Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Dutch pianist Harmen Fraanje have produced a series of subtle, delicate musical soundscapes on this new set of tunes for their debut together as a duo, resulting in the quietly lyrical ‘Touch of Time’. Sensitive melodies, colours and textures all combine to allow the listener to deeply engage in an intimate journey of nuanced sound. In both freely improvised forms and carefully wrought themes, their instruments connect gracefully, with their music ebbing and flowing like time itself, from beginning to end.
Mike Gates, UK Vibe
Ihre Soundvorstellungen ergänzen sich. Arve Henriksen versteht die Trompete als Ausgangspunkt für stimmnahe Experimente und modifiziert sie klanglich soweit, dass sie wie eine Flöte klingen kann. Harmen Fraanje steht sonst Kollegen wie dem Bassisten Mats Eilertsen zu Seite, experimentiert mit eigenen Projekte aber über das Klavier hinaus auch mit Electronics. Im Duo lassen sie sich treiben, schweben in Texturen und deuten oft Musik mehr an, als sie motivisch vollständig auszuführen. ‘Touch Of Time’ hat daher den Charme des Ungebundenen, wirkt klangzeitlich losgelöst in einem harmonisch zugänglichen Soundgefüge, zart und raumfüllend zugleich.
Ralf Dombrowski, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Two more musically like-minded souls would be difficult to find, as both musicians operate on the same introspective, otherworldly wavelength. […] Hearing ‘Touch of Time’ is like being invited into a stranger’s lucid dream, enveloped with beauty.
Michael Toland, Big Takeover
Mission accomplice avec ce délicat ’Touch Of Time’ superbement enregistré, et mis en lumière par le trompettiste norvégien Arve Henriksen, associé au pianiste néerlandais Harmen Fraanje […] Tout s’énonce ici dans la nuance. […] Douceur mélodique, lyrisme et textures d’une pureté rare sont les atouts majeurs de ce travelling sonore qui évoque les paysages bruts du grand nord. Combinant écriture et improvisation maîtrisée, le duo imagine des formes aux contors délicats. Par la grâce d’une connivance detout instant, ils offrent un moment intemporel et délectable.
Jean-Pierre Vidal, Jazz Magazine
The music presented on ‘Touch of Time’ is quietly mesmerizing. Delicate melodies passed back and fore between the duo, the solos appearing organically out of the dialogues. These solo statements often service to prompt a further conversation, and even though these are whisperered, we are privileged to be able to eavesdrop. Using what may be perceived as a narrow framework, the duo conjures up a myriad of moods and emotions from the opening ‘Melancholia’ and the retrained joy apparent in ‘The Beauty of Sundays’. The electronics are used sparingly and tastefully, never detracting from the acoustic instruments and melodies but gently create or enhance the texture and direction of the music, as heard on ‘Redream’ and ‘Mirror Image’. The combination of Fraanje’s lyrical and sensitive approach at the keyboard and Henriksen’s pure toned trumpet is a delight and signals a highly fruitful partnership. Henriksen’s distinctive trumpet playing is now becoming one of the most readily identifiable sounds in contemporary music, and his quiet yet brassy open trumpet has a tone that is capable of a purity and beauty seldom heard on the instrument. Coupled with his control of the instrument, at times sounding more like the traditional Japanese shakuhachi than a brass instrument the timbral range is extraordinary. With Fraanje’s economical touch at the piano there is a wonderful balance between shared melodic duties and accompaniment. […] This is a beautiful album that quietly weaves its magic over ten compositions that have much to say and do so in hushed tones. An album for those reflective moments when time stands still.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
Die beiden Norweger stellen sich in den Dienst purer Schönheit, die wie in Zeitlupe aufs Ohr wirkt und sich von dort wie ein wohltuender Kräutertee im Körper ausbreitet. Henriksens und Fraanjes sehr zurückhaltend mit Electronics angereicherte Musik ist in jeder Hinsicht ein Labsal – für Kopf und Bauch, Vergangenheit und Zukunft.
Wolf Kampmann, Eclipsed
These ten mostly short tracks are full of subtle, aerated fragments that seem to imply rather than state melody and harmony, where the most subtracted of musical gestures assume significance against a backdrop of contemplative near-stillness.
Roger Thomas, BBC Music Magazine
What exactly is a ‘Redream?’ Yes, it’s the third piece on trumpeter Arve Henriksen and pianist Harmen Fraanje’s new collaborative album and one of Fraanje’s own compositions, but is it a dream reboot or a contemplative revisitation of somnolence, a ‘regard’ a la Messiaen in contemplation of the baby Jesus? Like the music on ‘Touch of Time’, that elusive title occupies a between space, a glance toward opposites that never quite solidify as expected but float by, imbued with introspective calm. As with so many ECM albums, music and production were made for each other. Henriksen’s sound has been documented enough to need little description. Its combination of reed, flute and voice expands and obfuscates in tandem, but the breath supporting that constantly morphing timbre may never have been caught with just this level of detail in motion. It moves in physical space with the same easy grace carrying each note toward the myriad conclusions Henriksen has perfected […] Fraanje’s pianism is captured in similarly staggering detail. Every nuance of ‘Redream’’s pianism is front and center, and it’s as if we can watch him pedal, digging deep into each gesture as his foot teases phrases forth with rhythmic variation akin to Henriksen’s breath control. His incorporation of melodic fragments outside whatever scale the duo’s inhabiting demonstrates a masterful adventurousness, a subtly inquisitive nature tempering harmonic stasis, whispering mischievous implications at the boundaries of conventional expression. […] ‘Touch of Time’ is one of the label’s most stirring recent examples of double-narrative. Dig deeper into the electronics Henriksen employs to find worlds of undulant harmony in glorious states of becoming, and each note Fraanje plays decays with his instrument’s glorious overtones in full view. Go deeper still into each key stroke and sonic moment to find that timbre succumbs to similar flights of fancy. Are those metallic cube sounds peppering an atmosphere? Is there a ghost harmony just below a melodic surface? Did those notes external to the scale really fit perfectly after all? Re-audition tells one story, then another, and finally reiterates the first in a new way, a (re)experience well worth having.
Marc Medwin, Dusted
What a pleasure this album is — the first from Arve Henriksen and Harmen Fraanje working as a duo. […] Fraanje’s work is understated and subtle, with the whole record epitomising the quiet, minimalist music the German label is renowned for. What makes it distinctive is Henriksen’s signature playing, in which he fashions a muted flute-like sound unlike any other trumpet player I can think of.
Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
Des lignes de trompette, souvent ornée d’électronique, des lignes de piano, qui se rejoignent, s’assemblent, forment corps tendrement, délicatement, fragilement. Les compositions des deux artistes sont des structures dans lesquelles l’un et l’autre s’engouffrent avec sensibilité et douceur. Les dix plages de cet album, ‘Touch of Time’, sont d’une esthétique particulière, faite d’acuité, de grâce, de minimalisme, de lyrisme, de romantisme même.
Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Le Soir
Over ten delicate and meditative pieces that occupy a kind of happy middle ground between composition and improvisation, the duo – who first performed together in 2019 in Utrecht as part of ECM’s 50th anniversary celebrations – appear to complement each other perfectly. Henriksen’s shakuhachi-toned trumpet and ethereal electronic assists are grounded by Fraanje’s spare chording and querulous-sounding solo adventures in taking a line for a walk. It’s all rather exquisitely indefinite, with little sense of solidity, but very effective for all that.
Phil Johnson, London Jazz News
Die Leisheit und Zärtlichkeit, mit der sich Harmen Fraanje und Arve Henriksen hier begegnen, verleiht der gemeinsamen Unternehmung den Charakter seltener Vertrautheit. Abrupte Sprünge bleiben ausgespart, Klavier und Trompete lassen – mehrheitlich improvisierte –Bicinien entstehen, die weit mehr an zweistimmig-sakrale Renaissance-Vokalisten erinnern, den an betriebsame Duos späterer Jahrhunderte. […] Wer Henriksens Beteiligung an der Ambient-Jazz-Formation Supersilent schätzt und für eine Weiterentwicklung seiner ‘Cartography’-Stilistik offen ist, wird diesem Album mit offenen Ohren und Staunen begegnen.
Wolfgang Gratzer, Jazzpodium
For his latest ECM release, ‘Touch of Time’, he teamed up with Harmen Fraanje, the innovative Dutch pianist. No-one else participated this time around, that's it. The duo decided to leave behind the potential organic heartbeat of drums and bass or any other instruments. […] The pair begin by conjuring up windswept moods with the whispering tones of ‘Melancholia.’ It is as if Henriksen's plaintive horn is announcing the arrival of an ancient wooden ship which is drifting and attempting to emerge from a murky, misty fog. As for pianist Fraanje, he reverently interacts with Henriksen by presenting delicate cascades of celestial droplets […] . Throughout ‘Touch of Time’, Henriksen and Fraanje repeatedly focus on sculpting moody landscapes. There is a soothing consistency but that also means bold solos or catchy melodies are left behind this time around. Many pieces teasingly fade and evaporate instead of simply ending. […] As the last notes recede, the artists ultimately leave listeners wondering and contemplating.
Scott Gudell, All About Jazz
Henriksen, apart from being a fine composer himself (not to mention a remarkable singer at both ends of the scale), has one of the most distinctive and memorably lyrical trumpet sounds around. That fluid, full-bodied, perhaps unique sonority – remember how you may have felt when you first heard Miles? – is immediately in evidence in his lovely collaboration with Fraanje, which consists of ten mostly brief miniatures, gently contemplative but enormously expressive. The majority are credited to both musicians, though the mood throughout is so delicate and evocative of the moment that many give the impression of having been improvised rather than composed. Whatever, this is music of unassertive but true beauty […] Despite their having first met as recently as 2019, it’s clear there is a highly fruitful creative chemistry between the pair. Moreover, Manfred Eicher’s characteristically sensitive, transparent production enhances the immediacy of atmosphere quite superbly.
Geoff Andrew, Notes & Observations
‘Touch of Time’ is the recording debut of a duo that has been together for five years. Trumpeter Arve Henriksen and pianist Harmen Fraanje together create a mood so deep and encompassing that you lose yourself in it. You can think and feel along with them and dream the same dreams. […] Purity has its own intensity. The melodic forms that Henriksen and Fraanje conceive are stunning in the concentrated purity of their lyricism. Some of those forms occur within notated pieces by Fraanje, like ‘Redream.’ Some emerge within spontaneous joint compositions, like ’Winter Haze,’ a haunting, mysterious one-minute miniature. […] In their responses to one another’s creative impulses, Henriksen and Fraanje have lightning reflexes.
Thomas Conrad, Stereophile (Five stars)
Henriksen’s distilled, yearning figures are here complemented perfectly by the spare and rhythmically subtle cast of Fraanje’s impressionist pianism […] At just under 40 minutes in total, the 10 intimate and exquisitely pitched duo meditations that are ‘Touch Of Time’ induce sustained reflection upon what is perhaps the most impenetrable mystery of our lives: not so much time itself, but rather, our experience or understanding of it. […] think of the Bill Evans and Miles Davis jewel of the gently sprung meditation that is ‘Blue In Green’, from the 1959 masterpiece ’Kind Of Blue’ – and then imagine that jewel re-cut into smaller but no less charged pieces, as rippling as they are refractive, of rubato melody and innermost mood. Here is quietly superb music, of no small liminal import.
Michael Tucker, Jazz Journal
