One imagines that if you travel to the depths of a Norwegian fjord, there's a good chance you’ll hear the melancholic cries of a trumpet – such is this nation's propensity for producing horn players of beguiling depth of sound. As such there's a common thread that links Arve Henriksen's uncanny emulation of traditional Japanese shakuhachi bamboo flute – via Nils Petter Movaer's industrial-strength drum and bass – to fellow Nordic horn-man Marius Gjersø, who takes his own cavernously emotive approach to blowing breathy sonic waves across a vast electro-acoustic tundra. On Yûgen – a word that describes “an awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and powerful for words” – Gjersø draws inspiration from a visit to Japan where he immersed himself in its culture and aesthetics.

These manifest through his carefully sculpted horn lines that swish and sway like a Samurai sword cutting its poetically precise way through the air. Backed with aching restraint by a softly thrumming quartet of cellist Kaja Fjellberg Pettersen, double bassist Sebastian Haugen, electric bassist Jo Berger Myhre, and guitarist Stian Larsen with occasional, muted beats, Gjersø also adds subtle static buzzes and fizzes that provide a gauzy lo-fi edge to the music. Yet, the sheer breathless beauty of Yûgen is indeed, hard to put into words.