For the Record: March 7, 2025.
It's Bandcamp Friday, you can have a little listings of new arrivals and future releases of interest as a treat.
For the Record is a weekly column that 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.
You know the drill. There’s a lot to chose from today, new, recent, and beyond. Here are some of my top picks:
Tim Berne’s Snakeoil - snakeoil ok (Screwgun)
A vivid document from the first European tour of saxophonist Tim Berne with Snakeoil: Oscar Noriega on clarinets, Matt Mitchell at the piano, and Ches Smith on drums and vibraphone. This band could turn on a dime from funky to fiery to wispy, and does so in this 2013 set featuring five Berne originals and a Paul Motian tune.fraufraulein - greater honeyguide (mappa; due April 3)
The first new recording in four years by fraufraulein, the duo of sound artists Billy Gomberg and Andy Guthrie, is a masterpiece of harmonious dichotomies: disorienting yet comforting, disembodied yet intimate, spare yet abundant, abstract yet somehow familiar. (Investigating this album also led me to discover, belatedly, Blemished, Guthrie’s similarly dichotomous 2023 solo collection of soundscapes and songs.)Jürg Frey - String Quartets - Quatuor Bozzini (Collection QB)
If you don’t already own a copy of this authoritative album by Quatuor Bozzini in its original 2006 release on Edition Wandelweiser, don’t hesitate to pick up this new reissue on the group’s own imprint; Frey’s String Quartet No. 2 in particular is a life-altering experience.Sarah Hennies - SOVT - Richard Valitutto (elsewhere)
On record at long last, this extraordinary 55-minute Sarah Hennies work for piano altered with Blu-Tack adhesive was inspired by (and named for) Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract—vocal exercises she discovered in a class on “voice feminization” for transgender women. A beautiful performance by Richard Valitutto, brilliantly captured by Hennies.Nickolas Mohanna - Speaker Rotations (AKP Recordings)
Richly detailed exercises in resonance, reverberation, and impact, impeccably rendered and recorded by Nickolas Mohanna with guitar, trombone, piano, and electronics.Gyða Valtýsdóttir & Úlfur Hansson - AUGA (Sono Luminus)
A beyond-gorgeous meditative space jointly mapped by Icelandic cellist Gyða Valtýsdóttir (ex-Múm) and electronic musician Úlfur Hansson. You’ll feel your heart leap to your throat in “Onium Ion.”Honorable mention to Nicole McCabe, Poppy H, and Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek, whose new albums have provided fortifying company during recent weeks.
It’s imperative to remember that great music also happens away from Bandcamp, too. This week’s new Kairos releases from Chaya Czernowin and Felipe Lara are essential additions to the discographies of each composer, and not to be missed.
Also warmly recommended is Beyond, a new collection by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra featuring world-premiere recordings of new and recent pieces by Thomas Adès, Jonathan Dove, Matthew Aucoin, and Nico Muhly. The works by Adès, Aucoin, and Muhly are derived from their operas, the Dove piece a trombone concerto practically operatic in temperament, and everything is brilliantly vivacious.
Finally, a new recording from the Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Franz Welser-Möst – exclusive to Apple Music, alas – offers a most unlikely pairing of Julius Eastman’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved”) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor—long subtitled “Little Russian,” but here designated “Ukrainian.”
New this week.
March 7.
Altus - Legends of Altus: Book 1 (self-released)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Peter Moore - Beyond - compositions by Thomas Adès, Jonathan Dove, Matthew Aucoin, and Nico Muhly (Orchid Classics)
Tim Berne's Snakeoil - snakeoil ok (Screwgun)
Anouar Brahem - After the Last Sky (ECM)
Kate Carr - Rubber Band Music (Flaming Pines)
Chaya Czernowin - Seltene Erde & Atara - performances by Uli Fussenegger, Klangforum Wien/Johannes Kalitzke, Sofia Jernberg, Holger Falk, and ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien/Christian Karlsen (Kairos)
Alabaster DePlume - A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (International Anthem)
Pablo Diáz - son esos ecos (scatterArchive)
Dennis Egberth - The Dennis Egberth Dynasty (577 Records)
Ensemble C - Every Journey (Adhyaropa)
Jürg Frey - String Quartets - Quatuor Bozzini (Collection QB)
Violeta García - IN/OUT (Les Disques Bongo Joe)
Sarah Hennies - SOVT - Richard Valitutto (elsewhere)
Jump Off This Bridge - Quarks (Zoar)
Stefan Keune/Sandy Ewen/Damon Smith - Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live at Moers (Balance Point Acoustics)
Felipe Lara - Chamber Works for Strings - performances by Mivos Quartet, Duo Diorama, JACK Quartet, Joshua Rubin, Modney, Parker Quartet, Hannah Levinson, amd EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR (Kairos)
loadbang - A Garden, Adorned - compositions by Oscar Bettison, Raven Chacon, Yotam Haber, Christina J. George, and Laura Cetilia (New Focus)
Nicole McCabe - A Song to Sing (Colorfield)
Green Mitchell Trio - Nature Channel (Queen Bee)
Nickolas Mohanna - Speaker Rotation (AKP Recordings)
Billy Mohler - The Eternal (Contagious Music)
Tim Parkinson - Two More Arias from The Waiting Rooms - Francesca Fargion, Martha MacBean, Tim Parkinson, Angharad Davies (self-released)
Ivo Perelman with Ken Vandermark & Joe McPhee - Oxygen (Mahakala Music)
Poppy H - Treadwater Fury (Fort Evil Fruit)
Dave Seidel - Semiautonomous Etudes (Mystery Bear)
Elliott Sharp - Crowds And Power - Live at The Kitchen - NYC - 1982 (Zoar)
Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek - Greyhound Days (Mondoj)
Gyða Valtýsdóttir & Úlfur Hansson - AUGA (Sono Luminus)
Andrew Weathers - Two Recordings (Editions Glomar)
Upcoming releases.
March 20.
Ishmael Ali/Aaron Quinn - Sometimes Cats Have Puppies (Tripticks Tapes)
Cecilia Lopez and Wenchi Lazo - Desposable (Tripticks Tapes)
Paulownia (Yoona Kim, Anwei Wang, Marie Carroll) - Paulownia (Tripticks Tapes)
March 21.
Pierre Boulez - Éclat-Multiples - Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Contrechamps/Michael Wendeberg (bastille musique)
March 28.
Sophie Agnel - Song (Relative Pitch)
Bloomers (Anne Efternøler, Maria Dybbroe, Carolyn Goodwin) - Cyclism (Relative Pitch)
Denley Gorfinkel Farrar - Vents (Relative Pitch)
The Dietrichs - No Bahdu (Relative Pitch)
April 3.
fraufraulein (Billy Gomberg & Andy Guthrie) - greater honeyguide (mappa)
April 18.
Lucy Railton - Blue Veil (Ideologic Organ)
Zosha Warpeha & Mariel Terán - Orbweaver (Outside Time)
April 25.
Gilles Sivilotto - handmade - Isabelle Duthoit, zeitkratzer (zeitkratzer)
May 2.
Eli Keszler - Eli Keszler (LUCKYME®)
Kommun - Kalpa (Thanatosis)
May 23.
Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia (Ars Nova Workshop/Otherly Love)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.