Nils Petter Molvaer: Be Quiet // Daniel Lanois: Belladonna Nocturne
If Khmer was like a train pulling you into the future – Be Quiet invites the listener to contemplation. Economy is present in both instrumentation and in the overall mix, keeping the intentional tone restrained. The album sees Nils Petter Molvær exploring new territories with an album serving as a companion for lonely nights.
The title setting the parameter for this journey of stillness through restraint which is considerably present throughout its 48 minutes run time. Where other albums in his catalogue share a more rhythmic focus, this album compromises a more sparse and intimate identity.
The album brings together nine carefully selected artists. Recordings covering eight major cities around Europe and South-East Asia. From Copenhagen, Bangkok and London to Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Amsterdam. Be Quiet is accompanied by a documentary directed by celebrated Norwegian filmmaker and photographer, Per Maning and have been shown at festivals around Europe this summer.
Nils Petter wanted to explore different musical cultures and had invited musicians he admired for 3–4-hour recording sessions. Some of these recordings took place in professional studios. Others were captured at the respective artists private home studios. The goal was to together create a thing of beauty.
The album deals with textures, harmony and above all Nils Petter´s ability as a strong melodic improviser to establish just the right mood for each of the nine pieces. It is economical in a sense that it contains just a few elements, leaving space for you as a listener to fill in the gaps with your own thoughts and emotions. A companion at nighttime before entering dreamland. That moment where you are partly awake and partly asleep.
City of treasures. Bangkok sunset (photo: Jan Bang)
Bangkok – Chang Jing
The Chao Phraya River runs through the busy port of Thailand where Nils Petter met with Guzheng player Chang Jing for a recording session at the Triangle Wave Eco studio. The albums opening track demonstrates a brilliant interplay where ancient eastern tradition meets northern sensibility. Guzheng is a Chinese plucked string instrument and a distant cousin to the Japanese Koto.
The mix is simple with small treatments creating a special room for the Guzheng giving it a distinct, edgy sound. Months later while touring South-East Asia – Nils Petter, Eivind Aarset and I travelled down the pulsating river to visit the Wat Saket temple.
Rome – Martux M
The recording took place at Forum Studio in Rome. Founded by Ennio Morricone and home of electronic artist Maurizio Martusciello, known as Martux_M. Reducing the percussive elements in the mix to a bare minimum gave the piece a strong character. Small LFO-treatments on the original trumpet recordings, creating space for new harmonized trumpet overdubs done at Punkt studio in Kristiansand. “Rome” is perhaps the most accessible piece on the album. I think of it as a possible soundtrack to an unseen sci-fi film.
Miki Yui
Dusseldorf – Miki Yui
Build from small, sampled sounds, field recordings, synthesizer and trumpet – this track is minimal in the electronic sense of the word. The trumpet serves as a narrative guide moving in-between the abstract surroundings created by Miki Yui. Certain small noises were carefully placed in separate lo-fi rooms to add more colours to the overall mix. The trumpet is dry and up close as if sitting next to the listener. Subtle, intimate and daring.
Japanese electronic musician Miki Yui uses field recordings, synthesizers and samplers as sound generators. Yui will by invitation from musician and writer David Toop, give a lecture and a mini performance as part of the Punkt Festival in Kristiansand on September 3.
Copenhagen – Marilyn Mazur
A two-part meditation with Marilyn playing the celestial high- pitched bells over strings and harmonized trumpet in part one. An outtake from a former theatre piece, Nils Petter played it to Marilyn who loved it and responded instantly without further suggestions. The second part is where Marilyn is actively playing through her arsenal of percussion instruments. Timpani mallets touching skin, softly.
For decades Marilyn had been working closely with Norwegian musicians including Garbarek, Molvær, Aarset, Kleive, Wesseltoft, and Hildegunn Øiseth to name just a few. Future Song was perhaps the longest living of her many projects. Spirit Cave another. It started as a duo of Marilyn and me. The trumpet players varied from Per Jørgensen, Nils Petter and Palle Mikkelborg. With Eivind Aarset onboard, the quartet was active for a few years performing at festivals around Europe.
Marilyn had been battling cancer for a year. By the time we started mixing, the cancer had reached its final stages, and she had accepted the inevitable: “I´ve had seventy good years. I was hoping for another ten, but this is what I was given” she told Nils Petter a few days before passing.
Stills from the Be Quiet documentary by Per Maning
Hackney, London – Imogen Heap
The second track Nils Petter sent me was a recording he had done with singer Imogen Heap at the artist´s home studio in Hackney, London. This piece includes Nils´trumpet playing and Imogen´s body movements with custom made gloves triggering pitch shifters, stuttering vocal fx, reverb and loops.
The performance showed great promise. I thought it needed a few more colours and added my sound design to the mix. Further treatments shaped the mix into a multi-layered, organic soundscape.
Finsbury Park – John Paul Jones
The first recording Nils sent me was from a recording session with legendary bassist John Paul Jones that took place at Finsbury Park in London. Initially I had made a full-blown piece based on one of the improvisations but later disregarded it as it fell out of place for the album´s overall atmosphere.
Among the recorded material from Finsbury Park, Nils suggested to have a closer look at a piano/trumpet improvisation that might add another colour to the album. A lovely little tune appeared with John sitting behind the grand piano and Nils on trumpet. You can hear the vulnerable notes at the beginning of the piece. A sloppy note giving a human touch to the improvisation. It would have been an easy task to adjust it using the right software, but without a good enough reason for adjusting, we decided to leave it the way it initially was performed.
I met John at a three -day Scene Norway celebration at the opening week at Kings Place in end of the noughties. Tim Elsenburg (of Sweet Billy Pilgrim) shared management (Opium Arts) at the time with John who came together with his manager Adrian Molloy and Yuka Fujii, Sylvian´s creative partner. Together we hung out listening to concerts and the live remixes. John returned on the second day for more music. I invited him to Punkt in Kristiansand where he came the following year with his lovely wife, Mo. John shared stage with Supersilent and made friends with several Norwegian colleagues including Nils Petter, Helge Sten, Ståle Storløkken and Arve Henriksen.
Alva Noto & Nils Petter Molvær performing at Punkt 2024. (Alf Solbakken)
Berlin – Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto
Recorded in few hours at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin where Bowie did some of his most ambitious work. Carsten´s focus on detailed programming and sound design leaving enough space for the trumpet to unfold. The mix was done by Carsten himself. I did an edit for the album version.
Nils Petter Molvær and Soheil Shayesteh performing at Punkt 2024 (Alf Solbakken)
Amsterdam – Soheil Shayesteh
This piece was recorded and mixed at Iranian Kamancheh player Soheil Shayesteh´s apartment in Amsterdam. Using his electronic set up allowing unpredictability, the performance fuses the Kamancheh with live processing in real time dialogue with Nils.
Münich – Anja Lechner
The recording with cellist and ECM artist Anja Lechner took place at an old church in Munich. Using two additional spaces in the church as reverb tools gave the flexibility during the mixing process. The full frequency spectre of Lechner´s cello comes through the mix with pure clarity. The Munich church performance captured an outstanding performance by Nils Petter and the share beauty of one of Europe´s finest cellists.
Be Quiet is dedicated in loving memory of Marilyn Mazur.
written by Jan Bang
The 14 original compositions are all, as the title suggests, presented as “night pieces,” but who says they’re all soothing!? Better not to say so. Nor should one trust certain terms that are constantly trotted out whenever this famous producer and musician releases an instrumental album: “ambient,” or, the latest trend, “Ambient Americana.” These are, without exception, narrow-minded labels—clichés that reduce everything that is sound to a meditative experience, to calmness. Things are quite different on “Belladonna Nocturne,” and that’s not solely due to Brian Blade’s drumming flourishes and variable meters: every single composition is a dramaturgically polyphonic, at the very least ambiguous experience, blessed with pitfalls, insights, breaks, clearings, lightnings, apparitions of noir, surges, and unpredictable nuances. Let’s please avoid the word “atmospheric”! To let this concentrated work simply rush by gracefully would be a mistake and a bit exhausting. Like with Nils Petter’s „Be Quiet“, it’s best to dim the lights, sharpen your senses, and set off on a very special journey!
written by Michael Engelbrecht