For the Record: December 20, 2024.
A creative-music P.R. mainstay joins the swelling ranks of newsletterati—plus new arrivals 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! If you’d like to submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, please email information to nightafternight@icloud.com. (Streams and downloads preferred.)
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not reflect the views of my employer.
Topspin.
Much like this newsletter – and the still-extant if now relatively sleepy blog that preceded it – this weekly column was born of a necessity prompted by scarcity. As I recounted once before in May 2020, marking the first appearance of “For the Record” under a slightly different name:
A show of hands, please: Who out there remembers International CD Exchange? Better known as ICE, the newsletter Pete Howard published from 1987 until 2006 was a monthly trove of neatly organized listings for upcoming CD releases, along with tantalizing details about noteworthy and special projects well in advance of their arrival. Howard started ICE when only a few hardy collectors cared about CDs, and kept it going and growing long enough to become the go-to source for the format’s boom years.
I started “For the Record” because no one else was offering a regular list of new and upcoming recordings in my areas of interest and professional expertise. Since I was compiling data in the course of doing my day-to-day work, why not simply share it?
It’s in the same spirit that I direct your attention to The Side People, newly launched this week by P.R. professional Matt Merewitz. For nearly 20 years, Matt has played a significant role on the jazz scene: professionally as a publicist serving a well-defined role in the industrial ecosystem, and also more broadly as a prolific distributor of knowledge—an eager, enthusiastic, and effective sharer of news and views via social media.
Matt came on the scene around the time when I transitioned from my own seven-year stint in P.R. to my considerably longer stretch in journalism and criticism—I hardly remember a time when we weren’t interacting. His media company, Fully Altered, holds a position of prominence and respect in a rapidly changing, demonstrably shrinking business—not least because he was ahead of pretty much all of his peers in recognizing the necessity of embracing and employing the web and social-media platforms.
But it’s not only because of our common background and shared passions that I found Matt’s first post on Wednesday resonant:
I’ve long felt it necessary for someone in my position to step up and tell the stories of lesser-known people. This is, after all, what I do in my job as a publicist. And over the years I’ve basically let others tell these stories with my guidance. But I feel like I have a unique way of teasing out narrative and instructive lessons for both musicians and fans. I want to share those insights here.
Disclosure from the start: Matt acknowledges he’s in the business, occupying a position largely unseen by the public but vital to the way things work. In that role, he’s gained access to information he can contextualize and share in ways beneficial to a direct readership, and formed relationships with artists, executives, curators, and other contributors to the activity of musicking. He’s eager to tell their stories because he believes in the shared mission.
Traditional media is shrinking, and much of the discourse has moved to social media. There are fewer outlets where writers can get paid for their work, and more content is being created by both professional journalists and enthusiasts on platforms like Substack. My hope is to expand my advocacy beyond pitching to the media and connect directly with fans, musicians, and industry folks.
Matt’s always been outspoken and opinionated about his passions—and also transparent when they intersect with his client roster, as one might expect to happen from time to time. With fewer and fewer mass-media avenues amenable to sharing information, telling stories, and platforming worthy people outside of the mainstream, he’s identified in newslettering a way to share what he knows and loves directly with a receptive readership.
Obviously, I relate.
I’m happy to welcome Matt to the fray, and eager to absorb and amplify his contributions.
P.S. A thousand pardons to subscribers who accidentally received an in-progress copy of the NYC concerts Master List earlier this week. Mea culpa.
New this week.
Baldini/Dafeldecker/Strüver - Prismatic (Room40)
Luís Lopes Humanization 4tet - Saarbrücken (Clean Feed)
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Zodiac (Hooker Vision; due Dec. 21)
Rie Nakajima/David Toop - Music for Voilà (Box)
Camila Nebbia, Dietrich Eichmann, John Hughes, Jeff Arnal - Chrononaux (Generate)
Paul Pinto - Water Music (Gold Bolus)
Thomas Rohrer + Philip Somervell - FOLWEN (scatterArchive)
Dan Rosenboom, Joshua White, Billy Mohler & Shawn Baltazor - The Left Edge: Live at Vine (Orenda)
Elliott Sharp & Bobby Previte - Poppo – Eternal Performance (Zoar; recorded 1985)
Niloufar Shiri + Isaac Otto Hayes - OSHI (Infrequent Seams)
Ueno Takashi - More ARMS (Room40)
David Torn - finally the sweetness (self-released)
Upcoming releases.
January 17
Exceptet - tree lines - compositions by Katherine Balch, Paul Kerekes, and Sarah Goldfeather (New Focus)
Stemeseder Lillinger + Craig Taborn - Umbra III (Intakt)
January 24
Satoko Fujii GEN - Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra)
Natsuki Tamura/Keiji Haino – What happened there? (Libra)
January 31
[something’s happening] - Buzz (Flaming Pines)
Stein Urheim - Speilstillevariasjoner (Hubro)
February 3
Territorial Gobbing (Theo Gowans) - Hermit Card (scatterArchive)
Watt (Jean Dousteyssier, Jean-Brice Godet, Antonin-Tri Hoang, Julien Pontvianne) - Watt - compositions by Léo Dupleix, Caroline Marçot, Karl Naegelen, and Watt (Montagne Noire)
February 14
duo B. (Lisa Mezzacappa & Jason Levis) - Luminous Axis (Queen Bee)
March 7
Claire Cope’s Ensemble C - Every Journey (Adhyaropa)
Green Mitchell Trio - Nature Channel (Queen Bee)
March 14
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson - Bone Bells (Pyroclastic)
March 21
more eaze & claire rousay - no floor (Other Minds)
March 28
Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio - Dream a Dream (Libra)
April 4
Jordan Glenn’s BEAK - The Party (Queen Bee)
Matthew Muñeses & Riza Printup - Pag-ibig Ko, Vol. 1 (Irrabagast)
April 11
Ingrid Laubrock - Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
Thank you Steve. You are a mensch of the highest order and someone I so appreciate as a fellow musicker/side person. I can't thank you enough for this endorsement.