DANIEL HERSKEDAL (NORSKO)
PHENOMENAL TUBA PLAYER
NORWEGIAN TUBA PLAYER AND HIS BEAUTIFUL NORDIC ORATORIOS
Solo tuba player? Give it a rest, who's gonna listen to that bass, send a trumpet player instead. We get it, the tuba isn't exactly a sexy instrument, and since Daniel Herskedal doesn't consider himself a tuba player, the tuba debate might be over. Yeah, but what about the fact that we can see him playing it with our own eyes? So what's it like? First of all, he plays like Daniel Herskedal, phenomenally so, so you can put the tuba out of your mind completely, and when you remember that in our country it used to be one of the instruments lyrically called songhorns, Daniel's sometimes almost romantic melodiousness makes sense. What's more: rarely do you hear a musician with such depth, emotional intensity and radiant virtuosity who also pushes the boundaries of his instrument to the limit. Although there is sometimes a certain mistrust in solo projects in which looping replaces looping, with Daniel it disappears with the first notes. With brilliant compositional thinking taking place in real life, imaginative layering of instrument sound colours, samples, drumming and the rhythm of his own breathing, he gradually draws the listener into a musical oratorio most truly reminiscent of a soundtrack to a walk in the Nordic landscape.
You can often read about him as a jazz musician, which is a very simplistic view of his trans-genre compositions that blend classical, traditional Nordic music, electronic ambient and echoes of Nils Frahmen. He also works a lot with natural sounds, and on his last truly wonderful album, A Single Sunbeam, he "found light in the Nordic darkness" with Sami singer Marja Mortensson and Norwegian jazz violinist Ole Kvernberg.
Photo: Knut Aaserud
