Echoes cover
Released

The sixth Fire! Orchestra release is their largest work to date, in every sense — sprawling across two CDs or three LPs and lasting nearly two hours, it’s performed by more than 40 musicians, mostly Scandinavian players as always but also including a guest appearance by American saxophonist Joe McPhee. The opening track, “I See Your Eye, Part 1,” features lush strings that could have come from an Isaac Hayes movie soundtrack, while “Forest Without Shadows” sets up an African-derived trance groove, and the closing “I See Your Eye, Part 2,” a reprise of the opener, McPhee delivers a poem about “the last of the late, great finger-wigglers” over Last Poets-style congas, with Fire! Orchestra leader Mats Gustafsson backing him on baritone sax. This is an epic musical journey, so settle in for the full two-hour ride.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Chimaera cover

Chimaera

Emmeluth's Amoeba
Suite for Max Brown cover

Suite for Max Brown

The New Breed, Jeff Parker
Live Volume V cover

Live Volume V

Fred Anderson
Away with You cover

Away with You

Mary Halvorson Octet
Touchin' on Trane cover

Touchin' on Trane

Rashied Ali, Charles Gayle, William Parker
Live Without Fear cover

Live Without Fear

Infinite Spirit Music
Alive in the East? cover

Alive in the East?

Binker & Moses
Timewind cover

Timewind

Klaus Schulze
If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours  cover

If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours

Gard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra
Idiom cover

Idiom

Anna Webber
Escape the Flames cover

Escape the Flames

Binker & Moses