ECM

[blissblogger]

Call Me When You Get There is an album by bassist Barre Phillips recorded in 1983 and released on the ECM label. but its not on tubes

I seem to remember liking Mountainscapes by him. And it has a nice cover. I also like the name "Barre Phillips".

 

[blissblogger]

The other ones I seem to remember liking.

Frisell - In Line (well I know I like this one, I played it the other day.)
Jon Hassell - Power Spot
Bill Connors - Theme to the Guardian
Bennie Maupin - the Jewel in the Lotus

(getting fainter the memory of liking here)
Azimuth
Norma Winstone
David Torn, Cloud About Mercury
some things by Ralph Towner (although Sargasso Sea, despite the enticing title, is dull)
one or both of the Julian Priester records

Art Ensemble of Chicago don't feel like an ECM artist although they have been

Was once quite taken with that whole Hilliard Ensemble / Arvo Part / Perotin nexus

Always liked the idea of Steve Tibbetts but...

 

[blissblogger]

The essay is from the perspective of someone who has loved a lot of ECM, and finds (at least some of it) aesthetically beguiling but ethically and politically disgusting.

I will give this a read in the hopes that it can elucidate my vague feeling that what is good about ECM (the exquisiteness, the pensive subtlety) is also what is bad about ECM (or at least it gets irritating after prolonged exposure)

 

[subvert47]

Art Ensemble of Chicago don't feel like an ECM artist

No indeed. But still, their recordings on ECM are their best recordings, just the clarity of the ECM sound makes them

Nice Guys, Full Force, Urban Bushmen, and The Third Decade — all great records, especially Urban Bushmen 🥰🥰

 

[blissblogger]

Clean forgot about the obvious convergence of ECM-world and Dissensus-world: Nils Petter Molvær.

He did at least two albums that combined Scando-jazz mist-rising-over-fjord-at-dawn type biz with - no really! - drum & bass rhythms: Khmer and Solid Ether





There's also (groan) an album of remixes by the likes of Herbert, called Recolored. I haven't dared give that a listen. And now I look, another similar-seeming job, called Remakes (among the credits of guests I spot the name Dego.... also Bugge Wesseltoft).

At the time (late '90s) I remember being quite excited-intrigued by news of this ECM-goes-D&B gambit (still in the jungle-patriot phase, so any signs of its propagation into other territories was encouraging - felt same about the Bowie move with Earthling, or the Derek Bailey listening to the pirates thing).

But then listening to Khmer it became clear that.... well, it wasn't really drum and bass being combined with ECM-stuff, it was more like generic '90s electronic rhythm (as in fact was the case with Earthling, apart from "Little Wonder" which was well Amen-y). And the beat element was on the whole rather plodding and uninspired.

The Nils Petter Molvaer elements were fine and dandy - nice sort of Jon Hassell / City of Fiction moody dark atmospherics - but he clearly hadn't grasped was what jazz-like and potentially compatible about D&B, nor enlisted the right talents to help him get the sound. There was a faint suspicion that maybe he'd only heard an album by Lamb.

I listened again this week and felt exactly the same about Khmer and could discern no improvement with Solid Ether either.

Like with Bowie, the attempt seemed endearing, the intent well-meant.... but the outcome didn't cut the mustard.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Clean forgot about the obvious convergence of ECM-world and Dissensus-world: Nils Petter Molvær.

He did at least two albums that combined Scando-jazz mist-rising-over-fjord-at-dawn type biz with - no really! - drum & bass rhythms: Khmer and Solid Ether





There's also (groan) an album of remixes by the likes of Herbert, called Recolored. I haven't dared give that a listen. And now I look, another similar-seeming job, called Remakes (among the credits of guests I spot the name Dego.... also Bugge Wesseltoft).

At the time (late '90s) I remember being quite excited-intrigued by news of this ECM-goes-D&B gambit (still in the jungle-patriot phase, so any signs of its propagation into other territories was encouraging - felt same about the Bowie move with Earthling, or the Derek Bailey listening to the pirates thing).

But then listening to Khmer it became clear that.... well, it wasn't really drum and bass being combined with ECM-stuff, it was more like generic '90s electronic rhythm (as in fact was the case with Earthling, apart from "Little Wonder" which was well Amen-y). And the beat element was on the whole rather plodding and uninspired.

The Nils Petter Molvaer elements were fine and dandy - nice sort of Jon Hassell / City of Fiction moody dark atmospherics - but he clearly hadn't grasped was what jazz-like and potentially compatible about D&B, nor enlisted the right talents to help him get the sound. There was a faint suspicion that maybe he'd only heard an album by Lamb.

I listened again this week and felt exactly the same about Khmer and could discern no improvement with Solid Ether either.

Like with Bowie, the attempt seemed endearing, the intent well-meant.... but the outcome didn't cut the mustard.

 

[torntongue]

I discovered the flaw in my plan which is that ECM on Youtube is Premium Members only. So then I thought I would create a video of my absolute favorite tune and list it as Private. On Youtube it says 'blocked'. However the link is in fact displaying on my screen through Dissensus - I don't know if any one else can see-hear it?

It's "Kite Dance" off Jan Garbarek's Paths, Prints. Which I love as much for what Bill Frisell is doing as Garbarek.



Whole album is wonderful.

However I should say this is the first ECM record I ever heard, so perhaps there's a particular initiatory bond there.

This was a nice ECM period, and this is a great Frisell album… Back then Garbarek seemed to be forging a kind of post-Ayler thing, but he clearly didn’t have the substance to sustain it or progress. Or just got complacent.

 

[torntongue]

Ultimately, if you consider ECM as a single, massive project-object by one artist, Eicher himself, then it can’t but remain an extraordinary achievement. There are lots of true gems, but so much of it seems to be a Keith Jarrett aesthetic rehash on quite a cynical level – the last 15-20 years has seen endless piano trio clones dishing out languid modal cloudiness that ‘sounds nice.’

 

[torntongue]

The best thing about ECM is that it’s just records, and they can be discovered completely out of context and any listener can reinvent what they meaning is… Its endless mining of reverb-drenched melancholy can link up aesthetically with Drill, Black Metal… But the label also became a posh soundtracks library (Godard??) - or even something like Abderrahmane Sissako’s ‘Heremakono’ which uses music from Garbarek’s ‘Madar’ as a central theme. It’s on Youtube, and I wanted to share it but, hey, look: the film goes silent at the point where… an ECM recording gets used! All the other music in the film (not least the amazing music lesson scenes) are left intact:

 

[torntongue]

But yeah, some genuinely great albums are on ECM, which kind of law-of-averages out when you assemble that many great artists and fund them properly: Dave Holland Quartet (feat. Braxton) ‘Conference of the Birds’… Julian Priester ‘Love, Love’… several albums by Tomasz Stanko (with Tony Oxley on them) and Joe Maneri’s microtonal stuff seemed to work really well with Eicher’s ‘sound’, as did Meredith Monk. Dans Les Arbres is also great. And the New Series catalogue has some pretty decent classical avant garde in it.

 

[william_kent]

any label that put out Julien Priester Pepo Mtoto's 'kosmigroov' classic "Love Love" can't be too bad

strong aesthetic / label identity for better or worse

sort of thing I can imagine 'audiophiles' who don't actually like music admiring because of the high standard of 'fidelity'

but, as everyone else has mentioned, some hidden gems - "Love, Love" has to be my favourite, but also Jan Garbarek's "Evenytyr", Jon Surman's "Withholding Pattern" ( sax, synth, delay ) , and, dare I say it, Keith Jarrett's "Sacred Hymns" ( solo piano interpretations of Gurdjieff's greatest "objective music" hits - he doesn't emote or grunt or sigh over these, makes for good ambience )

fopp pre-HMV buyout once had a huge coffee-table book of the cover art for a bargain less than £10 price tag, bought it as a secret santa present for a colleague who loved the cover art aesthetic but didn't own a turntable - only Blue Note as a label rivals ECM for that kind of "brand"

although, have to say, I'm puzzled by the love for the "Bill Frissell LP" displayed in this thread - did he do more than one for ECM? I bought one based on his scratching string style on the Jan Garbarek "Eventyr" album, but it was...how can I say?..a crock of shit: Brass Band Bollocks. He played tuba on it as far as I can recall. Sold it pretty quickly so I could buy drugs.

 

[pattycakes_]

CTI was pretty high up there with aesthetic brand also. Classy 70s vibes in a nutshell. Great label too

 

[william_kent]

I've had a "few" rum & cokes tonight, so chatting shit tbh, and just remembered I've pre-ordered twice ( 'cos Amazon cancelled the first preorder because they just can't deliver ) the forthcoming "Sun Ra Art On Saturn" coffee table book which, I am hoping, in every way pisses over the ECM cover art aesthetic...



better music too!

edit: Julien Priester played for Sun Ra as well as ECM, so this is a totally relevant post

 

[pattycakes_]

Used to own this

TASCHEN Books: Jazz Covers.

This striking collection of jazz record covers shows the designs that defined a sound. Containing covers from the 1940s to the early 1990s, each reproducti…

www.taschen.com

 

[blissblogger]

I think he did a few for ECM, Bill Frisell - In Line has this sort of keening, sustain-heavy guitar sound, a thin spidery shimmery sort of sound, perhaps related to certain things Fripp developed, or that Michael Brook chap who does "infinite guitar".

I must say though that everything else I've heard by him (which is not a huge amount but some) hasn't appealed nearly as much as In Line or the playing on Paths, Prints. He does quite a bit of stuff that is vaguely Americana-ish. In some ways a bit like a Ry Cooder-ish sort of figure.

Audiophilia and ECM = strong crossover indeed.

The biggest ECM nut I ever met had a whole large room at his parent's house in Yorkshire, devoted to his high end hi-fi system. He'd sit there basking in the pristine expanses of the ECM discography.

 

[william_kent]

I think this was the one I bought and sold immediately



Bill Frisell - Rambler

according to discogs he does play guitar on it, but from what I remember you wouldn't know

someone else parps away on the tuba according to the credits, it seems my memory, as always, was at fault

but, to give him his due, he is amazing on the Garbarek "Eventyr" album ( which is why I bought the album pictured above in the first place )

edit: nice cover art though, beguiling

 

[blissblogger]

cf Nils whatshisname and the remix albums
a far better convergence of electronic music and ECM, albeit in this case coming from the opposite direction is Re: ECM - Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer approach the label's work with tender reverence



I once tried to listen to all the original tracks Ricardo + Max were reworking - no idea where I left that playlist but this is the track that "Reblop" is based on: "Blop" from Christian Wallumrød Ensemble's Fabula Suite Lugano

 

[blissblogger]

Re: ECM - the original tracks. Actually it's here in Tidal (which I think you can listen to without subscribing now, just have to put up with ad breaks)

Try the TIDAL Web Player

You can try TIDAL directly in your web browser. Enjoy over 80 million songs in High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial. For lossless playback we recommend using Google Chrome.

listen.tidal.com

it's the tracks but also sometimes the whole album by the remixed artist as far as i reconstruct my movements here

 

[eleventhvolume]

Easy to sneer, but I'll bite. First off, I love the whole of that Garbarek album, particularly the cover photo, the title and the Barbara Wojirsch design (speaking of which here's my old music design website: http://www.hardformat.org/designers/barbara-wojirsch-dieter-rehm-ecm/). And here are some of my ECM favourites in no particular order.

• Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer – Re: ECM (such a beautiful sound, a lot of electronic artists could learn a lot from this, esp. Autechre)
• Jimmy Giuffre – 1961 (the gorgeous albums before the seminal Free Fall, essential)
• Food – Quiet Inlet (Strönen is such an interesting drummer)
• Codona – 1–3 (Nana Vasconcelos + Collin Walcott + Don Cherry)
• David Torn – Only Sky (tough to choose between this and Prezens)
• Dino Saluzzi – Andina (first song to be played at my funeral)
• Marilyn Mazur – Elixir (bewitching)
• Miroslav Vitous – The Music of Weather Report (fascinating contemporary re-interpretation by former member)
• Nana Vasconcelos – Saudades (Nana's berimbau + orchestra + Egberto Gismonti - recent 33 1/3 book about this and Nana just begun and interestingly written)
• Ralph Towner (most everything)
• Julian Priester - Love, Love (for the kozmigroov tip)
• Khmer - Nils Petter Molvaer (spare, innovative, always love a Borges ref)
• On the New Series tip, Tõnu Kõrvits, Heiner Goebbels
• Francois Couturier, Anja Lechner, Eleni Karaindrou, Robin Williamson, Tomasz Stanko and I'm always discovering more.

 

[eleventhvolume]

cf Nils whatshisname and the remix albums
a far better convergence of electronic music and ECM, albeit in this case coming from the opposite direction is Re: ECM - Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer approach the label's work with tender reverence



I once tried to listen to all the original tracks Ricardo + Max were reworking - no idea where I left that playlist but this is the track that "Reblop" is based on: "Blop" from Christian Wallumrød Ensemble's Fabula Suite Lugano

Snap. Yes, Re: ECM a longtime favourite. I've never wanted to hear the originals though.