ECM Records
released trumpeter/composer
Nils Petter Molvær
's
Khmer
in 1997. A radical aesthetic move for the label, it was also successful, helping to pioneer the use of electronica in jazz. In 2023, the Vossa Jazz Festival commissioned the trumpeter to revisit the album live. The concert took place on May 25, 2024, at Nattjazz, in Bergen. Original guitarist/electronicist
Eivind Aarset
and drummer
Rune Arnesen
reprise their original roles here alongside
Jan Bang
's live sampling,
Auden Erlien
's bass, and additional drummer
Per Lindvall
with programming by
DJ Strangefruit
's (
Pål Nyhus
). These musicians have all been collaborators for decades and perform as a seasoned ensemble.
Despite the title this is not an exact re-creation of
. This set includes four of its tunes, four from 2000's
Solid Ether
, and a 2020s composition. From
they perform "Song of Sand" "Tion," "Platonic Years," and "On Stream." Its "Song of Sand" introduces the evening with thudding tom-tom and kickdrum loops,
Erlien
's foreboding, circular bassline, a trap kit, live and sampled trumpet, and
Aarset
's outer space guitar. The circular beat and dubwise production offer a labyrinthian, brooding dreamscape that travels across eight minutes. "Platonic Years" offers a jazzy guitar vamp under drums, a soloing bass, and layered electronics. The vibe recalls
David Sylvian
's early solo experiments as dialogue between trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums asserts itself to become a jam with canny improvisation. "Solid Ether" and three other performances here are drawn from the 2000 album of the same title. The sparse, intimate ballad "Kakonita" reveals the breadth and complexity in
Molvær
's lyric economy.
Jon Hassell
is the muse behind "Ligotage." Its fourth world approach is wedded to thick, sinister dub (think
Bill Laswell
remixing
King Tubby
) in which
's solo playing moves directly into the bassline and the trumpeter's sparse fragments and phrases.
Bang
pours his samples into the mix adding color, space, and texture. "Vilderness" joins space funk to fusion and groove with sharply articulated guitar and trumpet lines. While "Solid Ether" is funkier, rising from a palette of colorful electronic expressions that push toward neo-psychedelia, "Tiøn" spends the first few of its nearly 13 minutes exploring spatial abstraction before articulating a minimal folk melody. A sampled marimba traverses the shifting density before the band pick up steam in an abstract collision of EDM, roiling funk (driven by
's bass playing), and psychedelic jazz fusion. Set closer "Maja" is a gorgeous, melodic read of the opening track from 2023's
Certainty of Tides
recorded by
with the
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
. It winds open country atmospherics via guitar and trumpet into humid, amorphous electronic colors and a mantra-like bassline.
Khmer Live in Bergen
reveals the timelessness in
's compositions and musical approach. While abstract, nocturnal, and borderline free, it's also warm, focused, and alluringly speculative. ~ Thom Jurek