In our age of widespread literacy, it's easy to forget that the vast majority of music that survives from the Middle Ages was, merely by virtue of being written down, the dominion of an elite minority. On their debut CD, the Italian ensemble Acantus (the first group other than the Tallis Scholars to record for the Gimell label) approaches medieval Italian devotional song from the angle of common Italian folk music rather than of the erudite plainchant and polyphony preserved in most medieval sources. The pieces selected include several examples of chant-based "simple polyphony" that seem clearly derived from improvisatory practices--in Acantus's convincing performances, the effect is something like the equivalent of the spontaneous harmonizations Americans might sing around a campfire. These musicians use medieval instruments in about half of the pieces--and that sparingly--but the effect is always well-considered and natural: even when, in a hymn praising the crucified Christ and the Holy Cross, they use bagpipes and tambourine, the effect is fervent and exciting, without the faint whiff of condescension that often appears when "classical" early-music groups use those instruments. It's probably a measure of Acantus's success at aiming to recapture the musical spirit of ordinary folk in medieval Italy that the one piece they include that survives today in the oral tradition (a hymn from Liguria) fits right in with the rest of the record. --Matthew Westphal