For the Record: April 19, 2024.

Alex Sopp would like to have a word with you… plus, dozens of listings for today's new arrivals and upcoming releases.

Apr 19, 2024

For the Record rounds up details about new and pending recordings of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined, on CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital-only formats… you name it.

This list of release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon, Bandcamp, and other internet stores and sources, social-media posts, and online resources such as Discogs. Dates cited typically correspond to initial U.S. release, and are subject to change. (Links to Amazon, used when all else fails, do not imply endorsement.)

These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.

All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.

The lead-in.

It’s not a Bandcamp Friday – mark your calendar for the next one on May 3 – but there are quite a few must-hear releases today all the same. I started my morning with Solo Bern 1984, First Visit, a previously unreleased Anthony Braxton solo recital just out on the new archival imprint launched last month by Hat Hut founder Werner X. Uehlinger. You likely remember the excitement surrounding the Cecil Taylor archival release that inaugurated this new series; I’ll admit the second thing I thought on its arrival – after “moar Taylor pleaze?!” – was, “I wonder if there’s any untapped Braxton on the shelf?” Well, now.

Other vital arrivals include a full-blown star turn for claire rousay with sentiment, her beautiful, moving Thrill Jockey debut; Silent, Listening, the ECM solo debut of pianist and composer Fred Hersch; and Perpetual Void, a fiery trio set by pianist Márta Sanchez with bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Savannah Harris.

But if you can only grab one new album today, make it The Hem & The Haw by Alex Sopp, a brilliant flutist you’ve almost certainly heard with yMusic, The Knights, NOW Ensemble, possibly even the New York Philharmonic. Fans of yMusic in particular are familiar with the contributions Sopp made with her voice on the self-titled album that group released last year—and in their Tiny Desk Concert, too.

Here, Sopp bursts into full-blown singer-songwriter mode with a beguiling assurance. (Definitely take a moment to read her description of the genesis saga.) The title track, with its juicy flute lines, clatterbones percussion, and piquant lyrics, has lived rent-free inside my head since a promo download first arrived in early February, and – hand on heart – I’ve been delighted by some new facet every time I’ve listened to the album.

Yesterday, it was a single line in “Ah Said Rosita” – “it feels like fish in your veins, and pepper in your heart” – and I see today I’m not the only one who feels that way. Today, it’s the little yelp Sopp tucks into the phase “who’s to blame” in “North Pole in Summer,” embedded above. Tomorrow, who knows?

Sopp doesn’t especially sound like Kate Bush, or Tune-Yards, or Arone Dyer, or Julia Holter, but her music and the way she delivers it positions her in that kind of company. Co-producer Thomas Bartlett plays a plethora of instruments (including Mellotron, yum), Sam Amidon sings, JACK Quartet violinist Austin Wulliman plays, and yMusic members past and present provide more vital sounds. Collaboration extends past the album: Ariadne Greif directed, filmed, and edited the video embedded above, with Sopp’s artwork and animation.

It’s an extraordinary debut: inventive, sophisticated, dizzying, and dazzling, instantly appealing and consistently alluring. Don’t miss it.

New this week.

Fred Hersch (Photograph: Roberto Cifarelli)

Silvia Bolognesi/Dudú Kouate/Griffin Rodriguez - Timing Birds (Astral Spirits)

Anthony Braxton - Solo Bern 1984, First Visit (First Visit Archive; recorded 1984)

James Díaz - [speaking in a foreign language] - Julia Jung Un Suh (New Focus)

Bill Frisell - Orchestras (Blue Note)

FUJI||||||||||TA - MMM (Hallow Ground)

Patrick Giguère - Intimes exubérances - Cheryl Duvall (Redshift Music)

Vinny Golia Quintet - Almasty (Nine Winds)

Michael Zev Gordon - The Impermanence of Things - performances by BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Carolin Widmann, BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Catherine Larsen-Maguire, Huw Watkins, London Sinfonietta, and Ian Dearden (NMC Recordings)

Frank Gratkowski - Mature Hybird Talking - Ensemble Modern (World Edition)

Alexander Hawkins/Sofia Jernberg - Musho (Intakt)

Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening (ECM)

Jo Kondo - Standing; Sight Rhythmics - Aki Takahashi, Sound Space Ark (Musical Observations; originally released 1981)

Minimum Wage Immanence Unit - A Thousand Years to a Bristlecone Pine (Confront)

Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Radiant (Marginal Frequency)

Camila Nebbia & Patrick Shiroishi - We Speak in Rivers (Superpang)

Travis Reuter - Quintet Music (self-released)

Manja Ristić - Ma (Line)

Brandon Ross Phantom Station - Off the End (Sunnyside)

claire rousay - sentiment (Thrill Jockey)

Márta Sanchez - Perpetual Void (Intakt)