For the Record: April 21, 2023.

New and forthcoming releases from Wild Up, Ben Vida, Thomas Buckner, Tim Berne, and more… let's get it (re)started.

Apr 21, 2023

For the Record is a regular round-up of new and upcoming 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.)

After publication, new listings are incorporated into For the Record: The Master List.

Night After Night

For the Record: The Master List

Updated April 14, 2023. 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…

2 years ago · 2 likes · Steve Smith

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

Please note that all opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.‌

Spin.

Just in time for a residency of three concerts in two days, tonight and tomorrow, the bicoastal new-music band Wild Up has announced the third volume in its vital series of Julius Eastman albums. Due June 16 on the New Amsterdam label, Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? features guest pianist/leaders Devonté Hynes and Adam Tendler, and includes three substantial compositions: the titular piece, plus The Moon’s Silent Modulation and Evil N****r.

Earlier this week in his essential newsletter, Dada Strain, my friend and colleague Piotr Orlov shared a thoughtful essay detailing misgivings about Eastman’s ongoing canonization in the mainstream sphere. (A subscription is required, but anyone involved in NYC music ought to have one.) I’m sympathetic to what Piotr writes, but also abundantly grateful that Eastman’s music is rightly becoming a pillar of a new-music landscape that was badly in need of adjustment.

Dada Strain

Bklyn Sounds 4/18/2023 - 4/24/2023 + Julius Eastman Goes Uptown

I have conflicting feelings about “Radical Adornment,” a two-day, three-show program of Julius Eastman music set to be performed at the 92nd Street Y this weekend by Wild Up, a Los Angeles-based new-music ensemble that over the past few years has made a name for itself by interpreting and renewing Eastman’s work. There’s excitement and gratification at seeing this incredible, revolutionary, forgotten-by-the-establishment music being given the chance to be heard, the pushing of a seminal-but-ignored figure into a well-deserved light, albeit 33 years after his death. Yet there’s also awkwardness and concern about bringing this music into an unlikely context of how/where it is presented. So, a thoroughly modern quandary. Overthinking it? Potentially, but only if the ideas of intentionality and the problems created by centuries of cultural capitalism and exploitation of art and archive, aren’t central to what/how you think about art presentation. Because it all starts with Eastman’s music, its character and multitude of purposes, how its radical nature is less “adornment” than a central function…

2 years ago · 1 like · Piotr Orlov

You can learn all about the concerts here.

Speaking of revising the canon, New Yorkers take note: William Robin and Kerry O’Brien, the scholars, authors, and editors behind the vital new reader On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement, will be at The Town Hall this Sunday for a conversation with Sonic Youth guitarist and intrepid musical explorer Lee Ranaldo. The book is a game-changer, and I could not possibly be more proud to have my 2020 New York Times profile of composer-performer Sarah Hennies included in it.

Stick around after the chat for the North American debut of Dream House Quartet. Pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque and guitarists Bryce Dessner and David Chalmin will present Thom Yorke’s first concert-music piece on a program that also includes music by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Chalmin, and Dessner. As if that weren’t enough, Arooj Aftab and Ash Fure are featured guests, and the concert is a benefit for The Kitchen. Find out more and grab tickets here.

There are a lot of new and forthcoming recordings to rattle off this week, and it’s close to impossible to select one or two highlights. But it’s ingratiating to hear saxophonist and composer Tim Berne entangled with a longtime fellow traveler, cellist Hank Roberts, and a newer collaborator, Aurora Nealand, in the chamber-gnarl featured on Oceans And, new on Intakt.

Setting Fire to These Dark Times, new from organist, vocalist, and looper Chaz Knapp and cellist Mariel Roberts, is an inspired and frequently breathtaking mingling of disparate yet compatible approaches.

I’m grateful to see composer, scholar, and invaluable critic Kyle Gann posting new recordings on Bandcamp, the first two of which arrived earlier this week. And speaking of Kyle, there’s a marvelous new release today featuring Ensemble Dedalus and Ryoko Akama performing recent music by Éliane Radigue, whose inexcusable absence from a New York Times round-up of minimalist music on record Gann brought to my attention in what John Schaefer had envisioned as a spirited debate on WNYC’s Soundcheck. John seemed almost disappointed when I instantly concurred with Kyle. (The NYT article, needless to say, did not make it into the new O’Brien/Robin primer, though it did earn a succinct side-eye.)

Rest assured that in the not-distant future you’ll be reading more about the new recordings by Ben Vida, Jessie Marino, and Thomas Buckner listed below. All three of these records brought to mind the late, great Robert Ashley – two of them directly and intentionally – and that is never a bad thing.

New this week.

Thomas Adès - Dante - Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel (Nonesuch)

Tim Berne - Hank Roberts - Aurora Nealand - Oceans And (Intakt)

Erik Carlson - Slowly Expanding Aldo Clementi Album (self-released)

Charles Curtis, Alan Licht, Dean Roberts - May 99 (Blank Forms)

Jason Doell - becoming in shadows ~ of being touched (Whited Sepulchre)

dragonchild (D.A. Mekonnen) - dragonchild (FPE)

Kyle Gann - Geometry (self-released)

Kyle Gann - Whispers - David Sytkowski (self-released)

Alexander Hawkins Trio - Carnival Celestial (Intakt)

Iranian Female Composers Association - Sirventès - Brian Thornton (New Focus)

Chaz Knapp & Mariel Roberts - Setting Fire to These Dark Times (figureight)

KVL - Volume 2 (Astral Spirits)

Stephan Mathieu - Mauve District (Schwebung)

Toshimaru Nakamura & Suzueri - a floor, walls, and a ceiling (Superpang)

Éliane Radigue - Occam - Hepta I; Occam XX - Ensemble Dedalus, Ryoko Akama (Montagne Noire)

Lee Weisert - Recesses - Lee Weisert, Nicholas DiEugenio, Melissa Martin, Matthew McClure, Allen Anderson, Jonathon Kirk (New Focus)

Ben Wendel - All One (Edition)

John Zorn - Multiplicities II: A Repository of Non-Existent Objects (Tzadik)

Coming soon.‌

Caterina Barbieri (Photograph: Frank Zerban)

April 28

Dieter Ammann - Core / Turn / Boost; Unbalanced Instability - Simone Zgraggen, Basel Sinfonietta/Baldur Brönnimann (Naxos)

Tim Brady - Symphony in 18 Parts (Starkland)

Sarah Cahill - The Future Is Female, Vol. 3: At Play - compositions by Hélène de Montgeroult, Cécile Chaminade, Grażyna Bacewicz, Chen Yi, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Pauline Oliveros, Hannah Kendall, Aida Shirazi, and Regina Harris Baiocchi (First Hand)

Ensemble Pi - Reparations NOW - compositions by Courtney Bryan, Allison Loggins-Hull, Angélica Negrón, Damian Norfleet, Alvin Singleton, and Trevor Weston (Bright Shiny Things)

Eve Essex - Today, I Will Be the Bread (Soap Library)

Hugi Guðmundsson - The Gospel of Mary - Berit Norbakken, Schola Cantorum Reykjavicensis, Århus Sinfonietta/Hörður Áskelsson (Da Capo)

Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Daníel Bjarnason - Atmospheriques, Vol. 1 - compositions by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Missy Mazzoli, Daníel Bjarnason, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, and Bára Gísladóttir (Sono Luminus)

Giuseppe Ielasi - Down on Darkened Meetings (Black Truffle)

Mute Duo - 5amSky (Astral Editions)

Shara Nova - Titration - The Crossing/Donald Nally (Navona)

Tamarisk - Plays a Word for Wind (Astral Editions)

Vaster Than Empires (Allen Otte, Erica Dicker, Paul Schuette) - Three Days (New Focus)

Dorian Wood & Thor Harris - You are clearly in perversion (Astral Editions)

May 3

HARLOW (Jessie Marino) - A Host of Possible Dramas and Exchanges (Carrier)

May 4

Michelle Lou - HoneyDripper - Mattie Barbier, Weston Olencki (Carrier)

May 5

Delphine Dora - As Above, So Below (Recital)

Mark Dresser - Times of Change (Pyroclastic)

Reiko Füting - Mechthild - Olivia Stahn, Hanna Herfurtner, Susi Wirth, Helge Leiberg, AuditivVokal Dresden, Ensemble Adapter, New Chamber Ballet New York/Olaf Katzer (New Focus)

Brandon López - vilevilevilevilevilevilevilevile (TAO Forms)

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė - Hadal Zone - Synaesthesis (Cantaloupe Music)

Lesley Mok - The Living Collection (American Dreams)

Roomful of Teeth - Rough Magic - compositions by William Brittelle, Eve Beglarian, Caroline Shaw, and Peter S. Shin (New Amsterdam)

Ben Vida - The Beat My Head Hit - Ben Vida, Nina Dante, Yarn/Wire (Shelter Press)

Kenny Wheeler - Live ’71: The Kenny Wheeler Big Band & Friends (British Progressive Jazz)

May 7

Joëlle Léandre - Craig Taborn - Mat Maneri - hEARoes (RogueArt)

May 12

Constellation Men's Ensemble - Man Up/Man Down - compositions by Robert Maggio, Jeffrey Derus, and David Lang (Sono Luminus)

Sylvie Courvoisier & Cory Smythe - The Rite of Spring - Spectre d'un songe (Pyroclastic)

Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin - A Sublime Madness (Astral Spirits)

The Flame (Robert Mitchell, Neil Charles, Mark Sanders) - Towards the Flame, Vol. 1 (577 Records)

May 19

Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri - Oedipe Redux (Sunnyside)

Kate Gentile - b i o m e i.i - International Contemporary Ensemble (Obliquity)

Branford Marsalis, Virginia Symphony Orchestra/Eric Jacobsen - Sound of the Sun - compositions by Gustav Mahler and Sally Beamish (Bright Shiny Things)

Sam Weinberg Trio with Chris Lightcap & Tom Rainey - Implicatures (Astral Spirits)

John Zorn/Bill Laswell - Memoria (Tzadik)

May 26

Gerald Cleaver - 22/23 (Positive Elevation)

Erik Friedlander - She Sees (Skipstone)

Michael Gordon - Campaign Songs - Kronos Quartet (Cantaloupe Music)

Brandon Seabrook - brutalovechamp (Pyroclastic)

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - ARCHORA/AIŌN - Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Eva Ollikainen (Sono Luminus)

June 1

Antoine Beuger/Anastassis Philippakopoulos - floating by (Erstwhile)

June 2

Illegal Crowns (Tomas Fujiwara, Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Benoît Delbecq) - Unclosing (Out of Your Head)

June 9

Zoh Amba featuring William Parker and Francisco Mela - O Life, O Light, Vol. 2 (577 Records)

Thomas Buckner - Spontaneous Musical Invention: Thomas Buckner Sings Robert Ashley (Recital)

Jack Cooper - Arrival - Alexander Hawkins, Anton Lukoszevieze, Heather Roche (Astral Spirits)

June 16

Caterina Barbieri - Myuthafoo (light-years)

Ashley Jackson - Ennanga - compositions and arrangements by Alice Coltrane, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Brandee Younger, and William Grant Still (Bright Shiny Things)

Wild Up - Julius Eastman, Vol. 3: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? (New Amsterdam)

June 23

Manchester Collective - NEON - compositions by Hannah Peel, Lyra Pramuk, Julius Eastman, and Steve Reich (Bedroom Community)

Verona Quartet - Shatter - compositions by Reena Esmail, Julia Adolphe, and Michael Gilbertson (Bright Shiny Things)

July 14

Leo Genovese, Demain Cabaud & Marcos Cavaleiro - Estrellero (Sunnyside)

Hold your head up.