For the Record: August 18, 2023.
Scratching the surface of a milestone Philip Corner project… plus, listings for dozens of 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.
There’s been a lot of good music released during recent weeks, you don’t need me to tell you, and I’m busy now catching up with as much of it as I can, while also doing my best to keep an eye on what’s newly issued and what’s just ahead.
Among today’s bumper crop of new arrivals, I’m especially keen on Music from Milky Way Underground, a delicious collection of gentle, subtle minimal pieces by Jeff Tobias, better known for his more extrovert work in settings like Sunwatchers and Thee Reps; and Birthday Party, a hushed, intimate collection of songs composer and producer Cassie Wieland has issued under the name Vines. (New Yorkers take note: a release celebration for Birthday Party is happening tomorrow in Brooklyn; details here.)
I’ve not yet heard the new Arnold Dreyblatt release, Resolve, but I’m eager to dive in based on what Marc Masters wrote in his “Album of the Day” review for Bandcamp earlier this week. Among the forthcoming releases listed farther down, I’m smitten already with September 1 releases by Kris Davis and Léo Dupleix; the September 8 titles from Kinan Azmeh & Brooklyn Rider, Nico Muhly, and Annika Socolofsky; and the September 29 releases by Lainie Fefferman and Darius Jones, to cite only a few.
Given the daunting amount of new recordings turning up week after week, I seldom use this newsletter to look back toward earlier releases… but I’ll make an exception this week for Extradition Plays Corner, an extraordinarily generous and wide-ranging digital collection exploring the vast and varied canon of Philip Corner, an associate of John Cage and the other New York School composers, and a Fluxus founder.
Corner has enjoyed welcome attention recently from labels like Unseen Worlds and Recital, but this Extradition Series project is a really big deal: 14 hours of music spanning the years 1957 to 2023. Much of it was recorded during a five-week celebration of Corner’s 90th birthday in January and February, the rest provided by participants and associates from around the world.
For the past few weeks since organizer Matt Hannafin sent it my day, I’ve been dipping into the set regularly, a little at a time, marveling at the range of Corner’s output and imagination, and the devotion the Extradition musicians bring to their assignments. It’s an illuminating and satisfying set that includes a 50-page PDF of notes and photos… and, at $30, it’s an extraordinary bargain. Do explore.
New This Week
Lina Allemano/Axel Dörner - Aphelia (Relative Pitch)
Body/Head - Come On (Longform Editions remix) (Longform Editions)
Arnold Dreyblatt - Resolve (Drag City)
Paul Dunmall New Quartet - World Without (577 Records)
Cameron Graham - Becoming a Beach Angel (Phantom Limb)
Celia Hollander - To All Trains (Longform Editions)
Kyle Jessen - Primitive (Relative Pitch)
Guillermo Klein Quinteto - Telmo's Tune (Sunnyside)
Josh Mason - An Anxious Host (Students of Decay)
Joe McPhee/Mette Rasmussen/Dennis Tyfus - Oblique Strategies (Black Truffle)
Kim Moore - A Song We Destroy to Spin Again - GAIA (Blackford Hill)
Mute Frequencies - Svalbard Soundtracks (Flaming Pines)
Lucas Niggli Sound of Serendipity Tentet - Play! (Intakt)
Evan Parker/Matthew Wright Trance Map + Peter Evans and Marc Nauseef - Etching the Ether (Intakt)
Keith Rowe/Gerard Lebik - Dry Mountain - performances by Keith Rowe, Gerard Lebik, Johnny Chang, Jonas Kocher, Gaudenz Badrutt, Bryan Eubanks, Kurt Liedwart, Xavier Lopez, Mike Majkowski, and Emilio Gordoa (Inexhaustible Editions)
McKenzie Stubbert - Waiting Room (Curious Music)
Third Space - For the Upper Mantle (Longform Editions)
Jeff Tobias - Music from Milky Way Underground (Gold Bolus)
Vines (Cassie Wieland) - Birthday Party (self-released)
Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, Hahn Rowe - First (Longform Editions)
Upcoming Releases
August 25
Jessica Ackerley/Kevin Cheli/Gahlord DeWald - Submerging Silently (Cacophonous Revival)
ScottClark - Dawn & Dusk (Out of Your Head)
The Hatch Expansion - Texas Edition (Astral Spirits)
l a d y y b i r d d (Gina Izzo) - Tomorrow’s Yesterday (Innova)
Adam Lion - Gilgul (cmntx)
Mad Myth Science - Mad Myth Science (Infrequent Seams)
Camila Nebbia - Una ofrenda a la ausencia (Relative Pitch)
Awadagin Pratt - Stillpoint - compositions by Jessie Montgomery, Paola Prestini, Alvin Singleton, Pēteris Vasks, Tyshawn Sorey, and Judd Greenstein (New Amsterdam)
Benjamin Vergara - The Impossibility of a Single Sound (Relative Pitch)
September 1
Will Bernard & Beth Custer - Sky (A Train Entertainment)
Kris Davis - Diatom Ribbons Live at the Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic)
Léo Dupleix - Construire sur les ruines d’un passé encore fumant - Les Certitudes (Discreet Editions)
MIZI - Watch Paint Dry (Abstand)
Andrew Weathers - A Cardinal with a Sign of Blood (Full Spectrum)
John Zorn - Full Fathom Five (Tzadik)
September 8
Kinan Azmeh & Brooklyn Rider - Starlighter - compositions by Kinan Azmeh, Colin Jacobsen, and Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin (In a Circle)
John Corigliano/Mark Adamo - The Lord of Cries - Anthony Roth Costanzo, Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose (Pentatone)
Sarah Davachi - Selected Works I & II (Disciples)
Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light (Impulse!)
Noel Meek & Mattin - Homage to Annea Lockwood (Recital)
Nico Muhly - David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller and further away) (Bedroom Community)
Annika Socolofsky - I Tell You Me - Annika Socolofsky, ~Nois, Phong Tran, Darian Donovan Thomas, No Plexus (Carrier)
Sydney Spann - Sending Up a Spiral Of (Recital)
Third Coast Percussion - Between Breaths - compositions by Missy Mazzoli, Tyondai Braxton, Gemma Peacocke, Ayanna Woods, and Third Coast Percussion (Cedille)
September 15
Anthony Davis/Kyle Motl/Kjell Nordeson - Vertical Motion (Astral Spirits)
Tomas Fujiwara - Pith (Out of Your Head)
Brandon Patrick George - Twofold - compositions by C.P.E. Bach, Saad Haddad, Reena Esmail, Shawn Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Claude Debussy, and Tōru Takemitsu (In a Circle)
Aki Onda - Transmissions from the Radio Midnight (Dinzu Artefacts)
John Zorn - Homenaje a Remedios Varo (Tzadik)
September 22
Weston Olencki/Anna Webber - Several (Astral Spirits)
September 29
Lainie Fefferman - White Fire (Gold Bolus)
Darius Jones - fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s̶ suite but sacred) (Northern Spy)
Maria Elena Silva - Dulce (Astral Spirits/BIG EGO)
October 1
Graham Lambkin/James Rushford - Gondolas (Erstwhile)
October 6
Eve Egoyan + Mauricio Pauly - Hopeful Monster (No Hay Discos)
Jeff Lederer - Balls of Simplicity: Notated Works 1979–2021 - Morningside Tone Collective (Little (i) Music)
Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose - Schoenberg on the Beach (Little (i) Music)
George Lewis - Afterword: An Opera in Two Acts - Joelle Lamarre, Gwendolyn Brown, Julian Terrell Otis, International Contemporary Ensemble/David Fulmer (New Focus)
Jordan Martins - Fogery Nagles (Astral Spirits)
Jessica Pavone - Clamor (Out of Your Head)
Rick Reed - The Symmetry of Telemetry (Elevator Bath)
John Zorn - Nothing Is As Real As Nothing (Tzadik)
October 13
Doug Bielmeier - Music for Billionaires (New Focus)
Petra Hermanova - In Death’s Eyes (Unguarded)
Mendoza Hoff Revels - Echolocation (AUM Fidelity)
Nicole Mitchell & Alexander Hawkins - At Earth School (Astral Spirits)
Aditya Prakash - Isolashun (New Amsterdam)
October 20
Kate Gentile - Find Letter X (Pi Recordings)
Hannah Marks - Outsider, Outlier (Out of Your Head)
Monocot - Leave to Cool (Astral Editions)
Triola - Scapegoat (Constructive)
October 27
Mike Reed - The Separatist Party (WeJazz/Astral Spirits)
Angelica Sanchez - Nighttime Creatures (Pyroclastic)
Also in October
Anna Webber & Matt Mitchell - Capacious Aeration (Tzadik)
December 2023
John Zorn - Complete String Quartets - JACK Quartet (Tzadik)
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.