For the Record: July 5, 2024.
Stop what you're doing and pay attention to Canadian composer Paolo Griffin… plus two weeks' worth of new, recent, 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.
Today is relatively quiet on the new-releases front, most likely because it’s the day after a major U.S. holiday—and also not a Bandcamp Friday. (The next one of those is on Sept. 6… mark your calendar.)
Among these, my pick for Album of the Week has to be Cloud Ornament, the phenomenally beautiful new album by veteran ambient-music composer and multi-instrumentalist Robert Rich with idiosyncratic self-taught guitarist Luca Formentini. The music is evanescent yet substantial; bliss out to your heart’s content, but there’s also plenty of detail worth latching onto. You can name your own price for the download on Bandcamp, and the CD version is inexpensive; surround-sound enthusiasts will find a download available here.
But as it happens, last Friday, June 28, was an unusually heavy release date in terms of records that matter—to me, and possibly also to you, the reader. An annual vacation weekend on the Jersey Shore caused me to miss last week’s tally – sorry not sorry – so you’ll find a copious batch of June 28 releases just under today’s new arrivals.
What’s more, not only was last week’s stack of new arrivals large; it also was richly stocked with an abundance of diverse, distinctive projects. Confronted all at once with worthy fascinations from Kim Cass, Fuubutsushi, Janel and Anthony, Zachary Mezzo, William Parker, and Tamarisk, how do you choose just one to boost as Album of the Week?
In this instance, I’m boosting the one that stopped me dead in my tracks and made me forget what I was doing.
That I encountered Supports & Surfaces, the new album from Paolo Griffin, is due to the reliable excellence established by composer and improviser Kory Reeder on his two-year-old label, Sawyer Editions, already on my small list of “pay attention to everything” brands. If you keep tabs on Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, or Elsewhere, here’s another imprint you should be following.
Griffin’s name is new to me, though evidently not to most Canadians involved in new music. In addition to composing, he is the founder of a new-music collective, Freesound, the board chair of Musicworks magazine, and the managing director of Xenia Concerts, which presents “adaptive, accessible, and sensory-friendly concerts for the autism and disability communities.”
In a biography on his website, Griffin writes this about his work:
Paolo’s work combines microtonal rational intonation (Just Intonation) with a rigorous, process-based approach to sonic form and structure. The work he creates explores the creation of colour/shading/densities in sound, and forms of action/interactions between processes and systemic organizations.
On the Bandcamp page for Supports & Surfaces, Griffin cites another Canadian composer, Martin Arnold, whose fascinating, significant 2017 article, “Slack: An Essay Around Some Canadian Music,” ventures to describe an aesthetic common to the work of certain Canadian composers, including his own. Griffin cites one point in specific
“When music is slack it does not thoroughly enforce completion. It stays open to be explored, co-created by the listener.”
Co-creation is woven into the very fabric of the three pieces on Griffin’s album. The score for The Purpose of an Empty Room, for alto saxophone and electronics, is a diagram mapping pitches, frequencies, and actions; played by David Zucchi, it recalls similarly nebulous creations by Terry Riley and Brian Eno.
Alone, Together, created for Duo Holz – violinist Aysel Taghi-Zada and percussionist Michael Murphy – employs a conventional score. But the primary indication atop the title page is Relaxed, playing as if alone together in a quiet room, and each player’s line is marked ad. lib. Comparable sonic stabiles by Morton Feldman and Linda Catlin Smith might come to mind.
Both of those works are beautiful, enjoyable, and eminently worthy, but the piece that made me drop everything to listen was Madrigal, for solo countertenor and electronics. Created for singer David Hackston, the piece was conceived as a live installation work; presumably that’s why no score is available on Griffin’s website. Layers of voice and electronic tones ripple and throb like a living entity; hearing it, I thought of works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Alvin Lucier, and Ian William Craig, while also feeling strongly that I’d never encountered anything exactly like it. (Playing it as I type this, I’m stopping repeatedly to listen.)
Along with the Griffin album, the new Sawyer Editions batch includes impressive recordings by Sarah Hennies, Eden Lonsdale, Georgia Denham, and Ryan Seward. I recommend setting aside some time to explore them all—but whatever you do, don’t miss Supports & Surfaces.
New this week.
Black Diamond - Furniture of the Mind Rearranging (We Jazz)
Nick DePinna - Nexus Music, Vol. 2 (Orenda)
Tashi Dorji - Live at the Dreamland + 1 (Ultraviolet Light)
HxH (Lester St. Louis, Chris Williams) - East River Transverse (self-released)
Roland Kayn - Areals (Reiger Records Reeks)
Daniel Levin, Fala Mariam & Sei Miguel - Panorama (Now-ezz-thetics)
Fotina Naumenko - Bespoke Songs - compositions by Jonathan Newman, Jennifer Jolley, Carrie Magin, and Benedict Sheehan (New Focus)
Antonina Nowacka - Sylphine Soporifera (Mondoj)
Bernard Parmegiani - Complete Works 05 (Maison ONA)
Robert Rich and Luca Formentini - Cloud Ornament (Soundscape)
Tomoko Sauvage - In the Liquid Amber Within the Ivory Porcelain (Portraits GRM)
Schick/Tuerlinckx/Zoepf - Ensemble A (Confront)
Inés Terra - regougar (scatterArchive)
David Vélez - Comfort Food (Flaming Pines)
Cody Yantis - Half Moon Field (Full Spectrum)
New last week.
June 28
Derek Baron/Luke Martin - Distinct and Concealed (Notice Recordings)
BassDrumBone (Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Ray Anderson) - Afternoon (Auricle)
Richard Cameron-Wolfe - Passionate Geometries (New Focus)
Kim Cass - Levs (Pi Recordings)
Chris Corsano - The Key (Became the Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away]) (Drag City)
Georgia Denham - with love (Sawyer Editions)
Ensemble Volcanic Ash - To March Is To Love (Cuneiform)
Erik Friedlander - Dirty Boxing (Skipstone)
Fuubutsushi - meridians (Cached Media)
Kenneth Gaburo - Elegy and The Widow - University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra/James Dixon, Nina Steefel, Burr McWilliams, William Leyerle, others unidentified (Neuma)
Paolo Griffin - Supports & Surfaces (Sawyer Editions)
Bryan Hayslett - Cello Unlocked - compositions by Caroline Shaw, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Joan La Barbara, Germán Marcano, Judith Weir, Anthony R. Green, and Brent Michael Davids (Neuma)
Rebekah Heller - ONE (Relative Pitch)
Sarah Hennies - Bodies of Water (Sawyer Editions)
Eiko Ishibashi - Evil Does Not Exist (Drag City)
Janel and Anthony - New Moon in the Evil Age (Cuneiform)
Eli Keszler - Harka (OST) (LUCKYME®)
Klein/Rosaly/Warelis - tendresse (Relative Pitch)
Sachi Kobayashi - Lamentations (Spirituals)
Jack Langdon & Taylor Ho Bynum - Precision Valley (Empty Stage)
Eden Lonsdale/red panel - ricercari for rainy days (Sawyer Editions)
Erica Dawn Lyle - Colonial Motels (Notice Recordings)
Zachary Mezzo - Proximity (cmntx)
Mali Obomsawin, Magdalena Abrego, Allison Burik - Live Sketches (Out of Your Head)
William Parker & Ellen Christi - Cereal Music (AUM Fidelity)
William Parker/Cooper-Moore/Hamid Drake - Heart Trio (AUM Fidelity)
Percussia - Plucked & Struck - compositions by Sunny Knable, Lou Harrison, Seth Bedford, Angélica Negrón, John Dowland, Joseph Canteloube, Samuel Milligan, and Carlo Nicolau (Neuma)
Saccata Quartet (Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Darin Gray, Glenn Kotche) - Septendecim (We Jazz)
Ryan Seward - weathering (Sawyer Editions)
Tamarisk - Comes from Far Away from Here (Notice Recordings)
Unstern (Arzat Skia & Leo Svirsky) - Es Geht Der Tag (Alter)
Upcoming releases.
July 12
David Kaplan - New Dances of the League of David - compositions by Robert Schumann, Augusta Read Thomas, Martin Bresnick, Michael Brown, Marcos Balter, Gabriel Kahane, Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Han Lash, Michael James Gandolfi, Ted Hearne, Samuel Carl Adams, Mark Carlson, Ryan Francis, Caroline Shaw, and Caleb Burhans (New Focus)
Karen Power - …we return to ground… - Quiet Music Ensemble (Other Minds)
Various artists - Music from SEAMUS, Vol. 33 - compositions by John Gibson, Timothy Roy, Qiujiang Levi Lu, Chi Wang, Sam Pluta, and Scott L. Miller (New Focus)
July 19
Mat Muntz - Angels Variations - performances by Miroslav Beinhauer; gamin, Anna Webber & Li-chin Li; and Carrie Frey & Adrianne Munden-Dixon (self-released)
August 2
Zack Clarke - Plunge (Orenda)
The Merian Ensemble - The Book of Spells - compositions by Clarice Assad, Nicole Chamberlain, Jennifer Higdon, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Soon Hee Newbold, Kimberly R. Osberg, and Lynne Plowman (Navona)
August 16
Etelin (Alex Cobb) - Patio User Manual (Beacon Sound)
Andrew Livingston - Clock Orchard (Gold Bolus)
September 6
Timothy Archambault - Onimikìg (Ideologic Organ)
Lukas De Clerck - The Telescopic Aulos of Atlas (Ideologic Organ)
Roland Kayn - The Ortho-Project (Frozen Reeds; 15-CD ltd. edition boxed set)
September 13
Gelsey Bell - mɔɹniŋ [morning//mourning] (Gold Bolus)
September 25
Bruce Brubaker - Eno Piano 2 (InFiné)
September 27
Yngel - Silva (130701)
September 30
Nichunimu - Calados (577 Records)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
If you haven't heard the Tristan Perich release you mentioned last week, it is worth an entire write up of its own. Just mind-boggling in its beauty.