Norma Winstone, Kit Downes

Outpost of Dreams introduces a new duo: the English singer and lyricist Norma Winstone with pianist Kit Downes, more than four decades her junior. It was her first ECM album since Descansado in 2018, and it returns her to the voice and piano format she explored for years with John Taylor. Winstone wrote words for nine of the ten pieces, so the record works as a song cycle of her own.

The partnership began by chance. When Winstone's usual pianist, Nikki Iles, could not make a London date, Winstone booked Downes without ever having played with him, and liked the risk he brought to the music. Downes, known on ECM as a pianist and organist on Obsidian, Dreamlife of Debris and Vermillion, wrote four new pieces for the duo. The album was recorded in April 2023 at Artesuono Studio in Udine with Stefano Amerio, mixed in Munich in January 2024, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

The repertoire reaches back to Winstone's own history. Fly The Wind is John Taylor's tune also known as Wych Hazel, revisited after his death in 2015 at a medium-up tempo where she scats with restraint. Beneath An Evening Sky is Ralph Towner's melody, with a lyric she wrote long ago. She wrote words for Carla Bley's Jesus Maria without knowing Bley had already done so, and Downes opens it with a meditative solo. His own El, written for his baby daughter, floats over a faint Hammond organ drone. In Search Of Sleep is close to spoken word, and the traditional Black Is The Colour and the Scandinavian folk tune behind Rowing Home complete the set. The title comes from the last line of her lyric for The Steppe.

Critics noted how little the age gap matters. In The Guardian John Fordham wrote that Downes "empathically coaxes her thoughts" in "the wide spaces she instinctively leaves". Alyn Shipton in Jazzwise, where it was an Editor's Choice, called it "an object lesson that creativity can be subtle and spacious". Michael Ullman in The Arts Fuse heard Downes as an active, sensitive collaborator rather than an accompanist. Reed Jackson in Spectrum Culture heard in Winstone's voice the clarity and control of her years with Azimuth.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2811, first released on 5 July 2024, with Winstone's lyrics printed in the booklet.