In her beautiful booklet essay which, along with the music and illustrations makes one long for the more widespread return of LPs, if not illuminated manuscripts, Jennifer Ackerman reminds us that “…bowerbirds fill their bowers with objects of delight… for one bold purpose: to lure a female. The bower is no nest but a theatre of seduction…”.

Not art for art’s sake, then. But all art aims to seduce, in one way or another. And so, it is with Bower, Genevieve Lacey’s response to a timely commission. And to a need to collaborate with others to create a sense of shelter. To follow the bowerbird’s example and “build magical architecture out of fragments – structures that entwine art and survival”.

With Ackerman’s words and Gracia Haby’s and Louise Jennison’s richly yet delicately spun illustrations setting the stage, Lacey’s recorder and McGuire’s harp swoop and flit among their animating spirits’ eclectic musical hoard, holding up for our admiration first one then another musical gem: some ancient, some newly wrought.

The metallic sheen of...