I am not the first person to point out that this is a very ECM-ish sort of work, and in an entirely positive way. (It is possible to be too ECM-ish, IMHO.) Pianist John Law and saxophonist Jon Lloyd's Naissance grew out of their earlier collaboration, Renaissance – under normal circumstances you might expect the re-version to be the sequel, rebirth following birth, quite literally in this case, but here it's the other way round.

Renaissance, recorded in Malmesbury Abbey, featured Law's compositions drawing on 16th- and 17th-century European vocal music; Naissance sees the pair improvising over one another's tunes, returning to three pieces from the previous project (‘Miserere’, ‘Lamentations’ and ‘Stabat’) but also broadening the musical palette to encompass world music and classical minimalism as well as jazz and Renaissance polyphony. It's densely conceived and often haunting, especially when Lloyd blows over Law's repeated, carefully varied and embellished piano lines (the aforementioned ‘Miserere’, ‘Mode 2’).