love to my liking is an album of 13th century Trouvère music from Brooklyn based ensemble Alkemie.  It’s in many ways similar in style to the music of the troubadors of what is niow Southern France but being from the North the texts are in medieval French rather than Occitan.  There’s a range of songs, dances and motets on the record including some in a form I hadn’t encountered before; where two, or even three, distinct texts are sung simultaneously by different singers.

Instrumentation is varied and interesting.  It includes Hümmelchen (a kind of German bagpipe), vielle, lyre, recorders, douçaines (a double reed woodwind instrument), Scheithold (a kind of zither), psaltery and viola a chiavi; which appears to be a bowed instrument with keys but different pictures I’ve seen suggest a very wide range of possibilities.  There’s also an assortment of percussion.

The songs are basically all about love and one aspect of this disc is that although (as far as we know) all the songs were written by men to be sung by men the lead vocalist here is Tracy Cowart with support from Adrienne Lotto and Ellie Sutherland.  Which is an interesting twist.  Anyway it’s all very lively and fun to listen to.

What really struck me immediately though  is how well recorded this is.  It’s spacious and vivid and, on headphones, very immersive.  In fact rather like sitting with the musicians rather than in the audience.  It’s not quite as immersive on speakers but it’s still really vivid.  There’s a booklet with a good deal more information about the songs and how Alkamie have arranged them.

It’s due for release on April 12th on the Bright Shiny Things label.  It’s available for pre-order at http://www.brightshiny.ninja/love-to-my-liking as a physical CD or as MP3 or 96kHz/24bit WAV.  I could only find it digitally at other retailers in MP3 and FLAC (CD quality and 96/24 formats).  I would definitely go for the hi-res digital version which is what I listened to.

This is an unusual and fun release that sees really good performances of interesting little heard music raised a notch by a really excellent recording.

Catalogue information: Bright Shiny Things BSTD 0201