It is probably fair to say that Arve Henriksen has never really been given the credit he deserves as a sound innovator – the trumpet in jazz has a long lineage of evolution, from Buddy Bolden through King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and on into contemporary times and trumpeters who are a mix n' match of all that preceded them. Except Henriksen. Just like Ezra Pound with his epic Cantos, he tore-up what had gone before and started again. The result has been a wholly different and original approach to the trumpet and sounds that had never been heard on the instrument before.

Schwaim brings his compositional talents to create a soundscape that comments on the age we live in, an age of political upheaval in the face of a global pandemic that is being acted out against a backdrop of potentially catastrophic climate change. Schwain becomes both product of his times and commentator on it, as the album was created in lockdown – Schwaim in Germany and Henriksen in Norway – so phone conversations and music sent back and forth via mail shaped the outcome of the music and the product was mediated by Scwaim's mix and edit. The result is surprisingly cogent, an abstraction of the zeitgeist of the moment. The sonic reality of this music only reveals itself through its totality – it's not something to click on for 30 seconds and then skip – it unwinds its story slowly as the drama intensifies and ebbs and flows, Henriksen emerging and submerging into the mix in a musical journey that's well worth the ride.