NORMA WINSTONE · KIT DOWNES — Outpost Of Dreams (2024) FLAC 24-96Hz

Outpost of Dreams is the debut collaboration from vocalist/lyricist Norma Winstone and pianist/composer Kit Downes. Both are veteran ECM recordings artists. Winstone hasn't issued a title with the label since 2018's award-winning Descansado: Songs for Films, while Downes, active more recently, released Short Diary with Seb Roachford in 2023. This duo began playing shows together late in 2023 and continued into 2024. Winstone, a seven-decade veteran, has been the talk of Europe since Drake sampled Azimuth's (Winstone with Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor) "The Tunnel" for "IDGAF." Among this set's ten tunes are four originals by Downes and Winstone; her lyric contributions extend here to songs by Taylor, Carla Bley, Ralph Towner, and fiddler/composer Aidan O'Rourke. There are also two folk standards, "Black Is the Color" and "Rowing Home."

At this stage of her seven-decade career, Winstone is winning accolades for her writing as much as her supple singing -- her alto instrument is undiminished by time. In opener "El," Downes weaves impressionistic, mysterious chords in the upper-middle register as Winstone wanders with purpose inside and outside his cadences: "Stardust in the night will watch her grow/Soon become aware (constellations stare)/Everything that lives and breathes and loves filling the air…" "Fly the Wind," by Taylor and Winstone, is sprightly; it sounds like a show tune in the singer's phrasing, but Downes' pianism is rooted in modern jazz. Winstone's lyrics for Bley's "Jesus Maria" embrace its mutated two-chord theme and reflect an unknowable Christ figure as he inhabits and transcends time. Her words for Towner's iconic "Beneath an Evening Sky" chart the depth and strangeness of a woman's perpetual presence in the protagonist's wandering, solitary mind. Single "The Steppe" weds classical, jazz, and classic pop as a song of love and longing, offering: "Winds sweep across the plain/Where will I find you again/The path of a shooting star/The heart dare not follow/I'm lost in the vastness of you…I'm almost submerging/In this lonely outpost of dreams." Downes flows, circles, and swings around and through her delivery. There are few substandard versions of "Black Is the Color." This one, with Downes' ghostly, wandering pianism, first excavates, then all but conceals the melody as Winstone delivers this as a tool of discovery: in certain phrases, she pays tribute to Nina Simone's stellar recording. Downes is masterful; he never intrudes on Winstone's expression yet establishes the piano as a separate lyric voice. The closing traditional sea shanty "Rowing Home" is almost unrecognizable. Downes creates darkly tinged post-bop harmonics under the melody as Winstone improvises inside the words and phrases while changing the tune's shape with her vocalizing. Usually sung by fishermen returning home, this version comes from a bereft protagonist, and it is as poignant as it is resonant. Outpost of Dreams is a quiet, gentle, even tenderly poetic masterpiece that represents music-making as an organic yet adventurous hub of meaning. 
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Tracklist :
1.    El 5:05
Music By – Kit Downes
Words By – Norma Winstone
2.    Fly The Wind 3:11
Music By – John Taylor
Words By – Norma Winstone
3.    Jesus Maria 4:29
Music By – Carla Bley
Words By – Norma Winstone
4.    Beneath An Evening Sky 3:25
Music By – Ralph Towner
Words By – Norma Winstone
5.    Out Of The Dancing Sea 3:34
Music By – Aidan O'Rourke
Words By – Norma Winstone
6.    The Steppe 5:06
Music By – Kit Downes
Words By – Norma Winstone
7.    Nocturne 5:08
Music By – Kit Downes
Words By – Norma Winstone
8.    Black Is The Colour 4:34
 – Traditional
9.    In Search Of Sleep 3:06
Music By – Kit Downes
Words By – Norma Winstone
10.    Rowing Home 3:57
– Traditional
Arranged By [Arr.] – Bob Cornford
Words By – Norma Winstone
Credits :
Piano – Kit Downes
Producer [Produced By] – Manfred Eicher
Voice – Norma Winstone