(Delphian)
An exhilarating album of new and reimagined works by Errollyn Wallen, Laura Moody and others reaffirms this group’s reputation for fearless musical curiosity
T
he third album from the Hermes Experiment again shows what a liberating force in contemporary music this ensemble have become. Beautifully thought through and rewardingly eclectic, Tree begins in a melancholy but open style with Islands by Marianne Schofield, the ensemble’s bassist, and ends with the title track by Errollyn Wallen, unfolding over a steady bass like something by Purcell.
Clarinettist Oliver Pashley and singer Héloïse Werner contribute their own songs while harpist Anne Denholm-Blair provides a subtly textured arrangement of Nicola LeFanu’s wistful song The Bourne. Schofield is also behind a gorgeous version of Les Rossignols by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, initially halting and ethereal, then coalescing into something approaching its 17th-century original. Abel Selaocoe’s Buhle Bendalo is full of beatboxing and vocal rhapsodising that gives Werner a virtuoso workout. But the centre of gravity is perhaps Laura Moody’s three Rilke Songs, recorded here for the first time. The middle song, with Werner constantly interrupting her flow with a stuttering glitch as if there’s a fault in the playback, stands out, but the three together make for a brief cycle of enormous scope. The question is no longer why composers would choose to write for this quirky combo, it’s why they would feel their music needed anything else.
