For the Record: Nov. 3, 2023.
Bandcamp Friday, if you want it… and just in case you do, here are dozens of 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.
It’s Bandcamp Friday again, that once-a-month-most-months day when the popular music sales website Bandcamp waives its fees so that independent artists and small labels pocket all of their sales proceeds. There’s a real air of uncertainty surrounding Bandcamp’s business right now – one of my favorite artists pulled out some time ago, another is in the process of doing so, and a label whose releases I’ve admired has announced plans to leave the platform by 2024.
To thine own self be true, but this fact pertains: Independent artists and small labels still count on sales to survive, and Bandcamp Friday still puts more money into their coffers directly than any other route you might care to name.
So I’m participating, to the extent that I can in these straitened days. My top picks are Sarah Davachi’s Long Gradus box set, the Jürg Frey and Michael Pisaro-Liu albums on Elsewhere, the joyous all-Irish traditional instruments version of Terry Riley’s In C on Louth Contemporary Music Series, and If and Only If, in which Eric Wubbels transforms the conventional piano trio into something striking and new.
Do check out the five new arrivals on Sawyer Spaces, composer Kory Reeder’s imprint for field recordings, altered and otherwise. Also, there’s a new Wadada Leo Smith duo with electronic musician Hardedge surprise-dropped today, and while I’ve only heard a bit, I can’t imagine not wanting to just grab that thing.
Also, in timely hindsight, I’ve just caught up belatedly with Vicente Hansen Atria’s Orlando Furioso project, which is just jaw-droppingly good. It came out last year, and also two months ago, and really it doesn’t matter, just drop everything and listen.
I’m encourage anyone who doesn’t feel conflicted to jump in, too. What better way to demonstrate to the new owners how deeply the Bandcamp service is valued, and how badly it’s needed?
More on Bandcamp from George Grella…
New this week.
Tetuzi Akiyama & Taku Sugimoto - In Hanegi (self-released)
Toto Alvarez - La Cuerda Floja (Zoar)
Julie Andreyev & the multispecies studio - Bird Park Sessions (Sawyer Spaces)
Beam Splitter + Lønning & Reinertsen - Beauties (Neither/Nor)
John Butcher & Gerry Hemingway - Roulette – New York City (2005) (Auricle)
John Butcher, Thomas Lehn, John Tilbury - Lights (Fataka)
Cunningham/Shiroishi/Ackerley/Smith - [five lines indecipherable] (Profane Illuminations)
Sarah Davachi - Long Gradus (Late Music)
Angharad Davies & Phil Julian - Neutral Red (Fataka)
Peter Evans Being & Becoming - Ars Memoria (More Is More)
Tim Feeney and Cassia Streb - Unspooling (Sawyer Spaces)
Jürg Frey - Les Signes Passagers - Keiko Shichijo (Elsewhere)
The Gate (Dan Peck, Tom Blancarte, Brian Osborne) - Scum (Tubapede)
Anthony Gatto - Small Subversions - Karl Larson (Gold Bolus)
Allen Ginsberg - The Lion for Real, Re-Born (Allen Ginsberg LLC; originally issued 1989 on Great Jones)
James Ilgenfritz Quintet featuring J.D. Parran - Museum of Invisible Things (Infrequent Seams)
Jin Hi Kim - KomunGuitar (Zoar; originally issued in 1993 on ¿What Next?)
Kinetic Ensemble - Kinetic - compositions by Patrick Harlin, Paul Novak, Nicky Sohn, and Daniel Temkin (Bright Shiny Things)
Manongo Mujica - Ritual sonoro para ruinas circulares (Buh)
Luke Martin - on meeting again after a long absence (Sawyer Spaces)
Matmos - Return to Archive (Smithsonian Folkways)
Eric Moe - Strenuous Pleasures - performances by David Russell, Elliott Riley, counter)induction, Da Capo Chamber Players, and Horszowski Trio (New Focus)
Sam Newsome & Jean-Michel Pilc - Cosmic Unconsciousness Unplugged (somenewmusic)
Chris Opperman - Still Waters - compositions by Chris Opperman, Ann Southam, Phillip Schroeder, Tyler Kline, Kimberly R. Osberg, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (self-released)
Anthony Pirog - The Nepenthe Series, Vol. 1 (Otherly Love)
Michael Pisaro-Liu - A room outdoors - Guy Vandromme, Adriaan Severins, Luciana Elizondo, Fabio Gionfrida (Elsewhere)
Bobby Previte & Ray Anderson - Double Trouble (self-released)
Nicole Rampersaud - Saudade (Ansible Editions)
Terry Riley - In C Irish - Zoë Conway, Dónal Lunny, Michelle Mulcahy, Louise Mulcahy, Paddy Glackin, Máirtín O'Connor, and Mick O'Brien. (Louth Contemporary Music Society)
Claire Rousay - “i no longer have that glowing thing inside of me” (Thrill Jockey)
Sarah Ruth - Fellowship of the Arid Plain (Sawyer Spaces)
Joe Santa Maria - Echo Deep (Orenda)
Dave Seidel - Mesektet (Mystery Bear)
Elliott Sharp - “Masters of War” (Zoar)
Silkroad Ensemble - Phoenix Rising (Silkroad Ensemble)
Wadada Leo Smith & Hardedge - The Nile (self-released)
Stefan Thut - another - Cristián Alvear, Christian Kobi, Joseph Kudirka, Stefan Thut, Mara Winter (Zoomin’ Night)
Uncivilized - “Blue Monk” (feat. Tristan Cooley) (Ignore Heroes)
Andrew Weathers - Different Wind (Sawyer Spaces)
Wrens (Ryan Easter, Elias Stemeseder, Lester St. Louis, Jason Nazary) - alligator shoes [on flatbush] (Novel Service)
Eric Wubbels - If and Only If - Josh Modney, Mariel Roberts, Eric Wubbels (Carrier)
Upcoming releases.
November 24
John Blum, David Murray, Chad Taylor - The Recursive Tree (Relative Pitch)
Jack Wright - What Is What (Relative Pitch)
December 21
Dani Dobkin, Matt Sargent - Bend (Waveform Alphabet)
January 19
Mary Halvorson - Cloudward (Nonesuch)
Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Odean Pope - The Lighthouse (Jam All Productions)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.