For the Record: Oct. 13, 2023.
Quick hits about five albums worth exploring – from Bach for jazz trio to Lucier for strings – plus dozens more 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.
Time’s been tight over the last seven days, so I’m not prepared to go long on a single “Album of the Week” review. Instead, a few quick bits about albums I’ve especially enjoyed recently, which I hope you’ll find the time to check out for yourselves.
Pianist Adam Birnbaum leads off with Preludes, his original re-imagining of 12 selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. Birnbaum, trained at the New England Conservatory, Boston College, and the Juilliard School, has a grip on European classical music and jazz, and experience playing with artists like Al Foster, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Darcy James Argue. The arrangements are subtle and crafty, certain to appeal to anyone who responds to the Modern Jazz Quartet or, more recently, Aaron Diehl; Matt Clohesy provides a warm, woody center of gravity, and Keita Ogawa is ceaselessly inventive and endlessly tasteful.
A similar abundance of grace and unambiguous beauty permeates Crossing the Ocean, the second solo album by harpist Bridget Kibbey. This is her debut for the Pentatone label—who were shrewd enough to make the album available on Bandcamp. Kibbey, a longtime NYC MVP, enlisted an imposing batch of contemporary composers – Kati Agócs, Kinan Azmeh, David Bruce, Avner Dorman, Paquito d’Rivera, and Du Yun – and posed the same question to each: “What is the rock from which you're cut, and how does it resonate within your current surroundings?” The results embrace elegance and mystery, lushness and austerity—and, in Dorman’s case, the familiar, always welcome freshness of soprano Dawn Upshaw’s voice.
Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is extensively represented on recordings, but there’s something unique and distinctive about his duo playing with the iconoclastic trumpeter Nate Wooley that stands apart from most of his work elsewhere. You certainly get a hint of Perelman’s Ayler-inspired Holy Roller testifying on this second duo with Wooley for Phil Freeman’s Burning Ambulance imprint, but it’s subtle and understated. Instead, what’s most compelling about Polarity 2 is the palpable presence of space and abundance of listening among these two fine players.
Literally while I was typing the succinct recommendation above, another new album featuring Perelman and Wooley turned up in my email inbox: Seven Skies Orchestra, which also features two other recent Perelman recording partners, vibraphonist Matt Moran and guitarist Joe Morris (here on bass), plus Mat Maneri on violin and Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello. Consider this more an announcement than a plug – obviously, since I’ve not heard this! – but consider me motivated, too.
Lastly, a second collection of compositions Alvin Lucier wrote expressly for the Ever Present Orchestra is out today on Black Truffle. You really don’t need me to say anything more than that, right?
New this week.
Ellen Arkbro - Sounds While Waiting (Superior Viaduct; vinyl pressing, previously available digital-only)
Doug Bielmeier - Music for Billionaires (New Focus)
Adam Birnbaum - Preludes (Chelsea Music Festival)
Rob Brown - Oceanic (Rogue Art)
Rob Brown Quartet - Oblongata (Rogue Art)
Diego Caicedo - Seis Amorfismos (Burning Ambulance)
Kate Gentile - Find Letter X (Pi Recordings)
Petra Hermanova - In Death’s Eyes (Unguarded)
Bridget Kibbey - Crossing the Ocean - compositions by Kinan Azmeh, Du Yun, Paquito d’Rivera, Avner Dorman, Kati Agócs, and David Bruce (Pentatone)
YuEun Kim, Mina Gajić, Coleman Itzkoff - Sonic Alchemy - compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Arvo Pärt, and Pēteris Vasks (Sono Luminus)
Alvin Lucier - Works for the Ever Present Orchestra, Vol. II (Black Truffle)
Mendoza Hoff Revels - Echolocation (AUM Fidelity)
Nicole Mitchell & Alexander Hawkins - At Earth School (Astral Spirits)
Billy Mohler - Ultraviolet (Contagious Music)
Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley - Polarity 2 (Burning Ambulance)
Aditya Prakash - Isolashun (New Amsterdam)
Paola Prestini & Sxip Shirey/Winter Miller - No One Is Forgotten - Kathleen Chalfant, Eve Gigliotti, Amelia Workman, Kearstin Piper Brown, Jeffrey Zeigler, Sxip Shirey (Dallas Opera/Emitha/Lexicon Classics)
Kory Reeder - Texas: Vol. IV (self-released)
Jason Roebke - Four Spheres (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Tani Tabbal Quartet - Intentional (Mahakala Music)
Maria Valencia - Compendio de Alofonías Abisales (Relative Pitch)
Upcoming releases.
October 15
DUOT & ZARM Ensemble - DUOT with Strings (Fundacja Słuchaj)
Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Mat Maneri/Fred Lonberg-Holm/Joe Morris/Matt Moran - Seven Skies Orchestra (Fundacja Słuchaj)
Unknown Shore with Carlos Zingaro & Helena Espvall - House of Memory (Fundacja Słuchaj)
October 20
Sylvie Courvoisier - Chimaera (Intakt)
Miha Gantar - Amsterdam (Clean Feed)
November 1
Eric Wubbels - If and Only If - Josh Modney, Mariel Roberts, Eric Wubbels (Carrier)
November 3
Kinetic Ensemble - Kinetic - compositions by Patrick Harlin, Paul Novak, Nicky Sohn, and Daniel Temkin (Bright Shiny Things)
November 10
David Bird - Wire Hums (Oxtail Recordings)
Yuhan Su - Liberated Gesture (Sunnyside)
November 17
J.R. Bohannon - J.R. Bohannon Plays Vince Guaraldi (Astral Spirits)
Drazek/Fuscaldo/Drake/Aoki/Jones/Abrams - June 22 (Astral Spirits)
Jules Reidy - Trances (Shelter Press)
December 15
Ambrose Akinmusire - Owl Song (Nonesuch)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.