years with Rune Grammofon counting 11 solo albums (including one for ECM) and 12 albums with Supersilent (including two for Smalltown Supersound), in addition to four albums with Food as well as numerous collaborations, far too many to mention here. During these years he has also performed quite extensively in Europe, in later years being more choose-y, often preferring more unique venues and locations. Consisting of unreleased material from around ten years back and up until 2019, The Timeless Nowhere is not a compilation in the traditional sense, but can still be seen as a career overview including many facets of his work, at the same time portraying an artist on an unstoppable quest for discovery through exploration. Indeed, these are also four individual albums that could easily have justified separate releases, but at this stage in Arve's artistic journey it also made perfect sense to assemble them as a box set. The common denominator is about inspiration drawn from composers, collaborators, new discoveries and more specifically; spontaneous interaction with other musicians without other purposes than the music itself. No talk, no demands, no intentions, no explaining; just music in a timeless nowhere. "Captured Under Mountainsides" points to the wild landscape scenery of the area where Arve grew up in the western part of Norway; overwhelming and often strikingly beautiful, but also isolated and with a sense of melancholy. "Acousmograph" is Arve on his own, inspired by compositions and musicians, more experimental in nature and partly based on sketch recordings in odd locations. "Cryosphere" is a co-production with long-time collaborator Jan Bang re-modelling material from a series of evolving concert performances. "Towards Language - Live At Punkt" could be seen as a departure from Arve´s usual approach, but at the same time it´s not. This is not a static run through - Arve would never allow that - but rather the kind of re-imagining process that is such a vital part of his music making.