For the Record: March 29, 2024.
A newly unearthed gem by pioneering electronic-music improviser Richard Teitelbaum, plus 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.
I’m always loathe to highlight archival records ahead of new creations by living composers, but less so when I can help shed some light on a freshly unearthed gem rediscovered through genuinely worthwhile labor. Asparagus, new today on Oren Ambarchi’s ceaselessly engaging label Black Truffle, is a result of composer Matt Sargent digging through the tape archives of the late Richard Teitelbaum, the extraordinary electronic composer and improviser who died in 2020. (My New York Times obituary is here.)
Teitelbaum created this music for a cult film of the same name by Suzan Pitt, first fashioning dreamy layers of Moog and Polymoog synthesizer tones, and then cutting up that material with noisy incursions from soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy and trombonist George Lewis. Both the raw tracks and the completed score are on this 2LP/DL release, along with a splendid account of another Teitelbaum work, Threshold Music, performed by Sargent with Leila Bordreuil, Alvin Curran, Daniel Fishkin, and Miguel Frasconi at a December 2022 concert in Teitelbaum’s memory at Roulette.
Whether by design or coincidence, Suzan Pitt’s Asparagus is newly available for streaming on the connoiseur-cinema channel MUBI… check it out here. Here’s hoping this is just the first in a series of happy discoveries Sargent finds in the Teitelbaum archives. And don’t miss Sargent’s latest releases: Illuminations, a haunting set of solo and duo pieces issued in January on Sawyer Editions, and Bend, an animated duo by Sargent on guitar and Dani Dobkin on analog synths, released in December on Waveform Alphabet.
Sargent and Dobkin are performing in New York City tomorrow night – Saturday, March 30 – as part of a longer spring tour. (Send a DM to CuteLab on Instagram for details.) If that’s not enough advance notice, they’ll be back here on May 1.
There’s also a lot of new music worth your attention this week. I’m especially high on the latest projects from Seán Clancy, Kelly Moran, and Zachary James Watkins, and grabbed a copy of the new Sub Pop single (!!) by Patrick Shiroishi before even hearing a note, so as not to miss out.
New this week.
Seán Clancy - Four Sections of Music Unequally Divided (Birmingham Record Company)
Danny Clay - No More Darkness, No More Night (laaps)
Loren Mazzacane Connors & Chris Cochrane - Artemisia (Infrequent Seams)
Rhodri Davies - Telyn Wrachïod (Amgen)
Rhodri Davies/Various artists - Creiriau y Delyn Rawn/Relics of the Horsehair Harp (Amgen)
Eva-Maria Houben - echo fantasy II - Kei Kondo, Takahiro Kuroda (Ftarri Classical)
Eva-Maria Houben - his master’s voice; aus den fliegenden blättern eines fahrenden waldhornisten; lose verbunden - Kei Kondo, Takahiro Kuroda (Ftarri Classical)
Kelly Moran - Moves in the Field (Warp)
Ivo Perelman - Exploring the Unknown (Mahakala Music)
Nova Pon - Symphonies of Mother and Child - Turning Point Ensemble/Owen Underhill (Redshift Music)
applicable tenses, ears in space, thee manual labor - Smooring the Fire (Rural Situationism)
Richard Teitelbaum - Asparagus (Black Truffle)
Christina Vantzou - After Five: Christina Vantzou & Ensemble Live at The Barbican (self-released)
Gabriel Vicéns - Mural - performances by Nu Quintet and others (Stradivarius)
Samuel Vriezen - Within Fourths/Within Fifths - Nicolas Horvath (Collection 1001 Notes)
Zachary James Watkins - Affirmative Action - Zachary James Watkins, The Living Earth Show (Sige)
Alex Weiser - in a dark blue night - Annie Rosen, chamber ensemble (Cantaloupe Music)
Dan Weiss - Even Odds (Cygnus)
Otomo Yoshihide - Hummingbird and Four Flowers: Turntable and Harmonium Solo Live (Hitorri)
Upcoming releases.
April 5
Nicholas Deyoe - R/S (self-released)
Oceans And (Tim Berne, Hank Roberts, Aurora Nealand) - Lucid/Still (Screwgun)
April 12
Hannah Selin - Dream Journal & The Apocalypse (Gold Bolus)
Patrick Shiroishi - A Sparrow in a Swallow’s Nest (Sub Pop)
April 19
James Díaz - [speaking in a foreign language] - Julia Jung Un Suh (New Focus)
Alexander Hawkins/Sofia Jernberg - Musho (Intakt)
Camila Nebbia & Patrick Shiroishi - We Speak in Rivers (Superpang)
April 22
Nick Millevoi - Moon Pulses (Island House)
May 1
Samuel Reinhard - For Piano and Shō - Paul Jacob Fossum, Haruna Higashida (elsewhere)
May 3
Jeremiah Cymerman - Body of Light (5049 Records)
Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity)
May 10
Ron Miles - Old Main Chapel (Blue Note; recorded 2011)
May 17
Untight - Fair (self-released)
June 3
Children of the Sun - Ofamfa (moved-by-sound; originally released 1971)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
Steve, I’m pretty thrilled to see that you wrote about Richard Teitelbaum’s posthumously released work here.