This is the first solo venture from a musician known to many through his excellent work with fellow Norwegian Trygve Seim's Different Rivers ensemble, or with Iain Ballamy in the Norwegian-English quartet Food. The Zen--inflected Sakuteiki is arresting testimony to the aural breadth and depth of poetic imagination cultivated by this fine Norwegian trumpet player. The roots of that imagination can be traced back to Miles Davis: "Shrine", a key track where Henriksen's plangent ruminations unfold over a typically indeterminate pulse, refigures much of the mood of a classic Davis track like "Generique" from the 1957 Lift To The Scaffold, for example. There are also touches of Jon Hassell, particularly when Henriksen's remarkable technical control brings a shakuhachi-like quality of breath, phrasing and sound to his main instrument (he also plays harmonium and church organ, sparingly). However, the main thing to note about this album is its overall originality of intent and execution. Titled after an 11th-century Japanese treatise on garden planning, Sakuteiki offers many moments of both grave and contemplative beauty, with each of the 15 tracks of its 50 or so minutes an eloquent indication of the fact that less can often be more. --Michael Tucker