Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1984 Japanese ECM Vinyl LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls | Vinyl LP - 1984 Japanese ECM Records Reissue (25MJ 3335, Polydor K.K.)

The title track takes up all of side A and starts with what sounds like a recording made in a crowd. Voices, ambient noise, Vasconcelos chanting over the top. From there, Lyle Mays brings in slow-building synthesiser washes (he was working with an Oberheim Four Voice and Prophet at the time) while Metheny layers acoustic and electric guitar lines over the top, sometimes playing bass too. The piece shifts through distinct sections over its 20 minutes, moving from ambient drift to a shimmering autoharp-driven passage that lands somewhere between impressionism and something closer to minimalism. Side B covers different ground entirely. "Ozark" is compact and melodic. "September Fifteenth," dedicated to Bill Evans, opens with Metheny's acoustic guitar inside Mays's synth pads before Mays switches to piano for a passage of quiet interplay that echoes the intimacy Evans spent his career refining. "It's For You" builds from sparse to full-band intensity. "Estupenda Graça" closes the album in under three minutes, a nod to Vasconcelos's Brazilian roots.

Metheny and Mays had rehearsed the album extensively before flying to Oslo, working out structures that left room for improvisation and multi-track overdubbing within planned frameworks. The result is more composed than it might first sound, and the studio plays a bigger role than on most ECM dates. This is the 1984 Japanese reissue on ECM Records, catalogue number 25MJ 3335, part of the ECM Collection 50 series manufactured by Polydor K.K.