VILNIUS MAMA JAZZ 2026 | Nils Petter Molvær KHMER (NO)

Nils Petter Molvær KHMER (NO) 

Nils Petter Molvær – tr
Eivind Aarset – g
Jan Bang – live sampling
Audun Erlien – b
Rune Arnesen – dr
Per Lindvall – dr
Tord Knudsen – light design

The audience of the Vilnius Mama Jazz festival has already enjoyed a number of standout jazz performances by leading Nordic jazz artists. Last year’s performance by guitarist Eivind Aarset was one of them. 

Nils Petter Molvær is no stranger to the Vilnius Mama Jazz audience. One of the festival’s most acclaimed guests in 2018, he returns in 2026 with Khmer, the progarmme regarded as the defining work of his artistic career. 

Sometimes a single album can change the entire trajectory in music. Nils Petter Molvær’s album Khmer, released in 1997, was just such a turning point, not only in the trumpeter’s career, but also in the broader context of European jazz. It was a moment when jazz stopped looking back, and electronic music stopped pretending that improvisation was foreign to it.

Nearly three decades on, Khmer still stands as a powerful statement: powerful rhythms, pulsating grooves, hypnotic trumpet solos, and a fearless dialogue with trip-hop, drum’n’bass, ambient, techno, and industrial music. The album propelled Molvær onto the international stage and established him as one of the most important figures in the renewal of European jazz. His music was equally at home in concert halls, clubs, and electronic music festivals.

Molvær looks back while taking a bold step forward, testing whether Khmer has truly stood the test of time. Last September, Edition Records released Khmer Live in Bergen, a new version of the epoch-defining 1997 ECM album Khmer, recorded during a concert in 2023. The verdict was clear: the release drew international acclaim from London to Sydney. Blending vibrant trip-hop rhythms, ambient haze, and Nordic lyricism, the album channels renewed energy with deeper rhythms, sharper contours, and heightened dynamic intensity, pushing the music toward an even purer side. This is not a reconstruction, but a continuation – music that bridges time and space, past and present, and has not aged in spirit in the slightest. Once again, the trumpeter proves that one cannot step into the same river twice.

In his creative vision, Molvær acts not only as a soloist but also as a sound drama engineer. The trumpet is just one element within a larger structure, deliberately woven into a broader sonic fabric. He shapes form, controls tension, works with silence and rhythmic eruptions, and allows the music to unfold spatially rather than as a linear narrative. Such leadership demands not overt virtuosity, but an ability to perceive and shape the whole, a quality that has become central to Molvær’s creative work.

It is precisely this holistic aesthetic that enabled Khmer to transcend the traditional boundaries of the jazz audience from the outset. Molvær’s music forged an immediate connection with listeners from the electronic music scene – those drawn to pulse, atmosphere, and the physicality of sound. It is therefore no coincidence that his work has featured in DJ sets, has been remixed by leading names in electronic music, and continues to resonate with audiences for whom genre boundaries serve as points of reference rather than fixed rules.

Molvær presents Khmer with an exceptional team, many of whom are already familiar to the Vilnius Mama Jazz audience. Joining Molvær on guitar and electronics is Eivind Aarset well known to fans in Vilnius since his first appearance at the festival in 2010 and a memorable concert in 2025. Some consider his performance the highlight of last year’s festival. Another member of the group is the live-sampling architect, Jan Bang, who previously appeared at the festival in 2013 alongside Arve Henriksen and Stian Westerhus. For bassist Audun Erlien this will mark his fourth appearance at Vilnius Mama Jazz: he performed in 2010 and 2025 with Eivind Aarset, and in 2018 as part of Mathias Eick quartet. The group features two drummers: Per Lindvall, former drummer of ABBA, and Rune Arnesen, a sought-after session musician who has played on over 300 recordings. The lighting designer of the group is Tord Knudsen.

With this lineup, Khmer transcends a traditional concert, unfolding as an immersive soundscape, where melancholy of the trumpet meets urban pulse, and improvisation intertwines with precisely controlled electronics. As ever, the music moves between tenderness and radicalism, Nordic silence and industrial noise.

This is a return to the creative work that has never ceased to breathe. It stands as another highlight of the Vilnius Mama Jazz programme – music that does not tell about the past, but recreates it in the present moment.

The festival is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.