My review of ECM Records' Selected Signs III-VIII, today at All About Jazz.

When München's Haus der Kunst sponsored a nearly three-month exhibition about the ECM Records label, ECM: A Cultural Archeology, which ran from November, 2012 to February, 2013, there was far more to it than just bringing together collections of album covers, rarely seen video, archival tapes, imagery and concert performances. Selected Signs III-VIII continues a series of ECM samplers that began in 1997 with its first volume, but in this case ties directly into the exhibition, allowing those who were unable to attend to at least experience one aspect of it. These six CDs—housed in a suitably austere white box and containing nearly seven hours and twenty minutes of music that spans much of the label's history—are playlists that Eicher himself programmed for the exhibition's numerous listening stations and small alcoves, where it was possible to sit on a bench at the end of a small, dark room and become immersed in some of the ECM's finer recordings, delivered through superb, high-end sound systems.

Review here.