Ensconced is a new collaboration initiated during the pandemic years between Milan-born British/Turkish vocalist/lyricist Brigitte Beraha and UK guitarist/composer Ant Law.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06afternoon to speak to Angelore and Brigid Beraha, and you have collaborated on a new
00:12album that came out in the summer. You are heading for a brightened date before too long,
00:17but the whole thing goes back to lockdown, doesn't it? The horrors of the pandemic, and
00:21it's interesting that somehow something good has emerged from that ghastly time. What happened
00:26and that you two started working together? Indeed, yeah. Well, I suppose normally we
00:33would be playing maybe five, six, seven nights a week. But having all that time and all the
00:40travel time stripped out of the calendar meant I was personally able to start developing
00:45some music and composing and things like that. A lot more than I would normally manage to
00:50do. So for once, I was time rich, even if the finances were a little bit stretched.
00:57And I've been an admirer of Brigid's work for years. So I just wrote to her and said,
01:03Hey, how do you feel about putting some words to this? And maybe this other one as well,
01:07if you don't like that one. And then she said, in one of them, she said, Okay, what's it
01:12about? Do you want it to be about anything? And one of them, I think, I think I had an
01:15idea. But another one, I just said, No, no, what do you think a couple of pieces as well
01:20have developed without words with just her singing?
01:23So Brigid, what appealed to you about this idea? Why did you say yes? And why did you
01:28enjoy doing it?
01:29Well, first, I knew that Ant was an amazing musician, amazing guitarist, but also his
01:38compositions, the compositions themselves, are just so beautiful, so melodic. And so
01:43when he approached me, I looked at the music, started playing it. And think, and you know,
01:48it felt really organic and really natural to write lyrics for this music. So it felt
01:52like a good match. Yeah.
01:55And the album came out in the summer, and you were pleased with it, obviously.
01:59Yeah, we're very happy with it. I think we're proud. We're proud of it. And it's been going
02:05well. And we're taking it with us on vinyl format and CD format at the gigs as well.
02:13And yeah, it's just it feels good. So I think there'll be a new one next year at some point.
02:20And Ant, why does this partnership work well, do you think?
02:25One of the most fun things that happens is all the improvisation.
02:29Improvisation is one of the things that draws a lot of people to
02:32jazz and other kind of jazz adjacent musical styles. And when there's just two of you,
02:39each one of you can exert quite a significant influence on anything that's happening at one
02:45point. So if I play with a bass player and drummer, let's say there are two people who
02:48have to try and follow me. But if it's just Brigitte, I can pause, I can rush, I can leave
02:54space, I can create density, and Brigitte can immediately respond as quickly as we might
03:00interject in a conversation or something. So that's been the really exciting thing that
03:04every tune in, we've played three concerts so far, and every song has been quite different.
03:09It's kind of scary to think about when I say it like that, but that's exactly what happens
03:13in front of audiences.
03:14It sounds a perfect combination. Lovely to speak to you both. Best wishes.
03:18Good to see you, Phil.
03:18All that comes from the duo. Thank you very much indeed.
03:21Thanks so much.