For the Record: April 5, 2024.
Bandcamp Friday comes alive, again, plus listings for new and upcoming releases.
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 that one day of the month when the popular music sales site Bandcamp waives its cut of all sales, putting more money directly into the pockets of artists and indie labels. You know what to do.
Me, I started my day affirmatively with Blue Lake, a set Mark Helias, Tony Malaby, and Tom Rainey recorded in Michigan on a Sunday not quite 23 years ago, touring outside of their NYC home base just weeks after the world changed one morning. (If you’re in or near NYC next weekend, by the way, you can catch Helias playing with soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and drummer Matt Wilson at Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn on Sunday, April 14, at 4pm local time—and if you’re not here, there’s a streaming option, as well. Check here for details.)
Having abstained from downloading any ROIO torrents over the last year or so, I’m eager to hear the four live documents of the Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet featured on Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022, just out on i dischi di angelica. Friendly experiencers will also want to note that the latest New Braxton House box set, 10 Comp (Lorraine) 2022 – available exclusively as a perk for crowdfunding donors until now – are now on Bandcamp. Lorraine, to clarify, is not a person or location, but the compositional system Braxton uses in these performances.
Two new trio releases warrant the strongest possible commendations. Lucid/Still offers a gorgeous, beguiling set by Oceans And, the collaborative trio of saxophonist Tim Berne, cellist Hank Roberts, and multi-instrumentalist Aurora Nealand, beautifully recorded in Austin last October.
And New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, by Matthew Shipp with Michael Bisio and Newman Taylor Baker, lives up to its title, holding concert-music poise with improvisatory liberty and interpersonal chemistry in a balance that extends and expands the leader’s signature conception. Shipp’s prolificacy can be daunting; consider this one essential.
If you’re more inclined toward contemplative concert music, you could hardly do better than to investigate Piano, a collection of gracious, steady pieces for the titular instrument by Slovak composer Adrián Demoč, handsomely played by Miroslav Beinhauer and sumptuously documented for the elsewhere label.
And while I haven’t heard anything more than the two brief excerpts on the relevant Bandcamp page for A Curving Abacus, newly arrived from composer J.P.A. Falzone on the New World label, that bit of evidence is enough to convince me I want more.
Have fun… and do share your own discoveries.
New this week.
Melissa Aldana - Echoes of the Inner Prophet (Blue Note)
Jamie Baum Septet+ - What Times Are These (Sunnyside)
Maya Beiser x Terry Riley - In C (Islandia)
Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet - Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022 (i dischi di angelica)
John Cage - Complete John Cage Edition, Vol. 55 – Actions | Remarks: John Cage’s ‘Variations’ - Decibel (Mode; book + CD)
Choi Joonyong/Devin DiSanto - Strange Skills (Erstwhile)
Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard - DLW: Extended Beats - performances by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, Tamara Stefanovich, Martin Adámek, Johannes Brecht, Klangforum Wien, and Sonar Quartett (Bastille Musique)
Adrián Demoč - Piano - Miroslav Beinhauer (elsewhere)
Nicholas Deyoe - R/S (self-released)
J.P.A. Falzone - A Curving Abacus - Ostrava New Orchestra/Owen Underhill, Ostravská Banda/Petr Kotík, ELISION Ensemble, Arditti Quartet; Switch~ Ensemble/Jason Thorpe Buchanan (New World)
Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson - Selected Chamber Works, Vol. 6 (live recordings) 2020-2023 (self-released)
Mark Helias Open Loose - Blue Lake (Radio Legs Music; recorded 2001)
Gerry Hemingway Quintet - Live at the Tea Lounge (Auricle; recorded 2008)
Junji Hirose/Kazuo Imai - Go Home (Ftarri)
Roland Kayn - TLS (Reiger-records-reeks)
Ulrich Krieger - Aphotic III — Bathyal (Room40)
Max Kutner - Partial Custody (Orenda)
LopezLopez (Cecilia Lopez & Brandon Lopez) - Citizenship (Flag Day)
loscil/Lawrence English - Chroma (Room40)
S. Hollis Mickey - Cocoon (Full Spectrum)
Nick Millevoi - Moon Pulses (Island House Recordings)
missing scenes - who is this for (Varia)
Michelle Moeller - Late Morning (AKP Recordings)
Object Collection - Mixtape 1 (self-released)
Oceans And (Tim Berne, Hank Roberts, Aurora Nealand) - Lucid/Still (Screwgun)
Ivo Perelman Quartet - Water Music (RogueArt)
Gian Perez - Bambu (Zoar)
Paola Prestini and Nelson Patton - Ancient City (VIA Records)
Raw Meet (Elliott Sharp, Melvin Gibbs, Lance Carter) - Live at Zebulon (Zoar; recorded 2004)
James Rushford - Turzets (Blank Forms)
Dave Seidel - Involution (Live at Harvestworks) (Mystery Bear)
Matthew Shipp - New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk’)
Dayna Stephens - Closer Than We Think (Cellar Live)
Thollem - Worlds in a Life, Two (ESP-Disk’)
Chris P. Thompson - Stay the Same (Grin Agog Music)
Fay Victor/Herbie Nichols SUNG - The World Is Still the Same (TAO Forms)
Mark Wastell - Amongst English Men (Confront; originally issued by Absinth in 2006)
Ai Watanabe/Kokichi Yanagisawa - They appear on the circuit from which we disappeared (Ftarri)
Andrew Weathers - A Season in Limestone (The Jewel Garden)
Adam Wiltzie - Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal (Kranky)
Upcoming releases.
April 11
Matt Lavelle and the 12 Houses - The Crop Circles Suite, Part One (Mahakala Music)
April 19
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)
April 22
Bobby Previte - Pathways for Drum Set (Open World; limited edition physical release, no streaming)
April 26
Olivia Block - The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle)
Lainie Fefferman - Here I Am - performances by Lainie Fefferman, Charlotte Mundy, Meaghan Burke, Mellissa Hughes, Martha Cluver, Caroline Shaw, and Transit (New Focus)
Scott McLaughlin - we are environments for each other - Mira Benjamin, Zubin Kanga (Huddersfield Contemporary Records)
Elif Yalvaç - Vection (Éliane Tapes)
April 30
Alexis Marcelo’s Nananom Xu - Cantilever (Infrequent Seams)
May 3
David Crowell - Point/Cloud - performances by Sandbox Percussion, Dan Lippel, Mak Grgić, and eco|tonal (Better Company)
Helmut Lachenmann - Mes Adieux - performances by Trio Catch, trio recherche, Karolina Öhman, and WDR Sinfonieorchester/Lin Liao (bastille musique)
May 10
Gelsey Bell & Erin Rogers - Skylighght (Chaikin)
Jason Treuting - Go Placidly with Haste (Cantaloupe Music)
May 24
Kenny Warren - Sweet World (Out of Your Head)
Yarn/Wire - Yarn/Wire Currents 9 - compositions by Jessie Cox, Heather Stebbins, and Jordan Dykstra (Yarn/Wire)
May 28
Dickens, Dicker, Wallace - Trespassers (Infrequent Seams)
June 7
Lisa Illean - arcing, stilling, bending, gathering - performances by Explore Ensemble, Juliet Fraser, GBSR Duo, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra (NMC Recordings)
June 14
Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion - Rectangles and Circumstance (Nonesuch)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.