Baboon Moon Nils Petter Molvær

“The popular Norwegian ambient-music trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer is partnered here by Jaga Jazzist guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Stian Westerhus and alt-rock drummer Erland Dahlen. Thus Baboon Moon is more 21st-century prog-rock rather than jazz but improvisers’ sensibilities have shaped it. Molvaer’s pure, whispering high notes, soft trills and slow-building distortions mix with deep-pulsing grooves and rising tom-tom storms on the brooding Mercury Heart. Elsewhere, beseeching brass lines call frantically across brutal drumguitar barrages, tremulous cooings caress falsetto ascents, and the title track cushions the leader’s stealthy phrasing with synthed orchestral sounds that build to a threatening guitar-powered climax. The line between ambient jazz and anonymous background music is a fine one, but Molvaer’s beautiful sound and musicianly sensibilities keep things creative.” - John Fordham, The Guardian