Eccodek: Global Fusion from Ontario
Photo: Austin Gibson
Musical wanderlust is a road well worn especially in the age of digital connectivity, where a single click beams you into the heart of any cultural tradition imaginable. Musical wanderlust that erases the divide between those traditions is another beast altogether. Over a 20 year career, Canada's Eccodek has made it a mission to open its arms to an impressive array of cultural collaboration and sonic terrain. Releasing 8 albums and countless remixes, Eccodek's creator Andrew McPherson has worked with artists from as far afield as India, Trinidad, Mali, Persia, Nigeria, Fiji, Pakistan, Turkey, Rwanda and of course, Canada. The project's heady mix of funk, dub, jazz, ambient, tribal, electronica and downtempo continues to hook audiences wherever they perform. And the list of world class collaborators and projects keeps growing...Vieux Farka Touré, Jane Siberry, Dub Colossus, Kiran Ahluwalia, Natacha Atlas, Oçal/Smadj, Transglobal Underground, Dubmatix, Mahsa Vahdat, Syriana, Delhi 2 Dublin, Great Big Sea, Desert Dwellers, EarthRise SoundSystem, Stephen Fearing, Deva Premal and more.
Eccodek is the brainchild of Canadian producer, artist, multi-instrumentalist and engineer Andrew McPherson. Andrew's deep love of the diasporic sounds of Africa is the musical heartbeat of Eccodek but in the 80's, when he stumbled on the globetrotting sounds of Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, his musical horizon ventured even further. Raised in a musical household, Andrew pursued degrees in both music and recording, all the while playing in bands. It was only a matter of time before the two disciplines would join together in his passion for recording and producing. In 2001, as part of an exchange for recording Rwandan artist Ignace Ntirushwmaboko, Andrew got permission to use elements from Ignace's recording, opening up a rich cultural palette with which he could explore the tripped out musical fusion he was hearing from artists like Adrian Sherwood, Thievery Corporation, Bill Laswell and Massive Attack. The experiment worked. The CBC, Canada's national broadcaster, fell in love with Eccodek's debut 'More Africa in Us' and the project suddenly had both a following and a sound. Two years later they would independently release Voice Have Eyes, only to be signed months later by US imprint White Swan Records, who re-released their debut and Voice Have Eyes across North America. Eccodek, it seemed, was the little 'global dub engine' that could.
Photo: Caroline Kuras
Since then they've released 5 more albums, while the list of career highlights continues to grow: 2 Juno nominations (Canada’s Grammys), 2 Canadian Music Awards (Best World Group), 2015 Juno Award TV Broadcast closing performance before 1.8 million viewers, a Canada Day show in London, England’s Trafalgar Square before 5,000 fans; releases on Buddha Bar, Six Degrees, Real World, White Swan, Supperclub, One World Music, Modiba; #2 chart position on CMJ’s New World Chart; Canada’s only artist on National Geographic’s GeoRemix project. The media has been similarly generous with glowing support from The Boston Globe, Toronto Star, Stereogum, BBC Radio, Toronto Sun, No Depression, Maximum Ink, Pop Matters, Global Rhythm, CMJ, Exclaim!, All Music Guide, Calgary Herald, Huffington Post, Now Magazine, Ottawa Citizen and more.
Flash forward to 2022 as Eccodek returns to the global fusion stage with the release of Recalibrate, their first new album in 7 years. Following a lengthy break where Andrew developed and released a jaw dropping 4 albums in 5 years of his ambient, neo-classical project Peppermoth, he's reignited the Eccodek flame. Recalibrate is a reaffirming of direction, a plotting of new musical coordinates, the reinvigoration of a vision. Over 9 tracks, Recalibrate feels like a celebration, a call-to-arms, a renewed statement of purpose, a dance floor rallying cry.
With the 2020 arrival of the global pandemic all production and recording projects halted for Andrew. This provided the perfect incubation period for what would become Eccodek’s Recalibrate. Drawing on the combined musical muscle of the 6-piece band and an impressive lineup of guest vocalists, Recalibrate’s sprawling musical travelogue was a patient and laboured piece of craftsmanship. Recorded and mixed on Andrew's vintage MCI console, you can feel the depth of its sound and musical commitment. Once again the live 6-piece of over 20 years provides the foundation for the album's sound, bedrock solid musicianship showing off the band's hard earned chemistry. Adam Bowman (drums), Jason Shute (congas), Marc De Vos (bass), Brent Rowan (sax/winds), Les Hartai (synths) and Andrew on keys, flute, guitar, bass and percussion/programming laid bricks in these sessions. With the album's framework in place, Andrew tapped into his ever expanding community of international singers and collaborators to anchor these songs, welcoming back Eccodek veterans Kiran Ahluwalia and Onkar Singh, alongside new inductees Mahsa Vahdat, John Orpheus, Brenna MacCrimmon, Charleston Okafor and Oranmiyan Ajagundade. Combined, they form a musical lineage that stretches from India, Nigeria and Persia to Trinidad and the Balkans, seamlessly blending with Andrew’s widescreen mixes full of live percussion and drums, bottom-heavy bass, soaring saxophones, textural synths and dubbed-out sonics. Recalibrate continues to build on the impressive 20 year musical lineage of Eccodek, reaffirming the band's place at the top of the global fusion genre.
