Miki Yui feat. Nils Petter Molvaer | Øyunn
Miki Yui – Japanese artist, composer, musician based in Düsseldorf Germany since 1994. With the background in fine art, she explores the grey zone of our perception and imagination and create subtle and poetic work, crossing the boundary of music, performance, radio production, drawing and installation.
Since 1999 she is known for her unique minimalistic and organic approach towards music. From a delicate tiny hiss to a distant hum, electronic sounds and field recordings are woven into music with a narrative tension. She has released her 8th solo album “As If” from Hallow Ground in 2024.
Nils Petter Molvaer – Born on the island of Sula, Molvaer was introduced to jazz already in his earliest childhood by his musician father. The local club scene kindled his enthusiasm for playing the instrument. However, rather than accepting the local horizon as his own, he left his homeland at age nineteen in search of new types of sound. He began by taking up studies. With time he became one of the most influential musicians in the Scandinavian jazz scene.
Performing in the Masqualero quintet was an important stage in his career. The quintet, named after a piece by Wayne Shorter, took off in the early 1980s and consisted of: Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen, Tore Brunborg, Jon Balke, and, naturally, Nils Petter Molvaer. It was as a member of Masqualero that Molvaer recorded his first album for the Munich-based ECM label, which was tantamount to entering the international music scene. Molvear soon gained a reputation as an excellent sideman much sought-after for his splendid technique, flexible imagination, great intuition and sensitivity. He performed with numerous artists in Norway and elsewhere. In the 1980s and 90s, he played, among others, in the bands of Jon Eberson, Marylin Mazur, Rita Marcotulli, Dennis González, and Lars Danielsson. The diversity of the music he performed with these and other bandleaders gives an impression of his versatile talent.
The real breakthrough, however, came slightly later, with his first fully original album Khmer, released in 1997, which may well be considered as a turning point in Molvaer’s career. Hailed by reviewers as ‘surely the most unusual album ever released by ECM’, it represents a daring combination of jazz improvisation and club culture, blending powerful breakbeat drive with sampling and the colours of the musician’s own instrument. With this release, the Norwegian trumpeter proved that by drawing on current musical trends and vogues one may create a visionary work which is at the same time rooted in a specific period and much ahead of its time. In the creative decades that followed, Molvaer never turned back from the path he had taken on his debut album.
With charming agility and genuine bravado, his successive albums have combined Nordic precisions and chill with the hot sounds of ethnic music, at the same time boldly exploring ever new areas of electronic sound. As if by the way, Molvaer has repeatedly proved that the combination of live instruments with production work opens up virtually unlimited possibilities. While remaining original and recognizable, the artist has never ceased exploring new ground, thus becoming a major source of inspiration for successive generations of artists. His impact on the improvised music scene is discernible to this day in recordings by even the youngest jazz musicians.
Øyunn – “Øyunn is in a class of her own. Spellbinding beats. Impressive flow and feeling. She floats and is grounded at the same time.” All That (DK)
The Norwegian Copenhagen-based drummer, vocalist and rapper delivers expressive and dynamic concerts, and is described as a bold songwriter with a flair for catchy hooks. At the end of 2025 she released her second album I Know U Can Do It – a fresh blend of breakbeats, expressive vocals, analogue synths, groove-driven energy and rap. In recent years she has appeared on festival stages such as Roskilde Festival (DK), Kongsberg Jazz Festival (NO), SPOT (DK), Festspillene i Nord-Norge (NO), Jazzy Colors (FR) and Vossajazz (NO).
In 2022 she made her debut as a filmmaker with the audiovisual work Aspects at the Ultima Festival. The following year she released the music as a live album and went on to win several awards – Danish Music Awards 2024 as New Jazz Name of The Year, and the Tivoli Jazz Prize Visionary Award for “her genre-defying and unique voice as a composer, drummer and vocalist”. As a drummer she has collaborated on record and live with names such as Bugge Wesseltoft, Nils Frahm, Efterklang, Sam Gendel and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra.
Her artistry is marked by a strong presence, rhythmic precision and a willingness to explore new forms of expression.
On Magazine (UK): “She drums, spits and sings as if they were a single instrument, and she writes like a producer who knows how songs move through a room“.