Stunning and exhilarating! Wow! I guarantee most people will not have heard a disc like this before. The Machaut is sublime, gritty, unexpected and just excellently performed here by the Orlando Consort.
However it’s Tarik O’Regan’s “Scattered Rhymes”, which opens the disc that will blow you away. For one thing it’s FAST, something which most new choral music is not. For this piece, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Paul Hillier) joins the Orlando Consort and the effect is mesmerizing. I think it feels like a concerto for the Consort, where the soloists get to show off their virtuosic mastery against the rich sound of the Estonians.
I repeat: you will not have heard anything like this before!