Oregon

Ecotopia opened a new chapter for Oregon. It was the first album the quartet made after the death of its percussionist and sitarist Collin Walcott, and the first with Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu on tabla and percussion. Recorded in 1987, it was the third and last of the group's own albums for ECM. On it synthesizers and a drum machine join the acoustic instruments that had always defined the band's chamber sound.

The other three members remain: Ralph Towner on classical and 12-string guitars, piano, synthesizer and drum machine, Paul McCandless on oboe, cor anglais, soprano saxophone and wind-driven synthesizer, and Glen Moore on double bass. Crossing, recorded at the same studio in October 1984, had been the last album with Walcott, who played tabla, sitar and percussion on it. Ecotopia was made in March 1987 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, engineered by Martin Wieland and produced by Manfred Eicher, and released that October. Towner wrote five of the eight pieces, the title track among them, McCandless the short improvisation WBAI, and Moore wrote Leather Cats with Samantha Moore. McCandless's wind-driven synthesizer is heard on WBAI and on the closing piece.

The ten-minute Twice Around The Sun opens the album over a programmed rhythm, McCandless's lines floating partly behind the synthesizers. On Innocente Towner's guitar carries the warm sound of McCandless's reeds, and the two instruments move as one voice. The album closes with Song Of The Morrow, a composition by Walcott himself, so that his music is heard on the first record made without him.

Tyran Grillo, writing on ECM Reviews in 2012, called Innocente the album's "zenith" and singled out the pairing of Towner and McCandless. In Zephyr, in his view, the two are strong enough to carry the record on their own. He also credited Moore's bass and Gurtu's percussion with steering the music towards more organic ground, against the pull of the electronics.

This CD (ECM 1354) was issued in 2008 in ECM's Touchstones series, which began that year and reissues catalogue albums in card sleeves. The first wave of the series comprised 40 albums. Ecotopia was first released in 1987.