Extempore

With the jazz quartet Perfect Houseplants
Linn (CKD 076)

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"Brevity and sonority are the hallmarks of this music. Despite the centuries separating the two musics, they seem to meet and breathe together without any sense of strain...The variety of approach in all of their joint pieces is remarkable and utterly absorbing"
—Ian Carr, BBC Music Magazine

"...in truth this is a fine mix of early music and jazz...The music creeps up on the listener; a couple of plays was enough to convince me..."
—Yorkshire Evening Press

"A most striking collaboration by the brilliantly original jazz quartet Perfect Houseplants and acclaimed medieval vocal ensemble, the Orlando Consort....The Garbarek/Hilliards Officium recording is an obvious reference point, but Extempore is the richer and more exotic listening journey; in the many vividly collusive moments where plainchant meets Eastern rhythms and modern jazz harmony, it's so beautiful and vibrant it makes the former medieval-meets-modern project sound positively slapdash."
—Mojo

" I had been overtaken by a strangely weird combination of excitement, exhilaration, and, well, simply a Zen like tranquillity! Such is the unusual effect produced by this unlikely musical collaboration...a most welcome release that was well worth the wait...a serious release... and a seriously successful partnership."
—Avant

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What am I listening to?

You are listening to a commemorative motet, ‘Quis dabit capiti meo aquam’, by the composer, Heinrich Isaac (c1450-1517). Specifically, you will hear the last of the four sections of this beautiful piece, a lament on the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici in April 1492. It is one track from our latest disk, The Florentine Renaissance, produced by Hyperion records (DA68349), a rich and varied selection of secular and sacred music, an aural collage of the vibrant city of Florence in the early Renaissance.