I Finally Bought an ERC

Electric Recording Company is a British reissue label with an obsessive attention to detail. Founded in 2013, they focus on significant classical, jazz, blues, and pop recordings from the 1950s through the 1970s. Why obsessive? ERC’s goal is to reproduce the sound of an original pressing as faithfully as possible. Not improve it. Not remaster it. Not reimagine it.

This all started when founder and record veteran Pete Hutchison noticed that top condition original pressings of certain classical masterworks were selling for four figures. As a collector himself, he’d noticed that the reissues he owned were somehow inferior to the originals he would occasionally come across at friends. It wasn’t that something was especially wrong with the reissues, only that the originals had captured some extra magic that was lacking in the reissues.

Hutchison came to believe that if the originals still had something to say, despite the forward march of technology, the equipment that made them might be worth preserving as well. ERC’s editions are mastered using vintage tube electronics and cutting equipment from the 1950s, sourced from around the world and painstakingly restored to original condition. Every reissue is exhaustively researched, benchmarked against pristine originals and packaged as faithfully as possible: down to the materials, hand-set type, vintage printing presses for the jackets and artwork. In many ways, ERC isn’t simply trying to recreate history. It’s trying to understand it.

ERC resonates with me for the same reasons I love tube amplifiers and record players, and why I taught myself hand-tool woodworking during the pandemic. Certain tools and crafts don’t just produce different objects, they invite us to pay attention differently. I’m curious what opening this record will do to my own understanding of the Bill Evans Trio.

I’ve been following ERC since reading Art Dudley’s first coverage of them in Stereophile back in 2013. For more than a decade, every ERC announcement landed in my inbox. I’d read about the title, admire the care that went into it, and then quietly decide this wasn’t the one. Some were recordings I didn’t know. Others I admired but didn’t need to own. If I was ever going to buy one, it had to be a record I’d still be reaching for twenty years from now.

A couple months ago, ERC announced Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby, a classic jazz recording that caught the Bill Evans Trio at the height of their powers, and I decided to take the plunge. I’m inviting you to come along for the ride.

Over the next couple of posts, I’ll explore the recording, its place in jazz history, and what I hear when the record finally hits my ‘table. Then it’ll be your turn. We’ll gather, listen together, and compare notes.

If you want to come along, check the Events page for details.