Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond

Released by Cold Spring on September 4, 2026, this vital boxed set gathers remastered soundtracks from director Andrei Tarkovsky’s oeuvre across five CDs.

Gidon Kremer Kremerata Baltica Pages of a Biography Gidon Kremer violin Geneva Lewis violin Andrew Pushkarev vibraphone, tubular bell Kremerata Baltica Pages of a Biography, Passacaglia, Darf ich… recorded January 2024 Studio Residence Paliesius, Ignalina…

My review of Metakosmos, the new duo album by Tania Giannouli and Nik Bärtsch, is now available at All About Jazz.

For out of black minutes of madness ever more radiant, The patient one wakes on the petrified threshold, And is ardently clasped by cool blue and the gleaming decline of the autumn, The silent house and the legends of the forest, Measure and law and the m…

To sustain a flame is to enter into a secret negotiation with extinction, to nourish an illumination whose very existence depends upon its gradual disappearance.

There’s a secret, a beautiful secret, hidden behind the lips of most of us who write about music: our ears are magnets for fingerprints.

“There are now more cameras on planet Earth than human beings.”

“One tries to cure the signs of growth, to exorcise them, as if they were devils, when really they might be angels of annunciation.”

Time has a peculiar way of inhabiting music, gathering in the hollows between notes and returning through melodies whose origins have long since dissolved into memory.

Collin Walcott (1945–1984) belonged to that rare constellation of musicians for whom the boundaries of an instrument were never quite synonymous with the boundaries of its tradition.

ECM has altered the possibilities of listening.

The distance between two points is ordinarily a problem for geometry.

And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them.

A film can survive its disappearance.

Enrico Rava Fearless Five with Joe Lovano Corners Enrico Rava trumpet, flugelhorn Joe Lovano tenor saxophone, tarogato Matteo Paggi trombone Francesco Diodati guitar Francesco Ponticelli double bass Evita Polidoro drums, vocals Recorded July 2025 Auditori…

Published in 1864, Notes from Underground enters the nineteenth century through a wound in its confidence.

Filmed on October 26, 2024, at the Novomax in Quimper, France, Mediavolo’s intimate return to the stage brings songs separated by years into bodily proximity.

Dear readers, I’ve been thinking about writing a new book about ECM.

Christy Doran’s history with ECM traces a restless path through the guitar’s expressive possibilities, from OM’s combustible blend of rock and free improvisation on sister label JAPO to the intimate experiments of his later collaborations.

The Tallis Scholars Live in Venice The Tallis Scholars Peter Phillips director Recorded in concert July 14, 2017 Basilica di San Marco, Venice Production: Controcampo Produzioni srl, Venezia Director: Pierandrea Gagliardi Cameramen: Paolo Bassi, Claudio P…

Memory has its own methods of excavation.

In the Washington, DC, of 1880, the past has rented a room upstairs.

In Steve Reich’s music, repetition is a method of survival.

“She is like the rest of us; we all have no more than the words that come to us in the play.

Anthony Baldino’s music seems to emerge from two adjoining rooms whose shared wall has become susceptible to the mold of determination.

Johannes Brahms András Schiff Klavierstücke András Schiff Blüthner piano Recorded March 2021 Kammermusiksaal Hermann J.

Enzo Favata Ritornare Enzo Favata soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet Daniele di Bonaventura bandoneón Marcello Peghin ten-string guitar Salvatore Maltana double bass U.T.

At a moment when peace can feel less a condition than a distant country, Peace Anthems asks where the journey toward it might begin.

Andy Sheppard Salt Catchers Andy Sheppard tenor and soprano saxophones Rita Marcotulli piano Michel Benita double bass Recorded March 2025, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano Engineer: Stefano Amerio Cover photo: Jan Kricke Produced by Manfred Eicher Relea…

Samuel Beckett Trevor Bača Stirrings Still Paul Griffiths narrator JACK Quartet Christopher Otto violin Austin Wulliman violin John Pickford Richards viola Jay Campbell violoncello Recorded 2023 and 2024, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano Engineers: Micha…

Released in 2005 as a promotion-only compilation, La Buissonne Studios occupies the elusive third chamber in the catalogue attached to the celebrated recording complex at Pernes-les-Fontaines.

Issued in Germany in 1992, The Outflung Net is a rare six-LP box whose very lack of a conventional catalog number suits its elusive character.

Released in Germany as a promotional anthology, ECM New Series Collection 1995 gathers 26 passages from a fertile landscape.

This double-disc promotional sampler appears to be the only one explicitly devoted to both ECM proper and its classical New Series imprint, making it one of the label’s most consummate yearly portraits.

Across selections gathered in this rare promotional release, ECM’s 2018 landscape holds together by an invisible underground current in which every melody becomes a thread whose destination remains mercifully uncertain.

Ralph Alessi A Sun That Never Sets Ralph Alessi trumpet Joseph Alessi trombone Matt Mitchell piano John Hébert double bass Ches Smith drums, vibraphone Recorded February 2025 Oktaven Audio Studio, Mount Vernon, NY Engineer: Ryan Streber Mixed by Manfred E…

Steve Swallow Winter Songs Mike Rodriguez trumpet Chris Cheek tenor saxophone Steve Cardenas guitar Gil Goldstein piano Steve Swallow bass Adam Nussbaum drums Recorded September 2024 at Sear Sound, New York Engineer: Tyler McDiarmid Cover photo: Luciano R…