For the Record: July 21, 2023.
Trying to establish chatter around new music on new social-media platforms is challenging – but that shouldn't keep us from trying. Plus, listings for dozens of recent, new, and forthcoming 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.
Please note that all opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
Mr. Bluesky
It’s been such a long time that I hardly know where to start… except to say I’ve been messing about with two new social-media platforms, Threads and Bluesky.
The first, of course, is the much-discussed Twitter-esque offering from Meta, bonded by code to Instagram. I signed up within minutes of its availability – and, yes, promptly learned that the only way to disengage from Threads is to delete your Instagram account… tempting, honestly, but I do cling to Instagram because so many artists and venues list shows there and nowhere else.
Threads is a hot mess of friends, brands, celebs, and influencers posting about this and that, though happily the latter two constituencies quickly seemed to grow bored with words. You can’t control the content of your feed, but you can kinda noodge it this way or that with follows, muting, and blocking. I’m not convinced it’s a viable replacement for Twitter, particularly the way like-minded tribes once could find and form genuine community in the Olde Dayes, and I’ve mostly stopped poking my head in. Plus, you can only use it on a mobile device, which is its own special kind of drag.
Also, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, about whom many harbor strong feelings.
Paradoxically, after waiting many weeks on the wrong side of some virtual velvet rope, posting on Twitter about being on Threads earned me a secret password to join Bluesky. This alternative platform, which involves the feckless Former Guy from Twitter, initially felt very much like the delightfully weird Olde Dayes experience I’d longed for…
…until a scattering of trolls found their way in and created – and, as urgently, were able to create – screen handles incorporating hateful and racist terms. (Not going to repeat any, but read up on it here.)
The way Bluesky addressed the issue as a corporate entity was a textbook example of how not to handle a crisis involving users who desperately want to believe in you and aid your success. But at least one engineer apologized for what had happened, and the platform has crept back to life again over the last couple of weeks.
Casey Newton wrote a great essay about these platforms and their issues earlier this week; it’s available to subscribers only, but do consider.
Here’s where I confess that I’ve not spent a lot of time on Notes, the Substack-native social-media platform, because I just haven’t gotten a sense that it’s going to attract a whole lot of folks outside the gates of Greater Substackia.
Anyway, why have I devoted so much space in my first newsletter in far too long to social-media platforms? Because one of the things I valued most in Olde Dayes Twitter was the conversations that emerged consistently around new music, the endless threads and bottomless rabbit holes about this and that and the other. I miss it, fiercely, and I don’t see anything like it so far on Threads or Bluesky.
Overwhelmed with work elsewhere, I’ve not had any time at all to devote to the care and maintenance of this newsletter I call home. (If you sensed this particular post might be a sustained burst of after-work blurt-typing, you guessed correctly.) But what I did do for a hot minute on both Threads and Bluesky was a post or two a day simply sharing something I’d heard and enjoyed on Bandcamp that day. It wasn’t meant as free promotion for that platform, just a testing of the waters to see what worked: literally and metaphorically.
Here are a couple of examples. One from Threads, screen-shot from my iPhone:
And one from Bluesky:
The engagement on both, you’ll notice, is crap.
So I’ll end this rumination with some links to all of the recordings I’ve tried to boost elsewhere in these “Something I Enjoyed Recently on Bandcamp” posts, from oldest to newest, if for no other reason than some assurance that these succinct nods of approval reached some readers who might be moved to investigate.
Dietrichs - Catch the Leaves (Relative Pitch) - “a savage daddy-daughter power-noise tea party. Surprised and delighted by how much I’m loving it.”
Greg Davis & E. Jason Gibbs - Steam Fence (Superpang) - “a brand-new release from improvising musicians Greg Davis and E. Jason Gibbs, aptly described by Davis as FMP meets GRM.”
TRAYSH - Shady Favorites (Husky Pants) - “a forthcoming release from Traysh: Chicagoans Ben Baker Billington, Andrew Scott Young, and Daniel Van Duerm playing jello-jiggle fusion.”
Doug Wieselman - WA-Zoh (figureight) - “a bucolic new album by veteran multi-instrumentalist Doug Wieselman, which you can't call a solo album because it's full of birds, sunlight, mist and oxygen.”
Tu-Ner - Contact Information (7d Media) - “the debut release by Tu-Ner, a dense prog-improv trio with former King Crimson rhythm buddies Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto plus touch guitarist Markus Reuter”
Golden Feelings - Better Weather (self-released) - “… is this dreamy loop-matrix meditation by Dustin Krcatovich, released under the name Golden Feelings. (h/t Ty Wilcox)”
Kory Reeder - Texas: Vol. 1 (self-released) - “…this archive of recent pieces by composer Kory Reeder, who’s not on Bluesky yet, near as I can tell. The recordings can be a little rough now and then, but spirit, variety and beauty prevail.”
Sarah Saviet - Spun (Coviello Contemporary) - “…this quietly intense, aurally intoxicating collection of unaccompanied violin works played by the excellent Sarah Saviet. It's coming out Aug. 4, the next Bandcamp Friday. Save it now; buy it then.”
Jeff Tobias - Music from Milky Way Underground (Gold Bolus) - “…a collection of limpid reveries and crystalline miniatures by Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers, Thee Reps) at his most Satie-esque. Swoonworthy.”
P.S. Just for you subscribers, a few more things I’ve found enriching just lately:
Ambrose Akinmusire - Beauty Is Enough (Origami Harvest)
Kevin Daniel Cahill - Impossible Worlds (False Walls)
Giovanni Di Domenico - Succo di formiche (Unseen Worlds)
Jordan Dykstra - 20 Days in Mariupol (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Editions Verde)
Nomi Epstein - cubes - Erik Carlson, Greg Stuart (Sawyer)
Morton Feldman - Violin and String Quartet - Apartment House (Another Timbre)
Gérard Grisey - Dérives - WDR Sinfonieorchester, Katrien Baerts, Kora Pavelić, Sylvain Cambreling, and Emilio Pomàrico (bastille musique)
Cecilia Lopez & Ingrid Laubrock - MAROMAS (Relative Pitch)
Mary Jane Leach - Woodwind Multiples (Modern Love)
MAW - Live Recordings (Notice Recordings)
Michiko Ogawa & Lucy Railton - fragments of reincarnation (Another Timbre)
Anthony Pateras - A Dread of Voids (Another Timbre)
Jack Sheen - Solo for Cello - Anton Lukoszevieze (The Trilogy Tapes)
Sarah-Jane Summers - Echo Stane (Another Timbre)
Wet Ink Ensemble - Missing Scenes - compositions by Sam Pluta, Alex Mincek, and Kate Soper (Carrier)
New This Week
Kevin Daniel Cahill - Impossible Worlds (False Walls)
Paul Flaherty, Jim Matus, Larry Derdeyn - Wednesday Weld (577 Records)
Michael Gordon - Campaign Songs - Kronos Quartet (Cantaloupe Music)
Zach Layton, Lauren Petty and Shaun Irons - All That Is Seen and Unseen (self-released demo)
Jon Nelson & Tom Kolor - Secret Messages - compositions by Moshe Shulman, Dave Ballou, Jeffrey Stadelman, Dafnis Prieto, and Emil Harnas 2 (New Focus)
Eugene O'Brien - Algebra of Night - The 21st Century Consort/Christopher Kendall (New Focus)
Upcoming Releases
July 25
Forbes Graham - I Continue (Infrequent Seams)
July 28
Taylor Brook & Dana Jessen - Set (New Focus)
Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci - Chthonic (American Dreams)
August 4
Byrne:Kozar:Duo - It Floats Away from You - compositions by Alexandre Lunsqui, Beth Wiemann, Li Qi, Vid Smooke, Jeffrey Gavett, Christian Carey, Lei Liang, and Chris Cresswell (New Focus)
Sarah Saviet - SPUN - compositions by Liza Lim, Lisa Streich, Evan Johnson, Arne Gieshoff, and Lawrence Dunn (Coviello Contemporary)
August 11
Jenny Beck - Up to the Surface (New Focus)
August 18
Jeff Tobias - Music from Milky Way Underground (Gold Bolus)
September 1
BlankFor.ms - Jason Moran - Marcus Gilmore - Refract (Red Hook)
September 8
Samuel Adams - Current - performances by Karen Gomyo, Conor Hanick, and Spektral Quartet (Other Minds)
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society - Dynamic Maximum Tension (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)
Catherine Christer Hennix - Solo for Tamburium (Blank Forms; 2017 recording)
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet - For Mahalia, With Love (TAO Forms)
Annea Lockwood - Glass World (Room40; originally issued 1970)
Speaker Music (DeForrest Brown Jr.) - Techxodus (Planet Mu)
September 15
Moniek Darge/Vanessa Rossetto - Dream Soundies (Erstwhile)
Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz - Ex Machina (Pi Recordings)
Eric Nathan - Some Favored Nook - Tony Arnold, William Sharp, Seth Knopp (New Focus)
Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis - Calibrating Friction (New Amsterdam)
September 22
John Aylward - Oblivion - Lukas Papenfusscline, Cailin Marcel Manson, Tyler Boque, Nina Guo, Laura Williamson, Issei Herr, Greg Chudzik, Daniel Lippel, John Aylward, Tianyi Wang, Stratis Minakakis (New Focus)
Laurel Halo - Atlas (Awe)
September 23
Jessica Ackerley, Yuma Uesaka, Colin Hinton - Petting Zoo (Waveform Alphabet)
September 29
Jlin - Perspective (Planet Mu)
Todd Sickafoose - Bear Proof (Secret Hatch)
Christopher Tignor - The Art of Surrender (Western Vinyl)
Also in September
Cecilia Lopez & Ingrid Laubrock - MAROMAS (Relative Pitch)
November 1
Jürg Frey - Les Signes Passagers - Keiko Shichijo (Elsewhere)
Michael Pisaro-Liu - A room outdoors - Guy Vandromme, Adriaan Severins, Luciana Elizondo, Fabio Gionfrida (Elsewhere)
Ivan Vukosavljevic - Slow Roads - performances by Tineke Steenbrink, Francesca Ajossa, Jan Hage, and Lise Morrison (Elsewhere)
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
Even with all the discomfort around Musk's moves, I still get the most engagement and info from Twitter or X or whatever it's called now, with Instagram a close second. If it truly dies - and I've heard predictions of bankruptcy by the end of the year - then I'll go all in on Threads or something else.