RELEASES

EN ROUTE (May 30th, 2025)
CLEAN FEED
CF683CD
CF683LP
www.cleanfeed-records.com

An obsidian tale without words. An epic, yet all-too-mortal journey, rolling out like a Jim Dodge fever dream, before plunging headlong into the dark night of the soul. Navigating a series of atmospheric shadow zones, mapped in a chiaroscuro of painterly strokes with grand panoramic vision, Chrome Hill's En Route pulls straight from the heart, capturing its raw emotion on a widescreen canvas ablaze.

Like Robert Burton's infamous 17th century medical treatise The Anatomy of Melancholy, En Route cleaves despond into component parts, analysing grief from different angles, through a different lens. Seen right up close, the blackness begins to cede to a technicolour dance of bewitching tones, blossoming into creation like the elusive play of phosphenes as you momentarily shut your eyes to the world. Breathe deep, begin again, you're ready for the next step on this remarkable ride.

Release info and Press pictures

CHROME HILL DUO MEETS DŌJŌ: LIVE AT AKETA NO MISE
(March 23th, 2023)
CLEAN FEED
CF629CD
www.cleanfeed-records.com

A Norwegian jazz-rock quartet steeped in Americana that has spawned six albums and countless live performances, Chrome Hill has been an integral part of the lives of Asbjørn Lerheim and Roger Arntzen for over two decades. In 2014 Lerheim and Arntzen found an opportunity to visit Tokyo and attend the Hokuo Music Fest, a trade seminar for Nordic bands trying to enter the Japanese music market, where they began laying the groundwork for Chrome Hill's first tour of Japan. The tour was realized the following year and included a double bill at the legendary Roppongi club SuperDeluxe with Michiyo Yagi, who played a duo set with the German drummer and Krautrock icon Mani Neumeier. Lerheim and Arntzen were stunned by Yagi's performance on her electric 21-string and 17-string bass kotos, and they began entertaining the idea of incorporating Yagi's unique sound into Chrome Hill's music. This was realized during the group's next Japan tour, in 2019, when Chrome Hill invited Michiyo Yagi and drummer Noritaka Tanaka to join them at Koen-Dori Classics in Shibuya, Tokyo. The energy generated by the two drummers, three string slayers, and a saxophone was massive and inspiring, and the members of Chrome Hill couldn't wait to come back to dig deeper into this collaboration.
When Chrome Hill returned to Japan in 2020 they were unable to bring the entire band, so they arrived in their alternate form, the Chrome Hill Duo, that operates as a semi-independent "chamber version" of the quartet. Meanwhile Tanaka had relocated southwest to Kyushu, so Yagi brought on board Tamaya Honda, her longstanding musical partner in the koto + drums power duo Dōjō as well as several other groups.
Yagi, Honda, Lerheim and Arntzen played two concerts in Tokyo, first at Koen-Dori Classics, then at the venerable "hole-in-the-wall" jazz club Aketa No Mise. The performances began with short individual sets by the Chrome Hill Duo and Dōjō that warmed things up nicely, but when the two duos came together to form a single unit, a galvanic surge of musical energy was released. The quartet played some of the twangy, cowboy-inflected Chrome Hill songs with the electric 21-string koto taking on some of the guitar melodies to unusual effect, while more common musical territory of the two lead electric instruments was explored in several free improvisations. All the while, bass and drums locked together like well-oiled gears, sometimes driving the music forward like long-haul trucks, at other times bouncing along like tumbleweeds.

Release info and Press pictures

THIS IS CHROME HILL (October 30th, 2020)
CLEAN FEED
CF557CD
CF557LP
www.cleanfeed-records.com

Chrome Hill with new jazz rock noir album!
Scandinavian jazz rock noir. This is the basic mood of the album “This is Chrome Hill”. The album is full of contrasts and inspired by cinematic and musical moods. Think Twin Peaks and Tom Waits. Death. Life. Light. Darkness. Contrasts. Phases of life. Not one special event, but the sum of many. The songs have a greater seriousness and darkness than on previous releases. 2020 has been a different year. At the same time, they end with a song that carries a hope in it. With the song “Light”, they want to put an end to something big and important. It gets better. It needs to get better.

The contrasts are reflected in the music. Chrome Hill has a strong connection to Japan and have been touring in the land of the rising sun for years. A beautiful but tense country where the contrasts are drawn to the extreme. There they have played with Japanese musicians several times and these experiences have also inspired this record. From a calm zen- like atmosphere in a completely quiet park with beautiful bridges and trees, to Shinjuku's crazy, almost nightmarish game bumps.

Asbjørn Lerheim, Atle Nymo, Torstein Lofthus and Roger Arntzen keep changing the parameters and inner aspects of their music from record to record. They have dug deeper inside the purpose of playing Americana songs, in their case a mix of Appalachian folk, Delta blues and cowboy rock, within a jazz frame and feeling. No American musician could do it this way, only a group of foreigners from Norway would have the necessary cultural distance to arrive at a masterpiece like this.

Release info and Press pictures

THE EXPLORER (2018)
CLEAN FEED
CF471CD
CF471LP
www.cleanfeed-records.com

New album from Chrome Hill out on May 11th, 2018.

Tell me what was your first love in music and I'll tell you who you are. That's what you could say about guitarist Asbjørn Lerheim, who played blues and rock before being interested in jazz and now plays blues and rock (and folk, inevitably linked to both) in a jazz context with the band Chrome Hill, formerly known as Damp. And what a band, the also member of Lisan Dillan's Quiet Quiet Project having the company of likeminded souls: Roger Arntzen (In the Country, Ballrogg, Trail of Souls), Torstein Lofthus (Elephant9, Shining) and Atle Nymo (Motif, Saxwaffe, Atle Nymo Quartet), the last replacing Jørgen Munkeby (Shining), who became one of the most predominant figures of the Scandinavian heavy metal scene. Much can be said about the capacity of this younger generation of musicians to play several genres and use diversified music vocabularies (not necessarly the ones they embraced at the beginning of their careers), but even more interesting is the fascination for Americana here revealed and happening often in the North of Europe: these guys can play Appalachian folk songs, Delta blues and red neck rock as if they were born on the inner guts of the United States of America, doing it without ever losing their identity as jazz improvisers. Be marveled, people.

Release info and Press pictures

COUNTRY OF LOST BORDERS (2013)
BOLAGE
BLGCD020
BLGLP020

New album from Chrome Hill out on April 5th, 2013.

The members of Chrome Hill have toured in 30 countries on four continents and now their first album in five years is finally ready. Country Of Lost Borders will be released on vinyl and CD on April 5th.

- I´m fascinated by barren, abandoned and open landscapes. They ´re not necessarily pretty, but for some reason they really speak to me.

Says Chrome Hill´s songwriter and baritone guitarist Asbjørn Lerheim. The other band members are Jørgen Munkeby (Shining), Roger Arntzen (In The Country, Ballrogg) and Torstein Lofthus (Shining, Elephant 9).

On Country Of Lost Borders, the band´s fourth album, they combine influences from jazz, blues and americana with a warm vintage rock sound, and the result is a stunning 40-minute album.


Release info and Press pictures

EARTHLINGS (2008)
BOLAGE
BLGCD007

Guitarist/songwriter Asbjørn Lerheim has written nine beautiful songs for the new album. The music is strikingly original, and can be described as jazz inspired by americana and noise rock. The album was recorded on analogue tape in Grand Sport Studio, Oslo, giving it a full, warm sound which suits the quartet’s music perfectly. Christian Engfelt engineered the sessions. Special guest Eirik Hegdal plays baritone sax on three of the album’s tracks.

Gloriously rude and sweaty noise (Cadence/USA)
"Homogent sammensurium" (Tønsberg Blad/NORWAY)

CD des Monats (Nordische-Musik/GERMANY)

"Eine wirklich hörerfreundliche Interaktion" (MusicScan/GERMANY)


Release info and Press pictures

HOATZIN (2005)
AIM RECORDS
AIMCD110

The Hoatzin album is a freely, modern jazz album based on an acoustic sound. The title cut points forward to an approach more towards rock and noise. Hoatzin also includes the Paul Motian composition Mumbo Jumbo. The album contains a strong and powerful melodic material, a trademark for composer and guitar player Asbjørn Lerheim. It also includes a live video of the song Pinball, which originally is recorded on Damp´s debut album.

Hoatzin was well received by the critics and the biggest newspapers in Norway says this about the record:
"Melody based modern power jazz" (Dagbladet, Terje Mosnes/NORWAY)

"Modern and potent quartet jazz" (Bergens Tidene, Geir Dahle/NORWAY)

"Rotal original quality" [..] "Damp is among the forefront of the norwegian jazz musicians and bands today" (Puls, Tor Hammerø/NORWAY)