“New Music” Series (1975-76)

Promotional samplers are made with an expiration date hidden inside them. They announce new releases, then yield to the next campaign. The four rare ECM/Polydor records gathered under the “New Music” banner have resisted that planned obsolescence. Originally pressed for radio stations and in-store programming, they now reach us as documents of a label defining the dimensions of its own voice one release at a time. Each track has been lifted from its native sequence and asked to speak in unfamiliar company. That displacement creates a second composition at the level of curation, with affinity and friction doing the work of continuity. These compilations let us hear taste becoming history while it is still provisional and curious, with surprise left in its bloodstream. Their scarcity explains the collector’s interest; their deeper fascination lies in the changed terms of attention they demand. Music, once selected to guide a purchase, has become a route back to the act of choosing…