The Bath cover

The Bath

Released

The tranquil beauty of Emma Houton’s vocal harmonies, self-recorded here in eight parts a cappella, would be enough to make her work worth attention. But this debut release does not settle for ambient sameness; instead, she shapes her singing into a varied and rewarding landscape. “Bow and Balance” is the center of gravity, where an Irish murder ballad holds the foreground while the background vocals develop from a simple repeating pattern into a panorama of luminous sound.

Sean Wood

Recommended by

Suggestions
Outerborough cover

Outerborough

Todd Reynolds, Paul de Jong
Still Life cover

Still Life

Young Magic
Memory Game cover

Memory Game

Bang on a Can
1865: Songs of Hope & Home cover

1865: Songs of Hope & Home

Bruce Molsky, Anonymous 4
 In The Cell Of Dreams cover

In The Cell Of Dreams

Siddhartha Belmannu, Wacław Zimpel, Shackleton
Garden of Expression cover

Garden of Expression

Carmen Castaldi, Joe Lovano, Marilyn Crispell
Estonian Premieres cover

Estonian Premieres

Paavo Järvi, Estonian Festival Orchestra
Is That So? cover

Is That So?

Shankar Mahadevan, John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain