Favourite ECM Titles

For Charles Lloyd I favor 'Lift every Voice' which is quite cathartic given it's inspirational spiritual response to the 9/11 tumult.

For Anouar Brahem recordings, all of them, but 'Le pas du chat noir' & yes agree, 'The Astounding Eyes of Rita.'

A non-ECM release that's really worth seeking out is Mavrothi T.Kontanis's 2008 CD. You won't regret it.

Just a few of my many ECM discs I go back to often:
- (believe it or not of all Tomasz Stanko's this one) 'From the Green Hill'

- ..and from some of Tomasz's co-musicians of the past this one for contemplative listening (but of course so much of these recordings fit under 'contemplative' music: Marcin Wasilewski Trio, January

- ..and bassist experimenter extraordinaire Eberhard Weber's 'Pendulum' a beautiful fragility flows forth from this one.

- one final one on many listeners ECM fav list (for good reason too): Towner & Fresu on 'Chiaroscuro.

I have not mentioned some excellent Indian music of which there is much. Checkout Waterlily recordings to start.

Peace fellow audiogon'er's

Madfloyd,

I just ordered this disc on amazon marketplace myself. Do a search for:

Gurdjieff, Tsabropoulos: Chants, Hymns and Dances

I bought from the reliable "moviemars-cd" site.

For "Audiophiles" only. Before I came to "Agon" I knew I was an Audiophile, now I'm not so sure. While I've spent 30 years listening to tubes, capacitors and interconnects in the past; now I listen exclusively to music.

The reason I mention this is because I have discovered the sonic qualities of ECM records to be head and shoulders above all of the other records in my collection.

While my musical tastes have changed since I bought these records, listening to them has been an adventure. My analog rig seems much better than I ever thought it was; the 3D sound-stage has expanded my listening room, bass is deeper, and the treble is clear and extended.

Although all music is subjective and one's taste in music can change, the sonic qualities of records are constant. I mention all of this for the analog audiophile's who place an extremely high value on sonics.

I still rate much of the musical content on ECM very high, but my musical tastes have changed somewhat.

The only complaint I can lodge against ECM is that unlike "audiophile" labels like Chesky, they never got into SACD. Commercially probably a sensible decision, but an infinite regret to me.

My taste has evolved too, but there are some very timeless releases on ECM that I keep coming back to, and the occasional new discovery to boot.

Since this is becoming a bit of a world-music / fusion free for all, I have to mention Hariprasas Chaurasia (try "Shikhar"). Absolutely phenomenal raga on the bamboo flute.

Edorr you can get some of them in 24/96 which is the equivalent of sacd!