NILS PETTER MOLVÆR

Nils Petter Molvær (NPM), Norwegian trumpet player, composer and producer, connects multiple music styles – jazz, ambient, house, electronic and break beats, as well as elements from hip hop, rock and pop music – and effortlessly melts them into convincing soundscapes of deep intensity.

Born in 1960 on the little island Sula (Norway), NPM was introduced to jazz from an early age by his musician father. After playing in school bands and local clubs he left Sula in 1979 to study music at the conservatory of Trondheim, where he developed his unique style and started to gain a reputation as one of Norway’s emerging new talents.

His interest in both acoustic and electric music shows the ease with which he handles the conventions of pop, rock and funk, alongside those of modern jazz. These unique sensibilities soon established him as a much sought after musician in Oslo. After his intermezzo with the Norwegian jazz combo Masqualero, NPM was introduced to Manfred Eicher, who integrated him into his cast of musicians and studio sessions with ECM artists such as Robyn Schulkowsky.

NPM completed his debut album as a leader in 1997, “Khmer”, which focuses on a previously unknown blend of improvisation and hypnotically spinning beats, receiving extraordinary public and media response, and was honoured with the German Record Critics Award and a Norwegian Grammy. ECM for the first time in its history released singles from an album. “Khmer: The Remixes” with remixes of The Herbaliser, Mental Overdrive and Rockers Hi-Fi was released based on the success with “Khmer”.

Life’s wheels turn full circle. That is as true of artists as of other mortals. And the new album “Switch” closes a long-turning circle for Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer. Mid-Eighties, he attracted attention alongside Norwegian jazz pioneers Jon Christensen and Arild Andersen in their band Masqualero, a decade later he was busy with his band Khmer laying the foundations of the now-typical Norwegian symbiosis of jazz and electronic music. Since then Molvaer has broken new ground in countless projects, most recently on the hypnotic ambient CD “1/1” of 2013 in duo with the Berlin electronic producer Moritz von Oswald.

Molvaer finds a new musical and narrative approach on each CD, but the guiding light that shines through all his work is the search for the optimum balance between the synthetic and the organic. The new CD “Switch” marks a new climax in this continuing search. Once again, the ingenious iconoclast operates simultaneously in two worlds and on several temporal planes. His complex sounds, some electronically generated, others acoustically elaborated sonic worlds that have an uncannily electronic sound, sends him into a future of urban globalisation, while he retreats with the sound of slide guitar and his own folk-tinged improvisations into a little village remote from metropolitan life.

Molvaer has brought together pedal steel guitarist Geir Sundstol, pianist Morten Qvenild and drummer Erland Dahlen to form a new band, with the slide guitar playing a central part. “I knew from the start that I was going to use a slide guitar,” comments the trumpeter with relish. “I was on the brink of buying one from the noted Norwegian guitarist Stian Carstensen myself. Then events took a different course. I’ve known Geir Sundstol for many years. He is one of Norway’s most in-demand musicians and was really keen to work with us on this. When he began to play, I was enchanted by his sound from the start and knew I had to make this album. I’m not so much in search of my inner reservations on this record as I was on earlier albums. I’m more interested in finding the right way to package particular things. This disc is more peaceful. Perhaps I’m mellowing with age.”

Nils Petter Molvaer took one giant step to retrieve his own personality from the past and set out with new energy into the future.

Switch will be released on March 28, 2014, immediately followed by a European tour. March 28 also marks the re-release of a major part of Nils Petter Molvaer’s back catalogue exclusively on Okeh: Recoloured, NP3, Streamer, ER, Remakes and Re-Vision.