Echo’s debut recording explores the concept of innocence and its many connections to our changing ideas of faith, tradition, childhood and the natural world. 

Tracklist

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) - O Nobilissima Viriditas

Pierre Villette (1926-1988) - Hymne à la Vierge, op.24

Jean Mouton (c.1459-1522) - Nesciens Mater

Shivani Rattan (b.1996) - Patake!

Michael Head (1900-1976) - The Singer

Meredith Monk (b.1942) - Panda Chant II 

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) - Trois Chansons M69
Anna Rocławska-Musiałczyk (b. 1987) -  Bibi, Synkù, bi

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - Hush, no more (adapted from The Fairy Queen Z 629)

Lennon/ McCartney - I’m only sleeping (improvisation) - from Revolver (1966)

Howard Skempton (b. 1947) - He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Morrissey & Marr / Heap, arr. Sarah Latto - There is a light that never goes out / Hide and Seek

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) - I Vaghi Fiori

ANOHNI (b.1971) - Why did you separate me from the earth (improvisation)

About the concept

Innocence is one of those many-sided concepts that has different meanings and resonances in different places and at different times. It is a concept that is transformed by history — through the shifts in our collective relationships to faith, to tradition and to the natural world — but it is also a concept that contains a notion of history within it: a before and an after. We only know what innocence is after we have lost it. As an ensemble, Echo have a deep investment in exploring the whole breadth of musical history: in listening out for those transhistorical resonances, half-hidden ancestries and curious echoes of the present in the music of the past. The theme of innocence, which is so closely tied to the experience and representation of time — yearnings for the past, warnings for the future — seemed an ideal topic for such an exploration.

Moving freely between musical traditions sacred and secular, composed and improvised, classical and popular, this recording begins with innocence as a religious virtue, reconfigured by industrialisation and World War into a pastoral longing for a lost world of enchantment and connection to nature, as recorded in folk tales and children’s songs. In a sequence of lullabies, we sense the precariousness of these childhood idylls, fragile as dreams, which dissolve in the cold light of day. Yet where innocence is lost, wisdom is gained. The album closes with a consideration of how visions of the past can shape our orientation toward the future.

Critical Reception

The Arts Desk - July 24

Gramophone - Aug 24

BBC Music Magazine - Sep 24