11.08.2023 | Concert
25 years ago, new musical energies were being set free in the Norwegian jazz scene. A group of musicians around the trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær began experimenting with an aesthetically and stylistically wide-open improvised music on ECM Records. Today, Molvær’s album KHMER is regarded as the starting signal for a development that ingeniously combines jazz, electronics, digital loops, hip-hop and samples, DJ and club culture. The Scottish paper The Herald titled its review of the album “Miles ahead of all that old jazz”. In the year of the album’s release, Billboard said: “KHMER is a forward-minded record with the sort of obliquely lyrical groove power that Miles Davis must have had in mind at the end of his career but couldn’t quite get out.” The album won the Großer Deutsche Schallplattenpreis in 1998. Besides, Khmer was the very first ECM record that was also released as a remix version. Since then, a lot has happened in the music scene – and it is fascinating to explore the 25-year-old material being reinterpreted with the means, possibilities and musicians’ experience of today – once again bringing alive the timelessness of Molvaer’s still extraordinary and unique musical voice.
Experience KHMER live on August 13th at Jazzweek Cologne, Kölner Philharmonie. More infos about the concert here.
Discover KHMER on CD and vinyl.