Artist: Perfect Houseplants

Date of Release:

Catalogue no: HMU 907319

Label: Harmonia Mundi

Price: £11.99

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Track Listing

Appearances by

Huw Warren, Mark Lockheart, Martin France

Mark Lockheart: Tenor and Soprano Sax, Clarinet Robert Harre-Jones: Countertenor Huw Warren: Piano and Prepared Piano Charles Daniels: Tenor Dudley Phillips: Electric and Acoustic Bass Angus Smith: Tenor Trumpet Martin France: Drums and Electric percussion Donald Greig: Baritone 'Trumpet)

Reviews

01/02/2003 The Guardian

“Improvisational talent is a key to the collaboration between the Orlando Consort and Perfect Houseplants: medieval musicians had to be as routinely flexible as jazz players. The Orlandos are a multi-award winning early music vocal group; the Houseplants are a distinctively pastoral British quartet However, Extempore II (Harmonia Mundi ) is more composition based than their previous work together, an hour-long Latin mass based on the medieval melody, L’Homme Armé. When the full band plays behind the vocals, as on saxophonist Mark Lockheart’s Mercy, Mercy, there’s a vestigial trace of the Coltrane quartet’s Psalm, from A Love Supreme. Pianist Huw Warren contributes Crier, a robust piece that pushes both ensembles in new directions, and the mass opens and closes on two more Warren compositions, he Man, the Man, and Dona Nobis Pacem, a beautifully restrained and gorgeous recessional.”

01/01/2003 Classic FM magazine

“Ground breaking, not one for the faint hearted”