When Eivind Aarset releases a new album, we can be sure: something special is coming our way. In March 2026, Aarset's new album "Strange Hands" was released, and it shows his long-standing quartet in its brightest form. The four musicians expand their collective vocabulary into something at once leaner and more unpredictable. The music feels closer to the core: less obvious embellishments, more immediate effect – and yet still immersed in the changing play of light and shadow that has always made Aarset's sound so eerily cinematic and fascinating.
Eivind Aarset started out as a heavy metal guitarist. But he has long since ceased to serve the cliché of the rocker since he discovered the many possibilities of jazz. Born in 1961 with the unmistakable sound, the Norwegian first gained experience as a sideman for Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Cher and Jan Garbarek and strengthened the bands of Nils Petter Molvaer, Ketil Björnstad and Bugge Wesseltoft, among others. You can clearly hear that his role model was Jimi Hendrix and that his career began with heavy metal. The name of his long-time band Électronique Noire reveals that there are also moments of soundtrack and electronic music. In addition, Aarset has no fear of contact with ambient, post-rock, drum'n'bass, noise music and other idioms. Atmospheric, slightly foggy soundscapes of guitars and electronic pads condense again and again into rhythmically pushing passages, from which melodies sometimes emerge that you don't want to get out of your head so quickly.

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