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Rating: * * * *
English tenor John Potter made his name with his Dowland Project recordings, reworking songs of the late Renaissance with a band that blended John Surman's jazz saxophone with baroque violins and early Spanish guitars.
Potter's latest disc, Being Dufay, travels back a century to the music of Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474), setting fragments of the Flemish composer's melodies against the electronic backdrops by Ambrose Field.
Recorded in Yorkshire (both men are on the staff of York University's cutting-edge music department), the disc travelled around the EU to be mixed in Oslo and eventually released on the German ECM label.
Musically, it is quite a trip too, as Dufay's timeless melodies float through pulsating electronica. Sometimes they sing out unencumbered, as if in a giant cyber-cathedral; elsewhere they cluster and multiply or engage in dialogue with Field's 21st century textures.
The title track, at just over 12 minutes, is the most ambitious in its sonic range, exploring the very deepest mysteries of music itself, but the shorter Je vous pri nods to late 70s Brian Eno, while Sanctus finds Potter inspiring choruses of electronic birdsong with a few lines of plainsong.
Some might dismiss Being Dufay as modish chill-out with an Early Renaissance twist, yet thoughtful programme notes provide not only justification but also useful signposting for the listener.
And, while we're in the 15th century, why not search out the Binchois Consort's new recording of the real thing? Dufay & the Court of Savoy finds eight male voices under conductor Andrew Kirkman penetrating to the very heart of this cool yet strangely passionate music.
The disc may be dominated by Dufay's Mass Se la face ay pale, with the lovely ballad that it is based on, but the highlight is the motet, O tres piteulx. This lament for the fall of Constantinople and the end of the intellectual and cultural riches of the Byzantine world strikes a chilling chord with our times.
William Dart
