Shadowlands (Robin Fincker, Lauren Kinsella, Kit Downes) – Ombres
(Budapest Music Centre Records BMC CD 327. Album review by Jon Turney)

The PR sheet tells us this recording “combines folk and contemporary music in the spirit of European jazz”, and the trio involved are wonderfully well equipped to do that. French-born saxophonist Robin Fincker joins long-time keyboard collaborator Kit Downes to offer drummerless settings for Lauren Kinsella’s wondrously varied renditions of nine songs, recorded live in Budapest early last year.

What the combination of styles they can draw on produces is intriguingly varied from track to track.

Opener Death and the Lady begins almost as a straight presentation of a folk song, the centuries-old lyric front and centre, but the anxiously fluttering saxophone atmospherics and Downes drifting organ chords add a keen edge to the desolation of the lyric. By the last lines Fincker is sounding the saxophone keys without breath, as if the death the song foretells has just happened.

The treatment, which recalls Downes work with Lucia Cadotsch, is typical of the aptness of the settings the trio conjure for each song. Fagradalsfjall, named for one of Iceland’s more active volcanoes,begins with trio improvisation, Kinsella showing her easy command of extended vocal technique, before moving into wordless unison, the eruption perhaps quiet for now.

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Roll on Buddy, which follows, has thickened, gospelly saxophone tones and rolling, declamatory acoustic piano urging along Kinsella’s still melancholic voice. Another old song, Georgie, moves closer to Quercus territory, with pure-toned clarinet and piano highlighting the lyric, although Kinsella’s vocal register is very different to the darker frequencies of equally distinctive June Tabor.

These and the other five songs all combine emotional intelligence with moments of piercing beauty and pleasing musical surprises. The trio members dwell in three different countries so this may not be a regular collaboration, but it would be fine to hear more songs – ancient or contemporary – rethought and refreshed in the way they manage to bring off here.

Jon Turney writes about jazz, and other things, from Bristol – jonturney.wordpress.com

LINK: Shadowlands at BMC