"Really awful is more interesting to listen to than pretty good" - Eno ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. welcome to the drivel blog of "music detractor, Simon Reynolds"
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
ECM eye candy
not actually a ECM record cover but could have been
I'd only ever dipped into the ECM catalogue but have got well into it over the past four or five years. A few observations . . . Dave Liebman's "Drum Ode" is a most untypical ECM record; "loft jazz" would be a better label. Eberhard Weber was a bit of a revelation for me, in particular the first side of "The Colours of Chloe." Nothing quite sounds like Terje Rypdal's drum machine driven "Per Ulv" (from "Waves"). "Inseiling" from Terje's 1980 LP "Descendre" hits a great jazz-house groove which unfortunately doesn't last long enough. A particular ECM fave of mine is Rainer Bruninghaus' techno-jazz "Continuum" LP (1984). As for the album covers, the most untypical ECM is probably Enrico Rava's "The Plot."
Also to note that Kate Bush was well into Eberhard Weber. She cited his "Fluid Rustle" LP (1979) in a Smash Hits Q&A. I believe he guested for her . . .
my favorite is still the first ECM i heard which is Paths, Print by Garbarek, particularly love the contributions by Frisell and also Weber and Christensen on that (e.g. "Kite Dance").
also love "Parables" the John Abercrombie track on Characters - and the Abercrombie and Towner records generally.
Mountainscapes by Barre Philips... others i'm forgetting.
had a little spate of reviewing ECM stuff at the end of Eighties when things had got a little entropic on the main music front and i was casting around a bit.
it's a great sound (and the cover art is very effective as 'set and setting' for the listening) but it can a bit pious and over-pristine after a bit... you can see why some jazz fans find it too cold, although their idea of "heat" is even less appealing to me
the cover art definitely plays into the National Geographic School of MM writing, mist rippling over the fjord at dawn kind of thing
talking of which - https://musicpresspantheon.blogspot.com/2020/05/paul-oldfield-ecm-unpublished-text.html
yeah the Drum Ode stuff is atypical - more like Miles et al in the early 70s
4 comments:
I'd only ever dipped into the ECM catalogue but have got well into it over the past four or five years. A few observations . . . Dave Liebman's "Drum Ode" is a most untypical ECM record; "loft jazz" would be a better label. Eberhard Weber was a bit of a revelation for me, in particular the first side of "The Colours of Chloe." Nothing quite sounds like Terje Rypdal's drum machine driven "Per Ulv" (from "Waves"). "Inseiling" from Terje's 1980 LP "Descendre" hits a great jazz-house groove which unfortunately doesn't last long enough. A particular ECM fave of mine is Rainer Bruninghaus' techno-jazz "Continuum" LP (1984). As for the album covers, the most untypical ECM is probably Enrico Rava's "The Plot."
Also to note that Kate Bush was well into Eberhard Weber. She cited his "Fluid Rustle" LP (1979) in a Smash Hits Q&A. I believe he guested for her . . .
my favorite is still the first ECM i heard which is Paths, Print by Garbarek, particularly love the contributions by Frisell and also Weber and Christensen on that (e.g. "Kite Dance").
also love "Parables" the John Abercrombie track on Characters - and the Abercrombie and Towner records generally.
Mountainscapes by Barre Philips... others i'm forgetting.
had a little spate of reviewing ECM stuff at the end of Eighties when things had got a little entropic on the main music front and i was casting around a bit.
it's a great sound (and the cover art is very effective as 'set and setting' for the listening) but it can a bit pious and over-pristine after a bit... you can see why some jazz fans find it too cold, although their idea of "heat" is even less appealing to me
the cover art definitely plays into the National Geographic School of MM writing, mist rippling over the fjord at dawn kind of thing
talking of which - https://musicpresspantheon.blogspot.com/2020/05/paul-oldfield-ecm-unpublished-text.html
yeah the Drum Ode stuff is atypical - more like Miles et al in the early 70s
also got in Bill Frisell In Line recently
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