I’m currently embarking on a little project, for which I am compiling my “Top 100” ECM reviews to date. Whether you’ve been following my blog for five years or five days, I trust that you will have some favorite reviews of mine. It would be of great help to me if you could list those reviews that you feel are most effective at capturing the spirit of the music, as well as those that led you to new and meaningful discoveries, by leaving a comment to this post. Thank you!
Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond 
Great idea – please do one on a Robin Williamson album – so different and you nail the soundworld and mood.
Thanks!
Thanks for the suggestion, Rick! It’s going to be hard to pick just one; they’re all so great. I would lean toward the latest one, though.
Hi Tyran
Yes, ‘Trusting’ would be as good as any – not many better albums by a septuagenarian!
It’s not easy. Here we go: Egberto Gismonti, Danca dos Escravos; Giya Kancheli, Exil; Keith Jarrett, Changless; Ralph Towner, Solo Concert; Tomasz Stanko, Dark Eyes; Marilyn Crispell, Vignettes; Richie Beirach, Elm; Kate Moore, Dances and Canons.
Will add these to the list 🙂
Please include one on Arvo Pärt, may be the Te Deum.
And, among your recent reviews, I would like to suggest Maria Pia De Vito, et al.: Il Pergolese and Sinikka Langeland: The half-finished heaven.
https://ecmreviews.com/2012/03/20/serenity/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/02/23/soul-of-things/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/02/27/lontano/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/02/26/solstice/
https://ecmreviews.com/2011/10/01/full-force/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/11/12/tribute-to-lester/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/02/16/conference-of-the-birds/
https://ecmreviews.com/2012/09/04/matka-joanna/
https://ecmreviews.com/2011/10/08/solo-concert/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/08/12/anthem/
https://ecmreviews.com/2011/05/16/the-codona-trilogy/
https://ecmreviews.com/2014/07/10/time-line/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/11/24/cloud-dance/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/03/30/dolmen-music/
https://ecmreviews.com/2012/01/28/emergence/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/03/12/luminessence/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/02/11/whos-to-know/
https://ecmreviews.com/2015/05/24/gefion/
https://ecmreviews.com/2015/04/28/mark-turner-on-ecm/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/09/26/april/
https://ecmreviews.com/2012/01/05/fragments/
https://ecmreviews.com/2015/05/22/canopee/
https://ecmreviews.com/2013/02/15/mercurial-balm/
https://ecmreviews.com/2010/03/29/gateway/
https://ecmreviews.com/2011/01/29/emerald-tears/
https://ecmreviews.com/2014/11/10/lost-in-a-dream/
https://ecmreviews.com/2014/05/15/i-have-the-room-above-her/
I’ll stop now due to time limitations — not because there aren’t more noteworthy reviews. Dancing about dancing about architecture.
https://ecmreviews.com/2012/11/02/drawn-inward/ is particularly noteworthy.
Where to begin……
Charles Lloyd / Billy Higgins – East Meets West Keith Jarrett – The Survivors’ Suite Keith Jarrett – Spirits Double Image – Dawn Eberhard Weber – The Following Morning “To listen to his music is to feel the state of things change from light to dark and back to light again.” Evan Parker / EAE – The Moment’s Energy Shankar – Who’s To Know Alexei Lubimov – Claude Debussy / Préludes Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher Signs Among Us: 30 Years of ECM New Series
Well, I could go on and on. I won’t, but hopefully you will. You have captured in words what many of us fans have found in the ether. Great work.
Brian Sauvé
OnJun 4, 2015,
Will certainly contribute but about to go away for a week! Will be in touch after.
Difficult task, Tyran, but here are some of my favourite reviews. Most are of albums I know well, but some were revelations, both categories providing new insights. The most recent, Sinikka Langeland’s The half finished heaven, prompted being given the CD as a birthday present! In no particular order I propose: Charles Lloyd – Quartets (5 albums worth of course); Zakir Hussain – Making Music; Jan Garbarek – Dansere, Legend of the Seven Dreams, Rites; Anouar Brahem – Souvenance; Robin Williamson – The Seed-at-zero & The Iron Stone; Gianluigi Trovesi – In cerca di cerbo; Trgyve Seim – Purcor; Eleni Karaindrou – The Weeping Meadow & The Suspended Step of the Stork; Andrey Zvyagintsev – The Return; Arvo Pärt – Tabula Rasa …….
Looking forward to many more,
best wishes,
Diana
Favorite albums, Gnu High and Deer Wan, Kenny Wheeler, Descendre and Waves, Terje Rypdal, Rypdal Vitous DeJonette s/t (and my all-time favorite ECM album cover) best, Garrett Rowlan