Right. Well put.
I like the Japanese LPs better. The Blue Note material is okay, but I think I preferred the trio tracks (like "Drone", as an example). It has been a while. The ECM felt a little stiffer to be honest, though at the time, when I was like 19-20, the parallel interests I had in Dolphy/Coltrane/Ayler/Cecil and Stockhausen/Berio/Webern found a strong footing in Circle. There's other Braxton I prefer, of course, but those records are pretty important. Will have to dig them out as it's been close to 25 years since they were on deck!