The third album from the Hermes Experiment again shows what a liberating force in contemporary music this ensemble have become. Beautifully thought through and rewardingly eclectic, Tree begins in a melancholy but open style with Islands by Marianne Schofield, the ensemble’s bassist, and ends with the title track by Errollyn Wallen, unfolding over a steady bass like something by Purcell.

Clarinettist Oliver Pashley and singer Héloïse Werner contribute their own songs while harpist Anne Denholm-Blair provides a subtly textured arrangement of Nicola LeFanu’s wistful song The Bourne. Schofield is also behind a gorgeous version of Les Rossignols by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, initially halting and ethereal, then coalescing into something approaching its 17th-century original. Abel Selaocoe’s Buhle Bendalo is full of beatboxing and vocal rhapsodising that gives Werner a virtuoso workout. But the centre of gravity is perhaps Laura Moody’s three Rilke Songs, recorded here for the first time. The middle song, with Werner constantly interrupting her flow with a stuttering glitch as if there’s a fault in the playback, stands out, but the three together make for a brief cycle of enormous scope. The question is no longer why composers would choose to write for this quirky combo, it’s why they would feel their music needed anything else.

Listen on Apple Music (above) or on Spotify

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