'Better known north of the border as Engagement Conductor of the RSNO, Ellie Slorach reveals herself in a significantly different light here as founder and director of the Manchester-based Kantos Chamber Choir. The a cappella content in this debut Delphian album reflects the ensemble’s silken versatility, with music ranging from Vaughan Williams and Josef Rheinberger to Mátyás Seiber’s whimsical Nonsense Songs and Billy Joel’s Lullabye (Goodnight my Angel). Comforting contemporary voices such as Eric Whitacre (Sleep) contrast effectively with the rumbustious folksiness of Jaakko Mäntyjârvi’s Pseudo-Yoik, or the chuff-chuffing of Hungarian-born Kristina Arakelyan’s Train Ride. But the clincher is a format that operates as a sequential narrative what Kantos refer to as the “reimagining of the choral album as a single immersive dreamscape” – snippets of spoken Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson interwoven with illustrative music that is deliciously sung, artfully expressed and, for all its instant accessibility, both neatly accessible and challenging. '

★★★★★

'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 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 ... This recording represents everything one hopes for in contemporary choral artistry—a willingness to push boundaries whilst maintaining the highest musical standards'


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'It is a very winning combination: the (very short) spoken interludes, sound-effects of waking and sleep-talking, jump-cutting from item to item (In Your Dreams very much should be listened to straight through) and the fantastical subject matter all meld together into a powerful artistic statement. The singing is first rate and the recording made with Delphian’s usual care.

Some of the pieces are established in the repertoire: Eric Whitacre’s Sleep was an obvious choice, as was Rheinberger’s Abendlied. Philip Lawson’s arrangement of Billy Joel’s "Lullabye", made for the Kings Singers, perhaps less so, but lets us hear another side of Kantos. They sing lovingly but do not indulge the sentimentality of the song and keep it moving. Of the pieces that explore the nonsensical quality of dreams by far the best is Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s Pseudo-Yoik, two minutes of crazed chanting in a made-up language. It is difficult to describe but once heard is never forgotten, and this is the best recorded version I’ve heard.'

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