Khmer [Original recording reissued]

Nils Petter Molvaer | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 15, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B000024UM7
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,347 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With his flourishes of electric guitar, samplers, and drum machines, Nils Petter Molvaer will draw obvious comparisons to another jazz trumpeter dabbling in dance--Ben Neill--on Khmer. Despite the lineup similarities, Molvaer's sound is unique--samples are used in a subtle, sparse convention, giving this disc a noir-ish feel; beats kick in but never overpower his snaking trumpet solos. Perhaps this disc's secret is the trademark wide-open sound of his label--ECM--or maybe just Molvaer's hypnotic style, which at times harks back to Miles Davis-cool, mystic chamber-music minimalism, and the smoothness of trip-hop. A limited-edition bonus CD contains remixes from the Herbaliser, Mental Overdrive, and Rockers Hi-Fi and is an added treat. In the hands of all three dance crews, the tunes condense, the beats get thicker, and Molvaer's squeaks and solos season the groove. Great stuff. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atmospheric mélange, October 24, 2003

By 

liberty janus (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Khmer (Audio CD)

Suffused with deep atmosphere, this is a brilliant and seamless mélange of musical vocabularies that broadly expand the jazz palette for an intensely expressive ride. This would likely qualify as an experimental effort if it weren't so mature and fully realized. There are other artists incorporating breakbeats, electronica, world, and ambient into a jazz context, but few creating such an atmospheric environment. And in the electronica genre only the best artists achieve the depth of expression almost effortlessly offered here. Superficially unlike most previous ECM label releases (the label that has so consistently offered uniquely magnificent music for so many years) this is really quintessential ECM stuff. There's a kind of somber introspection throughout the recording, only heightened by the roaring atonality of the screeching guitars and the pounding percussion and bass that drive much of the music forward. Atop this shadowy, ominous, occasionally menacing foundation Molvaer weaves in his trumpet lines, sometimes gentle and melodic, other times fractured, skewed, and electronically treated. The music builds up some tremendous momentum at times, shifting back and forth between this and softer, more contemplative passages. This is fertile ground, and Molvaer and his fellow musicians explore it with confidence and style.

Khmer is intelligent, accomplished, deeply atmospheric and emotional music that forges real and cogent expression from the burgeoning musical vocabularies available to sensitive and probing musicians.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Jazz/Electronic Fusion, June 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Khmer (Audio CD)

I had never heard of Nils Molvaer. I had never heard of the record label. I heard a short excerpt of Khmer on a local radio station and I knew I had to buy this CD. This is an awesome fusion of improvisational jazz and electronic/ambient music. The songs have a strong electronic base and over which ride improvisational trumpets. Rather than sounding cheesy like many other "fusions", this CD creates a totally new sound...

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ECM goes slightly techno, October 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Khmer (Audio CD)

 

Nils Petter Molvaer- Khmer

ECM have always had some sort of reputation based on great production, intelligent and introspective music, discerning covers and in many ways have been the trendsetters for much of what is now around. They tend to be the label that every one else worth their weight bases themselves on. And so this should be. I have been a collector for many years and I am happy to repeat what I have been saying for many many years, that this is the greatest label in our time. Consistency and loyalty is something that ECM has nurtured and I think this is a good thing. To a degree because so many of their musicians have not only recorded so many great albums but have also cross pollinated musically across such a wide spectrum of albums, this has in many ways contributed to that unique ECM sound. Now we have another ECM classic, this time by multi instrumentalist Nils Petter Molvaer. At time of review this had not been officially released but seek this out by all means. What you get is a cross over between world music, tribal,industrial beat techno, Nordic rock and some damn fine ambient moments. NPM is a fine trumpeter if ever there was one. Stylistically he sounds a bit like Don Cherry meets 70's Miles, especially on the title track. Check out Tion for some of the most intense playing heard for a long time. It all starts very slowly and then develops into some sort of roller coaster plethora of sound that builds up to something that is not exactly ECM, a sort of techno dance tune that will jump up and bite you on the bum interwoven with some of the cleverest Nordic guitar treatments and trumpet blowing I have heard for a long time. Move over Terje Rypdal, we have a new contender in Elvind Aarset, previously heard on Marilyn Mazur's excellent release on same label Small Labrynths. Lay down a THUNDEROUS drum beat over all this and you have a mother and a killer of a track.This absolutely kicks. Access continues the theme of Tion but concentrates more on the guitar work of Aarset. In fact this release is top heavy with guitarists. Second guitar is ex heavy metal player Morten Molster who I am advised used to be with the Norwegian band The September When, but these days is into improvisation and third guitarist is Roger Ludvigsen who is better known for his material with Mari Boine Persen, playing dulcimer and bowed acoustic guitar. Throw in sound treatments and samples ( notably from Lost In The Translation by Bill Laswell) and you have one very interesting album that will carry ECM further into legend status. This is my contender so far for album of the year.

There are I am told remixes by Herbalizer, Mental Overdrive and Rocker's Hi- Fi on the way for this. Should be interesting to say the least. Molvaer himself says of this:

"Most of the guys in the remix world have a brilliant feel for beats and putting together grooves. I like this feeling of just letting loose all the elements of the work and then being confronted with them again, reassembled from the point of view of somebody else's aesthetic consciousness."