On the long and winding trip of Fire! Orchestra‘s ECHOES we encounter three songs, one being a journey to the future, a thoughtful seduction from Mariam Wallentin, one being a voyage to times long gone, a killer „spoken word“ track performed by Joe McPhee – and the third one being a cover version from a Dorival Caymmi / Joao Donato song. I never heard this little funky thing before – the way Mats and his compadres make it a quite different sounding party (or celebration of life, or here and now) – stunning.
We better don‘t label the music of ECHOES anyways. It goes, to quote another Beatles song, „here, there, and everywhere“, but as a breathing organism, not in a clever „anything goes“-mode.
The man who did the mixing, Jim O‘Rourke, stayed true to the original recording (though given all freedom to do it Teo Macero-style) – no radical doubling, reducing, skipping. 43 musicians appear in your living room, dear reader, and Jim had a peculiar thing in mind: transparency. Even in the most far-out passages: transparency – nothing drowning in echoes and reverberations.
Big Band music can factually be overpowering. ECHOES never overpowers. The double-cd is excellent, the three „vinyls“ offer even more opportunities to make breaks in between. Quite some ways to approach an „instant classic“. With its sense of space, listening to it all in one sitting: easy-peasy, too.