Storming, stomping, insurgent Niney. Stunning record.

‘I think it was 1979, or 1978. That rhythm, I record it at Channel One, and take it to Perry. So when me go down there and record it with Perry, I would have to get it mixed down so it would fit Perry’s 4-track Teac. So this is where now I voice it, and Scratch mix it, mix the voice. Then we put back the rhythm on the thing, and go back down to Channel One, and then Ranking Barnabas mix it. So it’s really Scratch, Barnabas and Scientist work on that song. That’s why you hear Scientist develop the foot and all those… double drumming you see there. It was Sly, Sly was the one who play that drum. Sly, Fullwood, Tony Chin, Chinna, Bobby Ellis, Dizzy the guy that play Riot for Keith Hudson, and Tommy McCook.’

Live recordings made at Théâtre Dunois, Paris, in April, 1981.

‘One of the most innovative and ambitious albums ever made; a sonic masterpiece featuring over two hundred musicians, which expanded the limits of music and sound, channeling Ōhashi’s thinking about mankind’s relationship with nature, and fundamental questions of life, death and rebirth… Pipe organ synths made from sampled Tibetan horns sit alongside field recordings from Central African forests, Buddhist mantras circle dummy head microphones, Javanese Jegog percussion ensembles pulse like verdant ecosystems, and the acoustics of temples, caves and landscapes are conveyed in the mix. Weaving together culture, nature and technology, it is a record that vibrates with the polyphony of life on Earth… But Ecophony Rinne was not only musically innovative. Noticing the difference between vinyl and CD versions of the album where digital reproduction limited the sound, Ōhashi developed a theory of Hypersonic Effect, determining that ultra-high frequencies above 20khz can impact human perception even if they are inaudible. At once a physical and a psychological experience, to listen to Ecophony Rinne is to feel music differently.’

‘Dora’s signature, sublime, open-hearted refinement of modern classical, folk and ambient is at its most colourful and rhythmic in this suite of keyboard instrumentals; an aural mille-feuille, in dramatic contrast with her previous, melancholic vocal works.
‘Atmospheric drone miniatures underpin flowing, cyclical arpeggios, spiralling into an unpredictable dream space of melodic polyphony. Drawing on an essay by Hartmut Rosa, the music mulls over conceptions of the acceleration of time and the experience of alienation. It reveals the inescapable pulsation of time as at once mesmerizing and unsettling.’

Eight poetic songs attuned to the early 1970s chanson of Brigitte Fontaine, performed by Mauricio Amarante and Marine Debilly Cerisier.