For the Record: May 3, 2024.
New for Bandcamp Friday, a video premiere from Lorelei Ensemble and Christopher Cerrone… plus listings for dozens of 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! 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.
It’s that time again: time to do some serious music shopping on Bandcamp Friday, when indie artists and labels get just a wee bit more money than usual thanks to the platform ceding its cut to the cause. Your email inbox probably started feeling the impact earlier this week, and certainly this newsletter will arrive among more Bandcamp notices than you’ll know how to handle.
And yeah, I do have a few recommendations… but I’m not just going to tell you about new releases, because one, there’s a list below, and two, today’s just as good a day to invest in recordings that aren’t new.
Also! There’s a video premiere in today’s newsletter, so be sure you don’t miss it.
For instance, Germaine Sijstermans, a wonderful Dutch clarinetist and composer, has just arrived in New York for two concerts. The first is tonight at Bargemusic, where Sijstermans will play a piece by Anastassis Philippakopoulos and several of her own works, including a world premiere, alone and with fellow clarinetist Katie Porter. The concert is at 6pm, and it’s free, so you can direct your money instead toward recordings of profoundly beautiful music by Sijstermans and Philippakopoulos on the Elsewhere label.
The second concert involving Sijstermans is on Sunday afternoon at 4pm at Spectrum NYC, in Red Hook, part of the excellent, long-running Piano+ series curated by pianist and composer Teodora Stepančić. This concert’s free (with optional donation) as well, so why not drop some cash on some of Stepančić’s self-released recordings via her Bandcamp site. She’s got a new album this week, transparent duo… but this would be a good day to try out clarinets 1-4, which happens to include Sijstermans among its performers.
You’re likely aware of another big new-music affair going on in New York City this weekend: Long Play, curated by Bang on a Can and happening in several Brooklyn venues tonight and all day Saturday and Sunday. Needless to say, many of the artists involved in this affair have recordings available on Bandcamp. I’m hoping to catch a few sets myself, and am especially eager to learn how the arresting new claire rousay album, sentiment, will translate to a live setting.
It’s also worth remembering that plenty of artists make future releases available for pre-order on Bandcamp Friday, wisely taking advantage of heightened attention and general good vibes. That means today’s a great day to secure your copy of Motor Tapes, the new Sarah Hennies double-length album arriving via New World on May 24, or The Holy Presence, the fourth volume in an illuminating Julius Eastman series by Wild Up on New Amsterdam.
Among this week’s batch of new arrivals, don’t miss strong, ambitious, personal offerings from Taylor Ho Bynum & Jacqueline Kerrod, Stephan Crump, Jeremiah Cymerman, LATRALA, Matt Mitchell, Modney, and Zosha Warpeha.
You most certainly want to snatch up Grand Street Counterpoint, the latest multitrack manifesto from Steve Reich. It’s a new arrangement of Cello Counterpoint in a bubbly, persuasive account by Rebekah Heller, and it’s only going to set you back two bucks. What are you waiting for?
Another important new single-track release out today, from London collective Standard Issue: a rendition of 2 Suitcases by Mary Kouyoumdjian, inspired by the story of her parents settling in San Francisco as refugees from the Lebanese Civil War. This is the first recording of this lovely, potent piece, which was written for the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble and later taken up by eighth blackbird—and all proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestine.
Lastly, not gonna lie: my first stop today was Chris Forsyth Plays Love Devotion Surrender, on which post-experimental guitar hero Forsyth pairs up with fellow six-string explorer Nick Millevoi and a killer band for a live rendition of the 1973 LP by Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin. Blissful and blistering, oh, my.
Video premiere.
And now for something really special: a brand-new, previously unreleased video by Lorelei Ensemble, the brilliant Boston-based women’s vocal ensemble directed by Beth Willer. Closely associated with contemporary music, Lorelei is soon to release a new recording that demands attention: Beaufort Scales, a gorgeous, poetic work for eight singers and electronics by Christopher Cerrone.
Watch here:
The 35-minute cycle, which had its premiere last November at MASS MoCA, was prompted by climate change, and specifically inspired by a book: Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a Nineteenth-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry, in which Scott Haler details the history of a 13-step scale measuring weather intensity.
Cerrone set out to translate that scale into a composition of corresponding steps of intensity, using electronics to gradually transform the singing voices.
“I wanted to do what art does best: document the precognitive feeling of something so strange and eerie and new, for which language does not exist yet.”
You can read a great deal more about the composition and peruse the score on Cerrone’s website. The album, due May 17 on the estimable Cold Blue label, is available for pre-order via Bandcamp now. Thanks to Lorelei, Cerrone, Cold Blue, and Primo Artists for letting me share this riveting selection.
New this week.
Rick Baitz - River of January - Rick Baitz, Erin Lesser, Jennifer Choi, Yves Dhar, David Cossin, Geoffrey Burleson, Cornelius Dufallo, Audrey Chen, William Hopkins, Jakob Schoenfeld, and Yoon Lee (Neuma)
Ben Bennett - Music for Idiophones, Vol. 1 (Palliative)
Taylor Ho Bynum & Jacqueline Kerrod - Simple Ways Such Self (Orenda)
Kirsten Carey, Aaron Edgcomb - Mature Defense Mechanism (Relative Pitch)
David Crowell - Point/Cloud - performances by Sandbox Percussion, Dan Lippel, Mak Grgić, and eco|tonal (Better Company)
Stephan Crump - Slow Water (Papillon Sounds)
Jeremiah Cymerman - Body of Light (5049 Records)
Michael Fischer - Feed Back Saxo Fone (Klanggalerie)
Chris Forsyth - Chris Forsyth Plays Love Devotion Surrender (Algorithm Free)
Reiko Füting - brokenSong - Jing Yang, Vocalconsort labia vocalia/Reiko Füting (New Focus)
Galaxy Tube (Grant Evans) - Galaxy Tube (Hooker Vision)
Yedo Gibson - Conic Tube (Relative Pitch)
Alex Groves & Philipp Rumsch - Single Form (Figure & Landscape) (nynode intermedia)
Wayne Horvitz - Live Forever, Vol. 3: Wayne Horvitz Bill Frisell Duo, Frankfurt, Knitting Factory 1989-1990 (self-released)
Andrew Hulse - Fabric of Light (self-released)
Kamra - Deconstructed Foley (people places records)
Gretchen Korsmo - Silhouettes, Spires (Full Spectrum)
Mary Kouyoumdjian - 2 Suitcases - Standard Issue (self-released)
Helmut Lachenmann - Mes Adieux - performances by Trio Catch, trio recherche, Karolina Öhman, and WDR Sinfonieorchester/Lin Liao (bastille musique)
LATRALA (Kenny Wollesen) - LATRALA (Otherly Love)
Alexis Marcelo’s Nananom Xu - Cantilever (Infrequent Seams)
Joseph Clayton Mills - New Music of Common Objects (self-released)
Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity)
Modney - Ascending Primes - performances by Anna Webber, Nate Wooley, Ben LaMar Gay, Cory Smythe, Charmaine Lee, Sam Pluta, David Byrd-Marrow, Dan Peck, Kate Gentile, Gabriela Díaz, Erica Dicker, Eddy Kwon, Kyle Armbrust, Joanna Mattrey, Mariel Roberts, and Lester St. Louis (Pyroclastic)
Sofi Paez - silent stories (OPIA Community)
J. Pavone String Ensemble - Reverse Bloom (Astral Spirits)
Tim Parkinson - General Election - Tim Parkinson, Angharad Davies, GBSR Duo (self-released)
John Oswald - Plexure ’24 (FONY)
Maria Reich - INTERDEPENDENZEN (Relative Pitch)
Steve Reich - Grand Street Counterpoint - Rebekah Heller (Cantaloupe Music)
Samuel Reinhard - For Piano and Shō - Paul Jacob Fossum, Haruna Higashida (elsewhere)
Steph Richards - Power Vibe (Northern Spy)
Šalter Ensemble - Tri dela - compositions by Tomaž Grom, Jonas Kocher & Gaudenz Badrutt, and Elisabeth Harnik (Bruit Editions)
Dave Seidel - Homage to Hennix (The Electric Harpsichord reinterpreted) (Mystery Bear)
Elliott Sharp - TrePonti (Zoar)
Teodora Stepančić - Transparent Duo - Lester St. Louis, Rachel Mangold (self-released)
Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio - Unknown Rivers (Pi Recordings)
David Torn - Adityahridayam 321 (self-released)
Zosha Warpeha - silver dawn (Relative Pitch)
Sam Weinberg - Live at The Oche (self-released)
Upcoming releases.
May 5
Juri Seo - Toy Store - Jinjoo Cho, Juri Seo (Carrier)
May 10
Nicola Caminiti - Vivid Tales of a Blurry Self-Portrait (self-released)
Yi-Ting Lu - An Unopened Seashell - Ben Roidl-Ward, Ben Melsky, Lam Wong, Thomas Giles, and Daniel Lippel (New Focus)
May 14
Carman Moore - Soul Musings (Reading Group)
Ulla E. Straus and John Andrew Wilhite - Spatial Data Management (Original Score) (Reading Group)
May 17
Borderlands Trio (Stephan Crump, Kris Davis, Eric McPherson) - Rewilder (Intakt)
Malini Sridharan - Tombeaux (Birdwatcher)
May 19
Aquiles Hadjis/Antonio Mazzei - El Amigo (Ftarri)
Lee Noyes/Barry Chabala - The Lightgiver (Ftarri)
Leo Okagawa - Sweet and Poisonous (Hitorri)
Leo Okagawa/Beau Beaumont/Masatake Abe - Utopian Air (Meenna)
May 23
Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp - Magical Incantation (Soul City Sounds)
May 24
Maria Bertel - Monophonic (Relative Pitch)
Natalia Beylis - Lost - For Annie (Outside Time)
Samara Lubelski/Marcia Bassett - Indexical/Rhizome (Relative Pitch)
Magda Mayas’ Filamental - Ritual Mechanics (Relative Pitch)
Sofia Salvo - ROTAROTA (Relative Pitch)
Chloë Sobek/Tim Berne - Burning Up (Relative Pitch)
May 26
Masahiko Okura/Naoto Yamagishi/Fumi Endo - Masahiko Okura/Naoto Yamagishi/Fumi Endo (Meenna)
May 31
Daniel Lentz - Lips (Unseen Worlds; recorded 1967-80)
June 7
Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club - A Second Life (Mandorla Music)
Ada Rave - In search of a new world (Relative Pitch)
June 14
Kory Reeder - Everywhere Truth Rushes In (Kuyin)
June 20
Kate Carr - Midsummer London (self-released)
June 21
William Parker & Ellen Christi - Cereal Music (AUM Fidelity)
William Parker/Cooper-Moore/Hamid Drake - Heart Trio (AUM Fidelity)
Powers/Rolin Duo - Clearing (Astral Editions)
Wild Up - Julius Eastman, Vol. 4: The Holy Presence (New Amsterdam)
June 28
Unstern (Arzat Skia & Leo Svirsky) - Es Geht Der Tag (Alter)
July 5
David Vélez - Comfort Food (Flaming Pines)
Winter 2024
Peter Garland - Plain Songs: “Love Comes Quietly” (after Robert Creeley) - Carson Cooman (Cold Blue)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.