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Art of Time Ensemble - Ain't Got Long is a wondrous, honest and deeply respectful undertaking / THE ALTERNATE ROOT

THE ALTERNATE ROOT's Chris Wheatley writes.....Something a little special to brighten up your Spring here. It's fair to say that, when it comes to Classical outfits covering Popular music, fans from both sides approach with caution. The results, when they work, can be brilliant (see Trevor Horn's ‘Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties'). Caution, however, is warranted. Such projects can all too easily come off as condescending, and all too often leave the resultant songs stranded deep in no-man's land, stripped of the spirit which inhabited the originals and devoid of the sublime feelings aroused by the best Chamber Music. I can assure you that Canada's celebrated Art of Time Ensemble are far too earnest to fall into that trap.

If the worth of an album can be told by the talents of its contributors, then Ain't Got Long fully measures up. The gifted musicians who make up the Art of Time Ensemble, led by pianist Andrew Burashko, with arrangements by Jonathan Goldsmith, are joined here by an impressive cast of guest singers comprising of Madeleine Peyroux, Gregory Hoskins, Jessica Mitchell and Sarah Slean. The impetus behind the album was a desire to reinterpret a wide variety of songs which ‘qualify as standards in anyone's 21st-century appreciation of music'. With entries ranging from Robert Johnson to Radiohead, it's a bold ambition indeed.

Ain't Got Long is a wondrous, honest and deeply respectful undertaking, which celebrates some of the best which "popular" music has to offer.

READ THE FULL ALTERNATE ROOT REVIEW