So much beautiful music from the ECM label over the last 27 years. Jan Garbarek a favourite along with Keith Jarrett, Jack De Johnette, Carla Bley and so many others. However, my favourite ECM album of all time is Return to Forever by Return to Forever. Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Airto and the brilliant Flora Purim on vocals. I think I have played this more than any other album bar John Coltrane A Love Supreme. As a label, it has also inspired others through the beautiful album cover art. The typography is simple and powerful by itself, yet the photgraphs are truly wonderful. Brilliant.
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2 comments
Nick Watt says:
Jan 10, 2007
The Rune Grammafon label in Norway has continued the ECM design aesthetic across their catalogue of releases. Which is no surprise as label founder Rune Kristoffersen worked for Grappa, Norway’s oldest independent record company, as label manager for, you guessed it, ECM.
One thing that gives the label’s artwork a consistent look and feel is the work of sleeve design of Kim Hiorthøy. Like ECM the continuity between Rune Grammofon releases is a key part of the labels look and feel. Kim not only designs the sleeves for the Rune Grammofon label and the much underrated Norwegian group Motorpsycho, but he also releases records under his own name through the Smalltown Supersound label, home to the excellent Jaga Jazzist, Bjørn Torske and Lindstrøm.
Here’s one of my favourite designs from Kim for Arve Henriksen’s album Chiaroscuro..
http://www.runegrammofon.com/sitefiles/site10/shop/220_19.jpg
And a great article on the label can be found at http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/article.php?article=1326
colin says:
Dec 2, 2008
I do think the quality of ECM’s design has decreased significantly since the halcyon days of Barbara Wojirsch and Dieter Rehm. I agree with your previous commenter about Hiorthoy’s wonderful work. If you’re interested in this aspect of music, perhaps you would be interested in the website I run: Hard Format, it’s a website dedicated to the endangered art of beautiful music packaging. Comments always welcome.