Composer-bassist, Gavin Bryars, is a hard man to pin down, as these two very different records indicate. I Have Heard It Said That A Spirit Enters opens with three songs sung by Canadian jazz singer Holly Cole. As Cole's voice caresses poet PK Page's words, you realise these are not songs in the 32 bar, AABA form. Rather the words float across the musical landscape, giving these pieces a somnambulistic, dreamlike quality. It's hugely affecting and almost filmic in effect. It's hard to say why exactly but I was less immediately taken with By The Vaar, written for solo bass and orchestra and performed originally by Charlie Haden. I just found it somewhat uneventful but the ‘Porazzi Fragment’ and Bryars’ ‘Violin Concerto’, played here by Owen Hoebig, are something else again. The concerto is quite sumptuous, in all its slow-moving, lachrymose glory. Essentially a chamber piece, alluding to Vivaldi at certain points, I thought I could hear echoes of Samuel Barber as well. The ‘Porazzi Fragment’ is a darker composition but just as rich. A meditation on death and art, its inspiration lies in late-period Romanticism but it is neither threnody nor pastiche. Instead, Bryars uses such ideas merely as a starting point for his own reflections, both mental and musical, on these weighty subjects.

Live At Punkt is, if anything, even better and still more surprising. If I say that it recalls Arvo Pärt's work, this is due to an apparent shared interest in early religious music. The way Bryars deploys the voices is remarkable. Anna Maria Friman has this pristine sound that vibrates with sensuality and she combines with John Potter's airy tones to revelatory impact. The two songs where the ensemble is joined by Arve Henriksen on trumpet are really just icing on an already festive confection but his playing brings an additional dimension to this fine set. A magnificent record.