Gratefulness The Heart of Prayer

The Choir of Westminster Cathedral is the crowning jewel of Catholic church music and has been at the forefront of English sacred music since its foundation in 1901. This new disc draws us into the mystery of the Paschal Vigil, the very apex of the Church’s liturgical year, transporting us on a journey from darkness into light through a sequence of plainsong and polyphony. It is the first album under the choir’s current director, Simon Johnson, picking up where Vexilla Regis (AF002) left off, and immerses the listener in the Cathedral’s own unique treasury of liturgical music, including compositions crafted by its former musicians, as well as repertoire at the heart of the choir’s work, represented here in polyphony by Victoria, Monteverdi and L’Héritier’s glorious Surrexit pastor bonus.

Harp master Billy Branch has been a figure of the note on the Chicago blues scene since he was discovered by Willie Dixon in 1969, and after more than four decades, he's grown from a young buck bringing new blood to the blues scene to an elder statesman who stands tall for the music's traditions. Blues Shock arrives ten years after Billy Branch last released an album, but it sounds like he and his latest edition of the Sons of Blues are still in fighting shape, playing tight, straight-ahead blues with force, imagination and wit. Blues Shock shows there's plenty of fun and fresh ideas to be found in a form as time-tested as Chicago blues. It's a great set.