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From<\/strong> London via Corsica\/Occitania Idr\u00ees\u00ee Ensemble are a useful corrective to the stereotyping of medieval music as smooth, pious and sleepy. Hearing the howls of this London-based group \u2013 sometimes powered by up to 19 members \u2013 you\u2019re reminded of song\u2019s inexhaustible capacity for conjuring fresh pain.<\/p>\n In 2016, Thomas Fournil, a Corsican composer studying at the Guildhall School of Music, became increasingly obsessed with the ancient music of his homeland, with its pre-modern musical notation and florid, trembling embellishments. He assembled a group of college friends to try out what he had found.<\/p>\n What he envisaged was far from a historical re-enactment. For one, Fournil recast these male-dominated repertories for mixed voices; today, Idr\u00ees\u00ee\u2019s distinctly individual female voices \u2013 drawn from pop, jazz and multinational folk traditions \u2013 are one of the group\u2019s central draws. There\u2019s a political strain running through their work too. They celebrate the trobairitz<\/em>, the frank, subversive female troubadours of 12th century Occitania, and recent release Dieus Sal la Terra, a paghjella<\/a><\/em> created by Fournil for mixed voices, was sung<\/a> \u201cin solidarity with those struggling to remain on the land they know\u201d.<\/p>\n Their relationship with their practice is only getting deeper. Like Corsican singers, they often sing in a horseshoe shape, arms linked, without sheet music. Over drones from a portative organ (a handheld instrument with a funky side bellow) and vielle (a medieval fiddle), they unfurl expressive, ornate vocal lines. Where other vocal ensembles in Britain value pure blends, their sound is coarser, spikier. Individual improvisation is crucial, and when they all decide to move in unison, it\u2019s with a reluctant heaviness: weighed down by pain from long ago. Hugh Morris<\/em><\/p>\n
Recommended if you like<\/strong> Arooj Aftab, Maria Callas, the choral tragedy of Prioritise Pleasure-era Self Esteem
Up next <\/strong>New single Dieus Sal la Terra out now<\/p>\nThis week\u2019s best new tracks<\/h2>\n