Anything with vocalist Norma Winstone’s softly octave-vaulting sound on it is bound to keep the lights down low, and this set of originals and covers (including songs by Ralph Towner, Joni Mitchell and Steve Swallow) from Winstone’s and pianist Nikki Iles’ Printmakers sextet often does just that. But Westerly’s blend of cool American and Latin styles with evocations of rural England often reveals an intensity pulsing beneath its vaporous melodies. Towner’s A Breath Away floats above an intensifying Latin backdrop powered by the bass/drums partnership of Steve Watts and James Maddren, and Paul Simon’s I Do It for Your Love finds Winstone at her most effortlessly agile while wraiths of tenor sax from Polar Bear’s Mark Lockheart wind around her. Iles’ title track adopts an unexpected country-music canter and ends with some fading bluegrass banjo, and Winstone brings a more worldly, conversational tone to the country-bluesy finale, Steve Swallow’s City of Dallas. A fine album.
