Kantos In your dreams

Anon., arr. Ellie Slorach (b. 1994) Golden slumbers; *Eric Whitacre Sleep; Shakespeare Are you sure that we are awake? (from A Midsummer Night's Dream); He that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache (from Cymbeline, Act V, scene iv); Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises (from The Tempest, Act III, scene ii); Sonnet 27; We are such stuff as dreams are made on (from The Tempest, Act IV, Scene i); Jaakko Mäntyjärvi Pseudo-Yoik; Edgar Allan Poe A Dream within a Dream; Billy Joel Lullabye (Goodnight, my angel); Mátyás Seiber There was an old lady of France (There Nonsense Songs, No. 1); There was an old person of Cromer (Three Nonsense Songs, No. 2); There was an old man in a tree (Three Nonsense Songs, No. 3) John Keats To Sleep; Josef Rheinberger Abendlied, Op. 69 no. 3; Ēriks Ešenvalds Only in sleep; William Wordsworth To Sleep; Camden Reeves The Maze of Sleep; Kristina Arakelyan Train Ride*; Soundscape Sleep-talking; Edmund Jolliffe Be not afeard *; Ralph Vaughan Williams The cloud-capp’d towers (Three Shakespeare Songs, No. 2); Emily Dickinson The Moon; Laura Mvula & Steven James Brown Sing to the Moon * premiere recordings

Kantos Chamber Choir
Ellie Slorach director
Delphian Records DCD34342
https://www.delphianrecords.com/

Prepare your evening ritual: brew that final cup of tea, arrange a plate of digestives within reach, and settle into your most cherished armchair. What awaits is not merely a listening experience but a descent into the realm of Morpheus himself, where consciousness blurs and music becomes the architecture of dreams.

The Kantos Chamber Choir's Delphian debut emerges like a midnight reverie, their voices weaving together in an ambitious tapestry that reimagines the choral album as a single, immersive dreamscape. Under artistic director Ellie Slorach's visionary guidance, this Manchester-based ensemble, only 18 voices, has long established itself as a pioneer of boundary-pushing projects where concert programming embraces theatrical storytelling. Here, they venture into sleep's liminal territory, exploring its many dimensions through an intoxicating blend of music, poetry, and sonic fragments.

The album's genius lies in its seamless threading of spoken word with choral numbers, creating a hypnagogic flow that mirrors the way dreams slip from one scene to the next. Shakespeare's haunting question "Are you sure that we are awake?" from A Midsummer Night's Dream dissolves effortlessly into Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's Pseudo-Yoik, the juxtaposition as natural as the transition from wakefulness to slumber.

Golden Slumbers opens this nocturnal odyssey with sublime grace, introducing sleep's duality of darkness and light—a theme that resonates throughout like the gentle rhythm of breathing. When Whitacre's Sleep follows, the choir plunges into something approaching a trance state, their voices becoming the very embodiment of a deep, almost frightening surrender to unconsciousness.

The vocal prowess on display is nothing short of remarkable. Born from Manchester's vibrant musical scene, the Kantos Chamber Choir demonstrates discipline that borders on the supernatural. The control and resonance of their lower registers flows like warm honey, whilst the upper voices float with ethereal precision. This is a cappella singing of the finest calibre, each phrase sculpted with such beauty that one becomes utterly transfixed rather than drowsy.

The chosen readers add another layer to this oneiric experience, their voices carefully selected to articulate words with crystalline clarity. A brief but inspired addition comes in the form of 46 seconds of actual sleep talking—recognisable murmurs that bridge the gap between performance and authentic nocturnal experience.

Far from inducing slumber, the disc's hypnotic energy maintains rapt attention throughout. The virtuosic technique and tonal precision create a smorgasbord of rich textures and magical colours that shift like patterns behind closed eyelids. Vaughan Williams's The Cloud-capped Towers, following Shakespeare's immortal "we are such stuff as dreams are made on," proves utterly enchanting—a musical embodiment of that liminal space where reality dissolves.

The journey concludes with exquisite appropriateness: Emily Dickinson's The Moon recited with reverent simplicity, followed by Laura Mvula's lush arrangement of her own Sing to the Moon. As annotator Hugh Morris observes, "Hey broken soul, hold on," Mvula writes. "Soon it will be morning. The dream cycle repeats again." It's a perfect awakening from this extended reverie. Its clever ending just adds to the glory of this disc.

This recording represents everything one hopes for in contemporary choral artistry—a willingness to push boundaries whilst maintaining the highest musical standards. One can only hope that more ensembles, particularly our cathedral choirs, will embrace such imaginative combinations of poetry and song both in the recording studio and concert hall.

Let the aura from your speakers bewitch you. This disc deserves to become part of your own dream cycle, revisited whenever you seek that perfect balance between consciousness and the land of nod. Absolutely essential listening.