Supersilent, a Norwegian death-free jazz-electronic group, was formed in 1997 at the Bergen Jazz Festival. It consisted of Arve Henriksen as master trumpeter, Jarle Vespestad as drummer, Helge Sten as tape experimenter (who also goes under Deathprod for solo material), and Stale Storlokken as keyboards. They decided to keep playing together in Helge Sainten’s studio, recording endless hours of tape. Eventually, the tape was spliced into 1998’s 1-3, which is a three-CD collection that features wild, percussive jazz with touches of Aphex Twin-like electronica. From this point on, the band was a performer-only group. They don’t practice or write songs and rarely even talk to each other outside of gigs. Like all other releases, this one is free of overdubs and has minimal production. The group included the influence of Rune Grammofon labelmate Arne Northheim, an electro-acoustic musician whose dark-tinged experimental are a studio controlled version to Supersilent. The creatively-named 5 was created from more than 30 hours of live recordings taken at performances in Oslo, London and Bologna in 2001. Henriksen’s skills are evident here, while traditional jazz elements dominate the noise. Allmusic
