For the Record: November 8, 2024.
Seeking sanctuary in the soundscapes of Robert Fripp, plus 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.
Topspin.
From Wednesday morning until late last night, I found myself unable to listen to any music but soundscapes, the solo work Robert Fripp has been developing since the early 1990s. This music was the next step beyond Frippertronics, the looping work Fripp did in the ’70s using two open-reel tape recorders chained together—a system derived from the similar analog tape-looping experiments of Terry Riley.
I vividly recall being stunned by Fripp’s 1979 solo performance on The Midnight Special, which I saw live as it aired. Back then, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it; even now, I’m amazed this aired on a major national TV network.
Frippertonics was a relatively primitive system, expressive but limited. For soundscapes, Fripp uses his guitar as a MIDI controller, sending its signal through an imposing rack of digital synthesizer modules, delay, reverb, and other effects, while also playing melodic lines on top of his layered sounds. (The more technical-minded among you might enjoy a 2019 deep-dive investigation of Fripp’s gear, facilitated by his longtime guitar tech, Biff Blumfumgagnge.)
There’s rarely a recognizable guitar tone anywhere in the mix, and I’ll confess I initially resisted for that reason: Fripp’s guitar sound is a thing of wondrous beauty and wrenching power. (Think of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” for one instantly memorable example.) But in time I overcame my expectations and found the music increasingly persuasive. I also reckon that, as with any process of research and development, the music grew deeper and richer as the gear and techniques improved and became more natural—but that’s speculation.
Fripp has made soundscapes recordings since 1994, and – as suggested by album titles like Love Cannot Bear, At the End of Time, and The Gates of Paradise, as well as compositions called “Elegy,” “Requiem,” “Consolation” and “A Full Heart” – this is profoundly spiritual music.
Soundscapes can be contemplative, melancholy, even awestruck, the music wafting and billowing like clouds of pure emotion, shot through with beams of light. That’s not to suggest they lack formal conception or rigor; the orchestral arrangements of Fripp’s soundscapes on The Wine of Silence, issued in 2012, aren’t far removed from John Tavener or Arvo Pärt, except when they grow dense and turbulent like Krzysztof Penderecki.
During the long isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown, Fripp’s weekly Music for Quiet Moments series was a reliable balm. And for nearly 48 hours starting Wednesday morning, this music was the only thing that could assuage an ache almost too much to bear.
Should you need something like that right now, perhaps it will offer you a similar refuge and consolation.
Bonus tracks.
Yes, there is new music out today that deserves mention—in particular Hopeful Intervals, the newest collaboration by Daniel Wyche and Patrick Shiroishi, which offers a contemplative grace not so far removed from what I wrote about about Robert Fripp despite sounding utterly dissimilar.
Recordings I’m looking forward to hearing in their entirety at last include paper blown between the spaces in my ribs by Mattie Barbier; Papotier, the latest from the uncanny French consort Pancrace; The Bloody Lady, a moody film score by claire rousay; and Moons, the self-titled debut by a quartet comprising Judith Berkson, Laura Cetilia, Katie Porter, and Christine Tavolacci. Moons will celebrate their new release at Fridman Gallery on Saturday, Nov. 16; details here.
Last but not least, The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985–1990 compiles sublime previously unreleased music recorded by Iranian-American composer, vocalist, performance artist, and activist Sussan Deyhim with her longtime partner in life and art, Richard Horowitz, who died in April. Deyhim will mark the new record’s arrival next Tuesday, Nov. 12, at Roulette; details here.
UPDATE Nov. 11, 12pm: According to a label source, Papotier, the new Pancrace record mentioned above and listed below is delayed until December or later.
New this week.
Mattie Barbier - paper blown between the spaces in my ribs (Dinzu Artefacts)
Lucio Capece - On Concepts and Examples (self-released)
Sarah Davachi and Dicky Bahto - Music for a Bellowing Room (Late Music)
Day Dream (Steve Rudolph, Drew Gress, Phil Haynes) - Duke & Strays Live (CornerStoreJazz)
Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz - The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985–1990 (Freedom to Spend)
Nathan Hubbard/Kyle Motl - Obsidian (Confront)
Rafael Anton Irisarri - FAÇADISMS (Black Knoll)
Lamina - Sueños acuáticos (Mappa)
Moons (Judith Berkson, Laura Cetilia, Katie Porter, Christine Tavolacci) - Moons (Editions Verde)
Bruckmann/Heule/Nishi-Smith/Rivero - negligiblism (Full Spectrum)
Leo Okagawa - Lower the Tone Arm (Flaming Pines)
Aki Onda - 99 Cent Dreams (Dinzu Artefacts)
Pancrace - Papotier (Penultimate Press)
claire rousay - The Bloody Lady (VIERNULVIER)
Udo Schindler/Paul Rogers - Ephemeral Locations (Confront)
Ryan Townsend Strand - Dear Mrs. Kennedy - compositions by Augusta Read Thomas, Tom Cipullo, Jen Shyu, Nicholas Cline, Adore Alexander, Will Liverman, Skyler Butenshon, Matthew Reccio, Timothy C. Takach, Libby Larsen, and Erik Pearson (Sono Luminus)
Daniel Wyche & Patrick Shiroishi - Hopeful Intervals (cow: Music)
Upcoming releases.
November 9
Adam Rudolph - Autumn Moon Meditation (Meta)
November 12
E/I - explicit isolation - compositions by Szymon Gąsiorek (Mappa)
November 15
Karen Borca/Paul Murphy - Entwined (Relative Pitch)
Beat Furrer - Spur - Claudia Chan, Thorsten Johanns, Quatuor Diotima (bastille musique)
Jacques Hétu - Symphony No. 5, Op. 81 - Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Orchestre du Centre national des Arts du Canada, Orchestre symphonique de Québec/Alexander Shelley (Analekta)
Lee R. Kesselman - Would That Loving Were Enough - Haven (Blue Griffin)
Nokuthula Ngwenyama - Flow - Takács Quartet (Hyperion)
Alfredo Santa Ana - Before the World Sleeps - Miranda Wong (Redshift Music)
Michael J. Schumacher - Living Room Pieces (Chaikin; limited edition music box)
Stefan Smulovitz - Bow and Brush: 12 Scores of Nadina Tandy (Redshift Music)
November 18
Dominic Lash + Pat Thomas - Elements and Properties (scatterArchive)
November 19
Moth Bucket - Vagary Suite (Notice Recordings)
Weirs and Magic Tuber Stringband - The Crozet Tunnel (Notice Recordings)
November 22
Eternities (Katie Porter & Bob Bellerue) - Landscape Music 5 (MMLI)
December 6
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough & Andrew Zhou - sedgeflowers | MANTRA - compositions by John Liberatore, Angus Lee, Dante De Silva, Aida Shirazi, LJ White, Andrew Zhou, Christopher Castro, Laura Cetilia, Christopher Stark, and Karlheinz Stockhausen (False Azure)
Mark Wastell - Cello-Intern XVIII (scatterArchive)
December 16
Thomas Rohrer + Philip Somervell - FOLWEN (scatterArchive)
February 21
Jon Irabagon - Server Farm (Irabbagast)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
Thanks for mentioning Michael J Schumacher's 'Living Room Pieces'! For anyone who'd like to see this tiny generative sound installation in action, there will be a release event at the Fridman Gallery in Soho on Tues. eve 11/12 (7 - 9 pm).
Steve, I encourage you to listen (or re-listen) to Fripp's playing on the first and third records from The Roches. More subtle than the Heroes soundscape, but still powerful.