For the Record: Dec. 8, 2023.
Your new favorite record-spinning indie shop clerk DJ has arrived on Substack, plus a quick round of recommendations and 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.
Double bars on the swizzle stick this morning, and suddenly the common cold I mentioned earlier this week is no longer a cold… yet unfortunately increasingly common. One consequence is that I won’t be seeing any of the shows I’d hoped to be choosing among this weekend. The silver lining is that concerts by andPlay, Carl Stone tonight and tomorrow, and Marty Ehrlich are livestreaming.
But I’m feeling pretty useless now, so I’m going to pass the buck. Jeff Conklin has been a colleague and friendly acquaintance for years now. Across his various phases as a radio host, record promoter, and store clerk, I’ve come to view him as that rarest of unicorns: the guy at the local indie music store who has diverse tastes and strong opinions, but also knows what you’re into, and can triangulate those views in a way that makes him an ideal curator and guide.
That’s clearly what Jeff’s out to do with Ambient Audiophile, the Substack newsletter he launched yesterday with a survey of recordings he’s especially appreciated in 2023. I could tell you I started exploring his recommendations immediately, but I’d be lying; I went first to Jethro Tull’s This Was, featured in today’s essay about that band’s vital, eclectic early albums.
Sign on now—this is going to be a fun ride.
Before I go, here’s a lightning round of new records I’ve been enjoying—some brand new, others issued during the last few weeks.
Notice Recordings has flash-dropped a couple of strong new tapes today. Hailstone Temple is a beautifully balanced, endlessly inquisitive duo encounter between flutist Camilo Ángeles and violist Joanna Mattrey, recorded live in Mexico City in February 2022. They’re playing in an ideally resonant space, which enhances their vocabularies and gives them a lot to hear and respond to.
The other new one from Notice is by another duo, Wind Tide, comprising Texas omnimusicians Gretchen Korsmo and Andrew Weathers, both involved in the Full Spectrum Records collective. I’ve spent a lot of time this year engaged with projects involving Weathers, as a solo artist, a collaborator, a label boss, and a recording and/or mastering engineer. But I hadn’t yet encountered the specific magic he fashions with Korsmo: here, one side of meditative drone and the other a noisier din. I anticipate spending a lot of time in here.
One of the things I appreciate most about Bandcamp – and one of the things I’ll miss most if it vanishes – is the platform’s social-recommendation functionality. Case in point: pretty much instantly after I sunk into the Wind Tide record I just described, I got one of those occasional emails from Bandcamp listing what the other users I follow had acquired lately. That how, thanks to Chicago ambient musician Cinchel, I learned about The Foot of the Sky, issued last week by the Personal Archives label. The session brings the Wind Tide duo of Korsmo and Weathers together with two fellow travelers, Jason Kahn and AF Jones—the latter, another extraordinary recording engineer, resulting in audio of astonishing tactile detail. It’s music to get well lost inside.
Last but far from least: I distinctly recall sharing Folks’ Music, the newest record from the tiny but mighty Louth Contemporary Music Society, pretty much instantaneously on social media… yet somehow it appears I forgot to mention it here, most likely because it arrived on the Friday of (American) Thanksgiving weekend. This is a grievous oversight, because you simply won’t find a more sublime release than this one, framing a beautifully simple string quartet by Laurence Crane with simply beautiful choral works by Cassandra Miller and Linda Catlin Smith, all offered in stereo and binaural mixes. When I tally up the recordings I cherished most in 2023 at the end of the year, I won’t be surprised at all if this one tops the list.
New this week.
Camilo Ángeles/Joanna Mattrey - Hailstone Temple (Notice Recordings)
Joseph Branciforte & Theo Bleckmann - LP2 (greyfade)
Kate Carr - cosmic sunday #2 (self-released)
Wendy Eisenberg/Damon Smith/Stefan González - Balloon of Ruin (Joan of Bark)
JJJJJerome Ellis - Compline in Nine Movements (NNA Tapes)
Carrie Frey - Seagrass: Works for Solo Viola - compositions by Carrie Frey, Alec Goldfarb, Adrianne Munden-Dixon, Maria Kaoutzani, Emily Praetorius, Anthony R. Green, and Buck McDaniel (Gold Bolus)
Infant - sigla, sone (Warm Winters Ltd.)
Michael Jarrell - Paysages avec figures absentes - Nachlese IV; Sechs Augenblicke; Un long fracas somptueux de rapide céleste - Ilya Gringolts, Florent Jodelet, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire/Pascal Rophé (BIS)
Graham Lambkin/Russell Walker/Duncan Harrison - Lambkin/Walker/Harrison (Regional Bears)
Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Suspension pour une perte (Dissipatio)
Thollem/Terry Riley/Nels Cline - The Light Is Real (Other Minds)
Kasper T. Toeplitz - Érosions programmées (Akousis)
Wind Tide (Gretchen Korsmo & Andrew Weathers) - Blue Breaking Brown (Notice Recordings)
Upcoming releases.
December 15
Cheryl E. Leonard - Littoral (Rural Situationism)
January 12
Robert Cahen - La nef des fous (Recollection GRM)
January 13
Horacio Vaggione - Schall/Rechant (Recollection GRM)
January 19
Reverso (Vincent Courtois, Ryan Keberle, Frank Woeste) - Shooting Star – Étoile Filante (Alternate Side)
February 9
Joel Ross - Nublues (Blue Note)
February 16
Riley Mulkerhar - Riley (Westerlies)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.