Re: ECM cover
Released

There has been so much written and dreamt about the combination of digital and analog music, and so much has happened. Very few projects, though, have ever made it so hard to tell what sound belongs to which realm as Re: ECM. The idea isn’t very complex. Musicians Max Loderbauer and Ricardo Villalobos were given access to ECM’s catalog and allowed to use original stems to create something new. What they did was make a decision, spoken or otherwise, to draft parameters of a new world, and slot pieces of the ECM catalog into it. They drew mostly from European jazz and classical and avoided the better known ECM titles. The result is one of the most durable and irreducible albums of its decade. There are several harp samples that dominate here, as well as some tones that seem like a harpsichord fighting a filter sweep that comes upon the sound like a pipeline wave. If you imagine Versailles smashed to bits and washing ashore, room by room, you’re close.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Suggestions
Alto//Piano cover

Alto//Piano

Everest Magma
Aomawa: The 1970s Recordings cover

Aomawa: The 1970s Recordings

Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids
Forever Real cover

Forever Real

Fonda-Stevens Group
Pictures of a City: Live in New York cover

Pictures of a City: Live in New York

21st Century Schizoid Band
We Three: Three for All cover

We Three: Three for All

Steve Swallow, We3, Adam Nussbaum, David Liebman
Daze cover

Daze

Brood Ma
Phallus Dei cover

Phallus Dei

Amon Düül II
ASS cover

ASS

Schneider TM, Jochen Arbeit, Günter Schickert
Odyshape cover

Odyshape

The Raincoats
Appearing Nightly cover

Appearing Nightly

The Carla Bley Big Band