Decades after 1992's
Gravity, the solo debut that let the world know
Alejandro Escovedo was one of America's great songwriters, the man has little if anything to prove, but he doesn't have to rest on his laurels. For 2024's
Echo Dancing,
Escovedo has taken a truly idiosyncratic look at his own songbook. He cut new, radically different versions of 14 songs from his back catalog. Reportedly,
Escovedo had traveled to Italy to cut a set of fresh tunes with
Don Antonio and
Nicola Peruch, who collaborated with
Escovedo on his 2018 album
The Crossing, but at the last minute he came up with the idea of re-interpreting some of his older compositions instead, though fans can be excused for not recognizing all of
Escovedo's oldies. A few of these songs are genuinely obscure, but even the best-known tracks get a truly thorough reworking, with scratchy guitars, lo-fi keyboards, and vintage drum machines often dominating the arrangements, making much of this seem like
Escovedo's long-lost new wave or synth-punk LP. Tracks like "Sacramento & Polk" and "Wave" sound as if
Escovedo,
Antonio, and
Peruch were aiming to be eccentric for its own sake (especially the former, which could pass as a B-side for
the Normal's "Warm Leatherette"), though the more spare and atmospheric tone of "Outside Your Door" and "Last to Know" (dominated by droning keyboards and minimal electronic drones, confirming
Escovedo's statement that
Suicide was a major influence on him) fit the songs well while also casting them in a bold new light. The notion of
Escovedo making a lo-fi junkshop electronic album sounds even more unlikely than him covering his own songs for a full album, and while
Echo Dancing is uneven, the hits outnumber the misses by a margin that qualifies this as a successful experiment. That said, given how well he and his collaborators take to this approach, perhaps this would have been an even better LP if he'd come up with a set of original songs purpose-built to these.
Escovedo is a great interpreter, but he's an even better songwriter. ~ Mark Deming
![The Lonesome Crowded West [Bonus Track]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0767981144627_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "The Lonesome Crowded West [Bonus Track]")
![Copper Blue/Beaster [Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0673855045122_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Copper Blue/Beaster [Deluxe Edition]")
![Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night [Expanded Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/5060384616186_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night [Expanded Edition]")