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ALEXANDER KNAIFEL
Knaifel: Chapter Eight Patrick Demenga, The State Choir Latvija, Riga Cathedral Boys Choir, Youth Choir Kamēr, Andres Mustonen [ ECM New Series / CD - released 14/Mar/2025 ] "It is amazing with what a deep sense of beauty this composition for church, choruses and cello is imbued" said Mstislav Rostropovich on first experiencing Chapter Eight. Basing the music on the Old Testament Song of Songs, The Song of Solomon,... |
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Michele Rabbia / Gianluca Petrella / Eivind Aarset
Lost River [ ECM / CD - released 19/Jul/2019 ] Lost River is an evocative post-ambient, richly textured sonic event, and one of the outstanding beyond-category recordings of recent ECM history. Drummer Michele Rabbia and guitarist Eivind Aarset had played many duo concerts, and Rabbia had also... |
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Ralph Alessi
A Sun That Never Sets [ ECM / CD - released 24/Jul/2026 ] For A Sun That Never Sets, Ralph Alessi expands the quartet configuration with a fifth player for a set of eleven new compositions that elaborate on Alessi's intricate writing with deep thought and a fresh sense of adventure. The last time Alessi... |
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Sokratis Sinopoulos / Yann Keerim
Topos [ ECM / CD - released 17/Oct/2025 ] The Greek duo of lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos and pianist Yann Keerim's first studio statement is a deep well of inspired musical dialogues that cross the idiomatic space between European folk tradition and chamber-jazz seamlessly. Bartók's six... |
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Steve Swallow
Winter Songs [ ECM / CD - released 24/Jul/2026 ] For Winter Songs, Steve Swallow's first true leader date in over a decade (Into The Woodworks, 2013) and his first recorded appearance on the label after John Scofield's Swallow Tales and Carla Bley's Life Goes On in 2020, the master-bassist has... |
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Steve Tibbetts
Close [ ECM / CD - released 24/Oct/2025 ] The striking cover image of an abandoned swing illuminated against a field of glittering stars makes a compelling visual metaphor for the music on Close. "Music is a twilight language," Steve Tibbetts confirms. "The job is to translate some shadow... |
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Steve Tibbetts
Hellbound Train [ ECM / 2 CD - released 26/Aug/2022 ] Hellbound Train is a double-album retrospective from Steve Tibbetts with music selected by the US guitarist from 40 years of recordings on ECM. Neatly divided into electric and acoustic chapters, the anthology juxtaposes pieces originally featured on... |
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Terje Rypdal
Conspiracy (LP) [ ECM / LP - released 12/Feb/2021 ] A new ECM studio album and a programme of new music from Terje Rypdal is cause for celebration. On Conspiracy the great Norwegian guitarist seems to reconnect with the wild inspiration that fuelled such early masterpieces as Whenever I Seem To Be Far... |
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Terje Rypdal
Descendre [ ECM Touchstones / CD - released 9/Oct/2020 ] Among the pleasures of this group of Rypdal reissues is the presence throughout of drummer Jon Christensen. Terje and Jon, lifelong friends, played on dozens of albums and in many groups together. Christensen always alluded to the trio with Terje and... |
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GIYA KANCHELI
Kancheli: Songs Of Fate Vida Mikneviciute (soprano), Magdalena Ceple (cello), Andrei Pushkarev (vibraphone), Kremerata Baltica, Gidon Kremer [ ECM New Series / 2 CD - released 19/Jan/2024 ] "Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording", observes Wolfgang Sandner in his liner note accompanying the Latvian violinist's album Songs of Fate. |
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Vijay Iyer Trio
Break Stuff [ ECM / CD - released 13/Mar/2015 ] "Break Stuff" is what happens after formal elements have been addressed. Vijay Iyer calls the break "a span of time in which to act. It's the basis for breakdowns, breakbeats, and break dancing... it can be the moment when everything comes to life."... |
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MATHIAS DUPLESSY
El último aliento Zsófia Boros (classical guitar) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 14/Apr/2023 ] The focus of Zsófia Boros's third recording for ECM's New Series is split two-ways, with one spotlight turned towards contemporary compositions from Argentina and the other on the multiple-idioms spanning music of French composer Mathias Duplessy.... |
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LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Volume 6: Sonatas Nos 22-26 (Incl Appassionata) Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM / CD - released 26/May/2008 ] "Three of these middle-period works are short, but what riches they deliver, and all abundantly and robustly realised by Schiff." BBC Music Five Stars |
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Andrew Cyrille, Wadada Leo Smith, Bill Frisell
Lebroba [ ECM / CD - released 18/Jan/2019 ] Andrew Cyrille's title Lebroba is a contraction of Leland, Brooklyn and Baltimore, birthplaces of the protagonists of an album bringing together three of creative music's independent thinkers. Each of them made his first ECM appearance long ago:... |
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BEETHOVEN
The Piano Sonatas Volume 1 (Sonatas opp. 2 and 7) Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM Records / 2 CD - released 1/Apr/2009 ] "Early Beethoven is maybe the toughest Beethoven to pull off: His ideas aren't always as compelling as those in his later music, and he has trouble saying what he means. You'd never think so, however, from András Schiff's superb first instalment of... |
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BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: The Piano Sonatas Volume 3: Two Sonatas op. 49; Two Sonatas op. 14; Sonata No. 11 B flat major op. 22 Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM Records / CD - released 20/Dec/2006 ] International critics writing on the first two volumes of András Schiff's Beethoven cycle have praised a particularly "sharp attention to detail" (Jed Distler in Gramophone on volume II) |
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Andy Sheppard Quartet
Romaria [ ECM / CD - released 16/Feb/2018 ] Andy Sheppard's quartet extends the musical explorations begun on the 2015 release Surrounded By Sea, an album praised by Télérama for its "poignant serenity." In this new programme of compositions by Sheppard (plus the title track by Brazilian... |
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Anouar Brahem, Anja Lechner, Django Bates, Dave Holland
After The Last Sky (LP) [ ECM / 2 LP - released 28/Mar/2025 ] Eight years after Blue Maqams, Anouar Brahem returns with a poignant project, titled after a line of verse by poet Mahmoud Darwish, which asks "Where should the birds fly, after the last sky?" Graceful chamber pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass... |
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Arild Andersen Group
Affirmation [ ECM / CD - released 28/Oct/2022 ] In November 2021, bassist Arild Andersen brought his new quartet with saxophonist Marius Neset, pianist Helge Lien and drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen to Oslo's Rainbow Studio. Norway's pandemic travel restrictions having ruled out the participation of... |
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Avishai Cohen
Big Vicious (LP) [ ECM / LP - released 27/Mar/2020 ] Charismatic trumpeter Avishai Cohen launched his exuberant, home-grown band Big Vicious six years ago, after relocating from the US to his native Israel, rounding up players to shape the music from the ground up, and co-authoring much of its newest... |