Most of you probably remember and associate the music of British/Canadian composer Gavin Bryars (b. 1943) with one of his early breakthrough recordings titled Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet. An hour long single-movement work about a homeless man extolling in song the virtues of wine, or the love of Jesus depending on one's perspective. It seemed to profoundly impact different people for different reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it was one of the most extreme examples of minimalism at its most minimalistic.

Jump forward a few years and many compositions later and A Native Hill from 2019, a choral a cappella work written for and dedicated to one of America's finest vocal ensembles The Crossing, paints a completely different, multi-faceted and complex picture of this composer. The work is in twelve segments based on American author and environmentalist Wendell Berry's 1968 essay of the same name, which examines bucolic aspects of rural life. Based on each song's text and significance, the music ranges from heartily simple and evocative, to intensely complex with beautifully merged distant and dissonant harmonies. The highly expressive and nuanced singing by the two-dozen or so members of The Crossing, adds depth and color to the metaphysical undertones of each song. A stunning example is the quasi pipe organ sounding 24 note cluster chords from which a song gradually rises, that open the final song. Magnificent blend and texture like this from a chamber vocal ensemble is quite simply a thing of beauty.

The audio recording itself took place inside a church and affords the perfect level of space and reverb exactly suited to this type of choral music. Recommended!