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Rating: * * * * *
The Dowland Project first appeared nine years ago, with a groundbreaking ECM recording featuring an unexpected take on the melancholic lute songs of the eternally sorrowful John Dowland. Instead of being delivered by the customary counter-tenor and lute duo, these ayres were freely reconceived for tenor against a quartet of saxophone, baroque violin, double-bass and lute.
John Potter, a singer as well versed in the contemporary as the ancient, made the mournful melodies glow anew, while jazz luminaries John Surman and Barry Guy uncovered all manner of mysterious sounds in Dowland's dark measures.
Equally important to the project was the input of ECM producer and label-owner, Manfried Eicher, a man who had worked with the likes of Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton and Chick Corea.
The line-up has changed for the group's third outing, Romaria, although lutenist Stephen Stubbs and Surman remain with the band, and the music moves further back from Dowland's time into the less familiar Middle Ages.
The cool sonorities of these musicians easily draw you into their domain, with moods tending towards the meditative. Significantly, Potter has chosen a religious song of Oswald von Wolkenstein and bypassed the 15th century composer's more ribald secular works.
This music spins wonderful illusions and allusions. Milos Valent's viola can sound positively Middle Eastern on a 13th century Dulce solum with Surnam's soprano sax coming across like an Arabian oboe calling the faithful to turn to Mecca.
A new departure in this third recording is two instrumental tracks, which come across as the coolest of medieval jam sessions.
While one might miss the tighter structure that the songs of Dowland and others gave their earlier recordings, the Dowland Project's new CD offers ample rewards for the adventurous.
William Dart
