Arve Henriksen has made his name by being a trumpeter who doesn’t really sound like a trumpeter. On his albums for ECM and Rune Grammofon, on collaborations with the likes of David Sylvian and Iain Ballamy, or when playing as part of the band Supersilent, he can sound as if he’s playing a shakuhachi flute, a whistle or a conch shell. He creates haunting timbres by attaching a saxophone mouthpiece to his trumpet, or not using a mouthpiece at all; he makes odd harmonics by using half-valve techniques or exploiting deliberate “leaks” in the trumpet.
