Test For Echo

Test For Echo (5:56)
Driven (4:27)
Half The World (3:43)
The Color Of Right (4:49)
Time And Motion (5:01)
Totem (4:58)
Dog Years (4:55)
Virtuality (5:44)
Resist (4:24)
Limbo (5:29)
Carve Away The Stone (4:05)

Geddy Lee
bass guitar, vocals, synthesizers

Alex Lifeson
electric and acoustic guitars, mandola

Neil Peart
drums, cymbals, hammer dulcimer

Produced by Peter Collins and RUSH
Recorded by Clif Norrell
Mixed by Andy Wallace
Project assistant engineer: Simon Pressey
Recorded January - March 1996, at Bearsville Studios, Bearsville, New York, assisted by Chris Laidlaw and Paul Marconi, and Reaction Studios, Toronto, April 1996, assisted by Tom Heron
All songs by Lee, Lifeson, & Peart, except "Test For Echo": Lee, Lifeson, Peart, & Dubois
Arrangements by Rush and Peter Collins

Preproduction at Chalet Studio by Lerxst Sound and Everett Ravestein
Mastered by Bob Ludwig, Gateway Studios, Portland, Maine
Management by Ray Danniels, SRO Management Inc., Toronto
Executive Production by Anthem Entertainment: Liam Birt & Pegi Cecconi
Art Direction, Design and Digital Illustration by Hugh Syme
Photography by Dimo Safari, Anthony Frederick, Andrew MacNaughtan, Richard C. Negus, Eugene Fisher
"2001: A Space Odyssey" images © 1968 Turner Entertainment Co. All Rights Reserved (page 12)

Tour Manager and President: Liam Birt / Production & Stage Manager: Dan Braun / Production Assistant: Jimmy Joe Rhodes / Concert Sound Engineer: Robert Scovill / Lighting Director: Howard Ungerleider / Stage Left Tech: Skip Gildersleeve / Centre Stage Tech: Larry Allen / Stage Right Tech: Jim Johnson / Keyboard Tech: Tony Geranios / Monitor Engineer: Phil Wilkey

Personal Assistant: Sean Son Hing / Concert Sound by Electrotec: Ted Leamy, Larry (Kahuna) Vodopivec, David (H.B.) Stogner, Brad Judd / Lighting by See Factor: Jack Funk, Ed Duda, Mario Corsi, Steve Kostecke, Donny Lodico / Icon lighting by LSD: Matt Druzbik, Julian Winters / Pyrotechnics: Reid Schulte-Derne, Doug Adams, Randy Bast / Projectionists: Bob Montgomery, Conrad Coriz, Sam Raphael / Concert Rigging by IMC (Billy Collins): Mike (Frank) McDonald, Brian Collins, Rick Mooney / Carpenters: George Steinert, Sal Marinello, Joe Campbell
Drivers: Tom (Whitey) Whittaker, Arthur (Mac) MacLear, Lennie Southwick, Tom Hartman, Stan Whittaker, Dave Cook, Red McBrine, Don Hendricks, Phil Dunlap, Ken Bosemer
Tour Merchandise: Mike, Shannon & Pat McLoughlin / Tour Accountants: Liam Birt & John Whitehead (Drysdale & Drysdale) / Booking Agencies: International Creative Management, NYC, The Agency Group, London, The Agency, Toronto

Friendly help and helpful friendship provided by D.I.Y Studios, B. Zee Brokers, Candlebox & Primus and crews, Westbury Sound, Reely Unique Studio Rentals, Neal Dibiase, Wee Kiltie, haggis, Tom Cochrane, Pooké, Martian Dweller (for the dulcimer), Food To Go caterers, and at the Chalet: Koopster, David, Mike (the Real Owner), Zalia, George, Perry, & Compost Pit; at Bearsville: Mark, Patty, Chris, Paul, Päûl, & Jill; at Reaction: Ormond, Claire, Tom, & Chris; and at McClear: Bob, Denis, Pam, & Tony, At SRO: Ray, Pegi, Sheila, Anna, Stephanie, Shelley, Steve, & Bob; and at home - last but far from least - our families.

For technical help, our thanks to Walter Ostanek's Music Centre, Jim Burgess and Saved By Technology (Carl Petzelt), Paul Reed Smith guitars, DOD Digitech, Godin guitars, Trace Elliot amplifiers, Coll Audio, Drum Workshop drums, Avedis Zildjian cymbals, Promark drumsticks, Freddie Gruber, and - Ω?

Brought to you buy the letter "R-R-R-R"

© 1996 Atlantic Records © 1996 Anthem Entertainment

Notes

• Atlantic/Anthem September 10, 1996
• Highest Billboard Chart Position: 5 - Certified Gold by RIAA: October 23, 1996
• There were two promotional single edits included on CD singles released to radio stations in support of Test For Echo: "Test for Echo" (5:08 "Radio Edit"), 1996; "Virtuality" (4:50 edit), 1997
• Reissued November 6, 2015 by Universal Music Enterprises on 200-gram, heavyweight vinyl with a download code for a 320kbps MP4 vinyl ripped Digital Audio album as well as high resolution Digital Audio editions in DSD (2.8mHz), 192khz / 24-bit, 96kHz / 24-bit.

In Their Own Words

"I wasn't sure during our first week that I wanted to continue. I was still disillusioned by what I just accomplished with [Victor] and I didn't know if I wanted to get back into the same old thing that Rush represented. Ged and I spent that first week just talking about where we wanted to go as human beings in our lives. We had a very varied discussion about so many things. We kind of left it as 'let's see how the first couple of weeks go and if my heart is not in it, I have to say I can't'. Then we started playing and all this great stuff started coming out. There's a sense of passion and feel again that I haven't seen in a while on our records. At this point, all the pieces fit together very well." - Alex Lifeson, Access, January/February 1996

"On Test For Echo, instead of trying to RE-INVENT ourselves, we tried to UN-INVENT ourselves. I think we were just happy to be making a record, we had all just been through a lot of things, so coming together after a-year and a half was strange. Getting together to write for it was very fresh and new, we put the formulas...well, we really don't write in formulas, but you get into habits, which is what defines your signature, but we put everything aside. We talked for the first week and a half before we even started writing. It was a very natural stripping down of what he had been doing for ten years. It was very different from Counterparts, which was a very delicate lyrical approach, but a very indelicate musical approach. It was a pretty slamming, but heavy and dark record. Just another weird record from us, [laughs], you just never know what's going to come out." - Geddy Lee, Long Island Entertainment, October 1998

[What's being said in the (otherwise) instrumental "Limbo"?] "Oh, it's from the ('60s novelty hit) 'Monster Mash'! That's another weird thing. I'd been stuck on 'Monster Mash' and we were trying to use the Internet to get the words because I couldn't remember them. One of the guys on the production team is an Internet preacher. So I said, 'Here's your chance, go get these lyrics for me'. Well, he went onto the Internet and found the lyrics - but they were wrong! In all the jokes of that, our co-producer, Peter Collins, went out and bought the CD that had a compilation of some funny songs like that. We got to listening to it, thinking about how funny it was and decided to put some samples of it in there. That's Igor going 'Goo mash goo'. It's from the record. We had to get special permission and pay money and everything." - Neil Peart, Jam!Showbiz, October 16, 1996

"In 'Totem,' where I'm saying 'I believe in what I see / I believe in what I hear / I believe that what I'm thinking changes how the world appears', I'm not speaking in the genuine first person of course, because I really don't feel that way. But I see it in the world around me, where for example, if people are in a bad mood, then the whole world is just such a dark place, and all people are bad, and everything that happens is horrible. Conversely, if they happen to be in a good mood, then everything is glorious, and there's sunshine and flowers and lollipops, you know. But does reality really change that much? (laughter) Well no, of course not, the filter does. So it's that subjectivity and that solipsism that I observe around me with some people. Do you know people who seem like a completely different person every day? You know, that's the observation that that line is based upon. It's kind of a tongue in cheek observation....'Time and Motion' came from a letter I got from a friend, where he made the observation that Life isn't about what you get out of it, but rather what you push into it every day. I thought that was a beautiful illustration. Then I thought of the boxcars idea, how much you can load into that boxcar in terms of filling your life. ['Days connect like boxcars in a train / Fill them up with precious cargo / Squeeze in all that you can find'] So that song developed from that little germ...'Dog Years' , that came from a similar sort of thing where I was reading the paper one day, and a writer was remarking that she was tired of her life feeling like dog years, where every seven years seems to go by one like one. So I thought that was a cool little notion. Again, it was dealing with the fleeting nature of time." - Neil Peart, Metro Weekend, October 17, 1996

"I got the engineer to make me sixteen bars of click and I went in and just started playing-not counting bars or anything-just playing a lot of this new stuff that I hoped to get on the record. I gave that tape to Geddy. While he was assembling the pieces of 'Limbo' he took my bits, cut them into four-bar pieces, switched them all around, and pieced them into the song. So I got exactly what I was after-something totally fresh and spontaneous, played that way only once, and in fact, in the context of the song, never played that way." - Neil Peart, Modern Drummer, November 1996

Promos