It was inevitable, or at least it seems to have been bound to happen, given Apartment House's sonic fingerprint. At Another Timbre founder Simon Reynell's urging, Apartment House has recorded the compositions of Renaissance composer Nicolas Gombert in arrangements by James Weeks, a project for which their approach to ensemble playing and articulation is absolutely perfect. Reynell decided to follow his muse relating to an increasing passion for early music after his 2023 cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment. This story and a detailed discussion of Weeks' approach to his Gombert realizations can be found in a typically excellent interview, more like a conversation, on Another Timbre's site. It will suffice here to say that, despite Weeks' involvement with vocal music of the era, the decision was made to render these pieces as instrumentals and to interweave them with Weeks' own compositions.

We hear one of these as the disc opens in the deliciously aphoristic "Prelude," which sounds as if it's composed for what sounds like clarinet and flute, though I'm not certain of this, given the subtlety of the playing. Reynell is clear in the interview that the angelic approach to Renaissance vocal music is not for him, and the prelude sets the scene with a breathy combination of neo-Webern and the "reductionist" approach that has been an Another Timbre hallmark since the beginning.

Nonetheless, much of the disc inhabits more expansive areas, like the concluding lament, "Lugebat David Absalom." Listen to the glorious juxtaposition of polyphony and homophony as the final cadence approaches to get an idea of the openness of the ensemble's sound but also how Weeks orchestrates the music. There's a touch of Webern's approach to Bach in the way instrumental colors change throughout. The opening moments conjure a consort of viols, but the illusion is quickly dispelled by entrances from winds and quietly majestic brass; the juxtapositon renders the various shades of counterpoint readily audible. Contrast all this grandeur with the relative brevity and intimacy of "Mille Regretz" to gauge the range of timbres Apartment House and Weeks lavish on the flowing mixture of repetition and variation.

Weeks' compositions serve as a superb backdrop against which Gombert's work unfolds, or maybe it's better to think of the two compositional forces in dialogue. Some of Weeks' writing illuminates the Renaissance sound world via retrospection, as in the first of the motivically related Media Vita series, a beautiful study in large-scale repetition of disparate contexts. The introduction of piano is especially felicitous, bringing variation to the sonic pallet.

As wonderful as the ensemble's typically precise and nearly vibrato-less playing is, the production provides the final layer of intrigue. Nearly dry, it is a refreshing change from the usual reverberant bath of sound that unfortunately afflicts so many Renaissance recordings. The recorded sound, unadorned and expertly mixed, render each melodic and harmonic detail with perfect clarity, as the final sonority of Gombert's "Media Vita" attests. In one chord, one point of repose after the breathy and constantly morphing counterpoint, the disc's most attractive qualities are encapsulated.

Yes, this wonderful disc is certainly a departure, but in another way, the project is right in line with label and ensemble's aesthetics, demonstrating the unity of present and past.