Close to Home Bill Laurance & Michael League

• 1 Luray 02:50
• 2 Wisdom 04:27
• 3 Tiny Little Flames 02:51
• 4 Kings & Queens 04:01
• 5 Tenant 03:39
• 6 Like It's Nothing 03:01
• 7 Sol Do Sul 03:54
• 8 Mass of Moon Glow 03:28
• 9 Trust in You 04:47
• 10 Ma 03:10
• 11 Reach 03:54
• 12 Never Miss a Thing 03:44
• Total Runtime 43:46

Info for Close to Home

For their third album together, Bill Laurance and Michael League retreated to a magical place: Château Palmer in the Bordeaux region. Edition Palmer IV is the fourth release in the collector series by ACT and Château Palmer.

The essence of the duo formed by pianist Bill Laurance and bassist and oud player Michael League: say a lot with very little - a concept that, through two albums released to date and acclaimed concerts, has earned them a following that, for once, truly deserves to be called “cult”. For their third album together, “Close to Home”, Bill Laurance and Michael League retreated to a magical place: Château Palmer in the Bordeaux region - home to some of the world’s finest Grands Crus, as well as a place of creativity and encounter. This is the unique backdrop for the “ACT x Palmer” series. Since 2023 an album in this collection has been released each year – in a collaboration initiated in partnership by ACT’s director, producer Andreas Brandis and Château Palmer’s director Thomas Duroux.

“When we arrived at Château Palmer in late April of 2026, time instantly slowed down,” say Laurance and League. “It's a place where nature is encouraged to do its thing, to take all the time it needs, and that felt like the perfect setting to record.” This quote from the liner notes by the two musicians expresses particularly well the way in which the tranquillity and beauty of the recording location helped to capture the essence of the way they collaborate and communicate even more effectively. As they observe: “’Close to Home’ goes deeper into what the duo is in its purest form. From the writing to the performances, to the way in which Nic Hard recorded it, we are trying to get closer to the root of what we are doing as two musicians in dialogue – simple, exposed, and raw.”

You can hear exactly this intimacy and immediacy from the very first track, “Luray”. The musicians breathing is audible as they play, as is the sound of the strings of the oud, the gentle thud of the machinery of the grand piano; in the pauses between the notes, birdsong drifts in from the garden of the Château. It is this sense of closeness, this feeling of being together in one room, that runs through the entire album and gives it its special charm. As Michael League says: “We’re inviting the listener to be in this house along with us, rather than trying to put on a show for them.” Many of the tracks on the album were written at night, often between 2.00 am and 5.00 am – something which further enhances the tranquillity of the music.

Like the duo’s first two albums, "Where You Wish You Were" and "Keeping Company", "Close To Home" is an album of songs. The focus of the tracks is not on individual styles, but rather on distinctive moods, carried by clear melodies and rhythms which, whilst appearing light, also reveal the proximity, the precision and the sixth sense with which Bill Laurance and Michael League play together. Bill Laurance says: “The beauty of this duo is that there is no style that’s off the table”.

And the elements of this music are indeed fascinatingly diverse: Western and Eastern music, influences from North and South America and the Mediterranean, pop, jazz, blues, folk, minimal music. For Bill Laurance and Michael League, these are all part of the vocabulary of their shared musical language which has been forged during more than twenty years of collaboration and close friendship.

Ultimately, ‘Close To Home’ is a life-affirming celebration of human connection. The recording sessions were punctuated by shared meals and conversations between the musicians and the ACT & Château-Palmer family. The surroundings and these friendly encounters had a profound influence on the way the music developed. As Bill Laurance and Michael League affirm: “We have decided we’ll only do records like this for at least the next few years. Quick sessions in non-typical recording spaces with good friends, food, and drink. Make it more like a celebration. No time to overthink, second-guess, fixate ourselves on small details. Keep it natural, keep it human.”

Bill Laurance, piano
Michael League, oud, fretless bass, vocals

Recorded April 28–30, 2026 at Château Palmer in Margaux-Cantenac, France
Recorded by Nic Hard
Mixed by Nic Hard
Mastered by Dave McNair
Produced by Andreas Brandis, Bill Laurance and Michael League

Bill Laurance
Pianist, keyboardist and composer Bill Laurance’s music evokes a striking sense of time and place. As an original member of 5-time Grammy Award-winning group Snarky Puppy, Laurance has toured the world countless times, playing hundreds of concerts to tens of thousands of fans worldwide.

Attending the University of Leeds, he majored in classical composition, exploring jazz, funk and drum’n’bass in addition to classical music. Since then he has honed the melodic immediacy of this approach, along with his intense improvisational prowess, forging a distinctive personal style that embraces English classical, electronica and jazz-rock sensibilities, alongside gritty contemporary grooves.

In the early-noughties, a twenty-something Laurance was trying to make a living on the Leeds music scene, when an unremarkable but timely pick-up gig presented itself with a young Michael League in singer Michael Solomon Williams’ band. Gigs in the north of England forged a friendship with League, who happened to be looking for a new piano player, and League invited Laurance to the US to record the first Snarky Puppy album, The Only Constant, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, Laurance has clocked up recordings and or performances with such renowned artists as David Crosby, Morcheeba, Salif Keita, Terence Blanchard, Susana Baca, Lalah Hathaway, Laura Mvula, Jacob Collier, Musiq Soul Child, Khalid Sansi, Chris Potter, Lionel Loueke, Carlos Malta, The Metropole Orchestra and the WDR Big Band. He has also worked extensively in the dance world with companies including Alvin Ailey, Ballet Rambert, Matthew Bourne's Adventures in Motion Pictures, Phoenix Dance, Northern Ballet Theatre and the English National Ballet. He has also composed music for a variety of different clients including Apple, Sky, Nokia and Hewlett Packard.

He is a champion of cutting-edge keyboard developments and is endorsed by: Moog, Mellotron, Sequential, Korg, Nord, Roli Seaboard, Yamaha, Roland, Arp Odyssey, Keyscape, Sound Brenner, Native Instruments and MXR. Alongside Laurance’s touring as a solo artist and with Snarky Puppy, Laurance is the Artist in residence at Morley College London. He is is a passionate educator and continues to give clinics at music institutions all over the world.

Michael League
is a 4-time GRAMMY award-winning, multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, arranger, songwriter, label owner, and bandleader based out of Catalonia, Spain. Aside from founding and leading Snarky Puppy and Bokanté, Michael has worked with and/or produced for a diverse range of artists spanning multiple genres, including David Crosby, Esperanza Spalding, Michael McDonald, Kirk Franklin, Jacob Collier, Laura Mvula, Chris Potter, TOKiMONSTA, Susana Baca, and more. Over the course of 2021, League will produce 12 records, the first of which is his debut solo album. Usually surrounded by collaborators, this album marks a departure in that League is performing every instrument, as well as singing, on songs written alone during the COVID-19 pandemic. League’s debut album, So Many Me, is co-produced and mixed by 2-time GRAMMY award-winner, Nic Hard, and was mastered by GRAMMY award- winning engineer, Emily Lazar, whose wins and nominations include her work on Colors by Beck, Chandelier by Sia, Djesse Vol. 3 by Jacob Collier, Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters, and more.

Booklet for Close to Home