Heavy skies that turn from the beautiful to the devastating; Ask is the immersive solo début of young Norwegian trumpet player Hilde Marie Holsen.
Holsen’s trumpet gets radically expanded through her command of software, and whilst the options and variations are staggering, the honing in seems to be well under way. There is little about this that feels random, a side effect that can overtake much of improv that combines the freshest technology with extended techniques of instruments, often resulting in a display of sonic fireworks: fun for the performer but leaving the listener feeling told nothing substantial, and less personal. Holsen, on the other hand, has thrown open a door to a sonic world that evidently belongs to her and not the tools.
Despite the full range sonic colour spectrum, each layer contributes to a striking picture whose tones hit me like the dark shine of wet black rocks amidst a rainbow of northern grey. My mind slowly drifts through a cloudy, staggeringly dynamic horizon: moody in hues, rich in ghost-like cloud forms, foreboding and bewildering. Inspiring nonetheless, but usually the weather everyone complains about. Some feel totally OK in it though, and perhaps Holsen does too.From heavily distorted drones to the soft clicking of the trumpets valves. Abstracted breath noises bent out of shape into some new creature, born and running off into its new life. The sound of distant thunder and falling rocks, wailing sirens and a profound, sub-aquatic low end. As a soloist Holsen really delivers the full palette. Maja SK Ratkje’s presence on the record can be felt and her mixing and mastering really brings the many dynamics and voices into view, amplifying the subtle inflections of breath close to the ear whilst strongly projecting the records atmospheric sub-bass depths.
On “Plagioklas”, Holsen sets up a landscape of these differing sounds and then settles into an exploration of some select moody notes, back and forth, forth and back, layering and towering them up over each other until flattening them with a powerful bass drone that rises up from the delirium into a searing mass that sounds more like a distorted tuba. On “Muskovitt”, perhaps at the record’s darkest core, a haunting flute-like melody somewhere between Norse and Arabic folk floats above a swimming and crackling murky bass swell, calling out some notes as if waiting for a response amongst the brooding haze. Occasional rays of light break through the thick swirling sky, such as on the closing title track where Holsen puts us down gently after the absorbing twilight trip.Ask is a short LP, yet deep and plentiful: indeed its heaviness and stillness, like each improvisation, is a vivid experience.
-James Welburn-
