For the Record: Nov. 21, 2025.
Introducing DACAMERA Editions, launching in January with a landmark Tyshawn Sorey work, plus more new arrivals and coming attractions.
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.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, and MacArthur fellow Tyshawn Sorey recently treated his Instagram followers to a glimpse of things to come, posting an image of a CD featuring Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), a noteworthy composition he’d written on a commission from the Houston-based presenter DACAMERA.
Beyond the welcome news that Sorey’s enigmatic, sublime Pulitzer-nominated work might soon be available, the image also served notice that DACAMERA – whose past recordings have appeared on labels like ECM, Tzadik, and Ondine – is taking matters into its own hands.
Launching on January 30, DACAMERA Editions will provide a new home for the distinguished organization’s programs and premieres. The label begins with Sorey’s piece, in a beautifully recorded performance by pianist and DACAMERA artistic director Sarah Rothenberg, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, violist Kim Kashkashian, percussionist Steven Schick, and the Houston Chamber Choir conducted by Sorey.
Beyond the initial offering, DACAMERA Editions is also announcing two future releases, both solo performances by Rothenberg. In Darkness and Light, due in May, is a response to COVID-era time-unstuck isolation, combining For My Father by Vijay Iyer with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor (Op. 111) and Morton Feldman’s Palais de Mari. Also confirmed is Sorey’s epic homage For Julius Eastman, and discussions are underway for additional signature projects.
Beyond just circulating fine recordings, the new in-house imprint provides Rothenberg with a way to present music in the manner DACAMERA audiences have come to expect, in conversation with richly informed program notes, poetry, and visual art. Via video chat this week, Rothenberg revealed what prompted DACAMERA to start a label, and what we can expect to see and hear.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
STEVE SMITH: DACAMERA has worked with a handful of labels for past releases: Heartsounds by George Tsontakis on Koch International Classics, Charles Wuorinen’s Ashberyana on Naxos, Kaija Saariaho’s Let the Wind Speak on Ondine, and so on. And you yourself have recorded for several more labels. What made you decide it’s time for DACAMERA to go into the record business?
SARAH ROTHENBERG: The recording landscape has changed so much. The works you mentioned – Ashberyana, Tsontakis – most of those were DACAMERA commissions. And we realized in the course of working with Tyshawn on Monochromatic Light – and as my relationship to Tyshawn deepened so much – that this was something we felt very close to.
Over the years, DACAMERA’s programming has been very intentional in its mix of new works; works from the classical canon, but presenting them in perhaps surprising ways; and breaking down these genres of jazz and new concert music in a number of ways. We started commissioning Vijay Iyer 15 years ago with the Brentano String Quartet. And this was a way of actually preserving the DACAMERA legacy, if we did it ourselves.
Another real catalyst, strangely enough, was what happened during COVID, when everyone discovered streaming. That’s when DACAMERA looked at our video archives and were able to put out Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noir and a number of other things. We got so much attention from The New York Times, from The New Yorker, you know: a streaming series “that stands apart from the virtual crowd.” We ended up picking up donors all over the country, some of whom have maintained their relationship with us.
All of this happened about the same time, because we had started the process with Tyshawn Sorey – which I describe in, for CD liner notes these days, a rather extensive essay called “Where Minutes Have No Meaning” – about how this piece came about. It actually starts back in 2019, my first meeting with Tyshawn, and over that period from 2019 until we recorded it in the fall of ‘23, the recording industry changed, we had the experience of a significant amount of national attention for our streaming series, and then the premiere of Monochromatic Light in Houston and then at the [Park Avenue] Armory.
You recorded Monochromatic Light in 2023 with the award-winning producer Judith Sherman. Where did the recording take place?
We recorded at Stude Concert Hall at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, which has been one of Judy’s favorite recording spots. The subsequent two albums, my solo albums, were both recorded there as well.
The advantages of starting your own label seem evident.
This seemed really organically the right way to do this. It was a way we could share our curated musical view and keep it all in one place, as opposed to, well, this CD is gonna go here and this one’s gonna go there. And also, frankly, to be able to maintain artistic control about how it’s done: you can see from the cover that we are continuing our commitment to connecting music to visual art, to literature, to text, and to really informing and placing context around what we’re doing.
Of course, it’s very hard to do in this streaming age. But we’re hoping that by creating booklets that are aesthetically beautiful, but also really add to the experience, that people will be drawn into something distinctive about DACAMERA Editions.
You mentioned that you wrote the liner notes for Monochromatic Light yourself. Will liner notes be included with all DACAMERA releases?
Absolutely. There will be other booklets that contain poetry. There will be visual art. This will be part of what we do.
The timing feels right, because the pendulum seems to be swinging back from the purely ephemeral experience of streaming to wanting to have a beautiful object that you can hold in your hand, put on your shelf, and take down and read and have this very physical, visceral experience with.
I think there are always multiple reasons why you do something at a certain time. There has to be a confluence of circumstance and intention. We had some major labels who wanted to take this piece, but Tyshawn really wanted us to keep it with DACAMERA.
We also have to be realistic that the recording industry changes faster than we can anticipate, and what you want to do is be sure that your recording stays alive in some sense. And because DACAMERA Editions is artist-run, and we have such personal relations with the artists that we’re working with, I think there’s an additional layer of trust and commitment—which makes a difference in, as you said, this very fluid and ephemeral time.
Lastly, I’d imagine DACAMERA has a substantial archive of live recordings and historical premieres you could draw upon for releases. Any thought of going that route?
In very special cases that might happen, when we have something that is extremely difficult to recreate, or in fact would be less good for various reasons in a recreated version. We’re lucky, because we have a fantastic local audio engineer that we work with, and our live concert recordings, you know, artists are always amazed how good they are.
So I don’t want to rule it out, but this is not “DACAMERA Concerts”—like a lot of festivals record the festival, and then the whole thing comes out. We want to be clear that this is a record company.
DACAMERA Editions releases will be available to order on the label’s website and Bandcamp page.
New this week.
[Ahmed] - [Sama’a] (Audition) (Otoroku)
Marja Ahti - Visiting Cloud (Two Translations) - Blutwurst (Another Timbre)
Philip Blackburn - Another Intensity (Neuma)
Jane Ira Bloom & Brian Shankar Adler - once like a spark (Adhyâropa)
Santiago Diez Fischer - SONGS - Gyre Ensemble (Another Timbre)
Pablo Diserens - ebbing ice lines (Dinzu Artefacts)
Mia Dyberg & Axel Filip - HobbyHouse (Relative Pitch)
Eldritch Priest - dead-wall reveries - performances by Eldritch Priest, Apartment House, and arraymusic (Another Timbre)
Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble - Let the Spirit Out: Live At “mu” London (Spiritmuse)
Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello - Trinity (American Dreams)
Mario Layne Fabrizio - kostochki (self-released)
Mark Fell & Pat Thomas - Reality Is Not a Theory (Black Truffle)
Jürg Frey - Je laisse à la nuit son poids d’ombre - ensemble)h(iatus (Another Timbre)
Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach - Suzanne Vega, Collegium Vocale Gent, Ictus/Tom De Cock (vlek)
Joel Harrison - The Wheel: Deluxe Edition 2025 (AGS Recordings; original release 2008)
Billy Hart Quartet - Multidirectional (Smoke Sessions)
Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt - FRKWYS Vol. 18: Extended Field (RVNG Intl.)
Susie Ibarra - Sky Islands - Extended Talking Gong Ensemble (Habitat Sounds)
Michael Ippolito - Strange Loops - Andrew Yee, Emily Levin, Schroeder-Umansky Duo (Azica)
Peter Knight - For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name (Room40)
Helmut Lachenmann - Works for String Quartet - Quatuor Diotima (Pentatone)
Denman Maroney - Umwelt (Neuma)
Kelsey Mines & Erin Rogers - Scratching at the Surface (Relative Pitch)
Camila Nebbia, Marilyn Crispell & Lesley Mok - A Reflection Distorts Over Water (Relative Pitch)
Percussia - Murmuration - compositions by Bill Clark, Carlo Nicolau, Alexis Lamb, Ljova, Matthew Welch, and Dennis Tobenski (Neuma)
Anna Pidgorna - Invented Folksongs - Ludovico Ensemble (Redshift Music)
Ritual Humiliation - Ritual Humiliation (Eleatic)
Sarah Saviet & Joseph Houston - Lines We Gather - compositions by Michael Finnissy, Saviet/Houston, Lawrence Dunn, Iannis Xenakis, and Rebecca Saunders/Enno Poppe (Winter & Winter)
John Scofield/Dave Holland - Memories of Home (ECM)
Talk Show (Steph Richards & Qasim Naqvi) - Miss America (We Jazz)
Jakob Ullmann - Solo I & Solo IV - Jon Heilbron & Rebecca Lane (Another Timbre)
Adia Vanheerentals - Taking Place (Relative Pitch)
WRENS - Half of What You See (Out of Your Head)
Gabriel Zucker - Confession (Boomslang)
Upcoming releases.
November 28.
Michele Bondesan - nothingness (Discreet Archive)
December 5
Laura Altman - Holy Trinity (Relative Pitch)
Ensemble Dal Niente - portrait RE / Flux / Pacific Time - compositions by Igor Santos, George Lewis, and Carola Bauckholt (New Focus)
Peter Evans & Mike Pride - A Window, Basically (Relative Pitch)
Kelsey Mines & Vinny Golia - Collusion and Collaboration (Relative Pitch)
Zeena Parkins - Lament for the Maker (Relative Pitch)
Richard Youngs - Hidden (Black Truffle)
January 9.
Various artists - BMP: SONGBOOK, Vols. 1 & 2 - compositions by Juhi Bansal, Mohammed Fairouz, Michael Gordon, Ricky Ian Gordon, Ted Hearne, Emma O’Halloran, Molly Joyce, Mary Kouyoumdjian, David Lang, David T. Little, Keeril Makan, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Ellen Reid, Kamala Sankaram, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, and Du Yun (Bright Shiny Things)
January 16.
Szymon Wójcik - when you rub your eyes, you see things you can’t describe - Sara Flindt, Szymon Wójcik, others (Sawyer Editions)
January 30.
David Moore/Bing & Ruth - Graze the Bell (RVNG Intl.)
Tyshawn Sorey - Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) - Davóne Tines, Kim Kashkashian, Sarah Rothenberg, Steven Schick, Houston Chamber Choir/Tyshawn Sorey (DACAMERA Editions)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.