For the Record: Sept. 15, 2023.
An Album of the Week from a sorely missed artist, must-hear LPs by Cassandra Miller and Piotr Kurek, and 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.
Album of the week.
John Luther Adams
Darkness and Scattered Light
Robert Black
(Cold Blue; CD, DL)
Among the many strong releases arriving this week, nothing compares with Darkness and Scattered Light in terms of sheer unadulterated beauty. The album, the latest in a series of discs from composer John Luther Adams on the Cold Blue label, is devoted to compositions for double bass: two unaccompanied solo pieces, and one quintet, all played by longtime close collaborator Robert Black.
These patient reveries and and airy dances, suffused with luminescence and shadow, could only have been created by Adams. The music is ethereal and visceral at once, and Black is responsive to every challenge and nuance.
What results is sublime: a tribute to the composer’s sustained vision, and a resonant, reverent homage to Black, a pillar of the new-music community, who we lost in June.
Bonus tracks.
There’s so much excellent music deserving recognition this week, including a vibrant, unpredictable meeting of sound artists Moniek Darge and Vanessa Rossetto, compositions of arresting vision and vitality from Ingrid Laubrock and Steve Lehman, and the first-ever piano-bass-drums session from Anthony Davis. Traveller Song/Thanksong, the first vinyl LP from London-based Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, is self-recommending, but I’m recommending it anyway: extraordinary.
The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp lives up to its title, as ideal a Matthew Shipp solo session as anyone could wish for. The new albums by Nick Norton and Pathos Trio are inventive and beguiling. I look forward to spending more time with the new album by JACK Quartet violinist Austin Wulliman, the first devoted to his own compositions. (And though it strays from this epistle’s customary path, the new Tomb Mold LP is ridiculously good.)
But I can’t fire off this newsletter without urging anyone and everyone to explore Smartwoods, the new Unsound release by Polish composer and multi-instrumentalist Piotr Kurek. Joined by a harpist, a woodwind player, and a bassist, Kurek plays keyboards, electronic wind controller, and guitar in a set of seven succinct instrumental tracks that shimmer and twirl like glistening mobiles. Bucolic and whimsical, these compositions charm instantly, while also revealing more fine detail every time you return to them. Simply irresistible.
Also recommended: Stephanie Ann Boyd’s interview with flutist Brandon Patrick George, whose new album Twofold is out today on In a Circle, published this week by the lovely folks at I Care If You Listen.
Correction, Sept. 15, 5pm: The Moniek Darge/Vanessa Rossetto album is officially out next Friday, Sept. 22.
Playlist (One moment just passes through).
The latest tally of memorable things that got stuck in my ears includes:
a gorgeous new album by harpist Mary Lattimore and a handful of simpatico guests, out next month on Ghostly International…
the newest project from saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Anna Webber, exploring just intonation in a creative-music context, on Intakt…
the new album by progressive-pop savant Steven Wilson, due later this month from Virgin…
and the first new recording in far too long from Scottish improviser and sound artist Brian Lavelle.
Details here.
New this week.
John Luther Adams - Darkness and Scattered Light - Robert Black (Cold Blue)
Félicia Atkinson - Ni envers ni endroit que cette roche brûlante (Pour Georgia O’Keeffe) (Portraits GRM)
Lucio Capece - Bass Clarinet and Room Amplification Solo-KM28 (self-released)
Kate Carr - making do with a kitchen in the cellar of a crumbling mansion (self-released)
Richard Chartier - Recurrence.Expansion (Portraits GRM)
Moniek Darge/Vanessa Rossetto - Dream Soundies (Erstwhile)
Anthony Davis/Kyle Motl/Kjell Nordeson - Vertical Motion (Astral Spirits)
DDK Trio (Jacques Demierre/Axel Dörner/Jonas Kocher) - A Right to Silence (Meenna)
Justin Dello Joio - Oceans Apart - performances by Garrick Ohlsson with the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Alan Gilbert, Carter Brey & Christopher O'Riley, and the American Brass Quintet with Colin Fowler (Bridge)
Ensemble Nikel - Radio Works - compositions by Sylvain Marty, Didem Coşkunseven, Huihui Cheng, and Matthew Shlomowitz & Jennifer Walshe (self-released)
Sandy Ewen - Solo (Scatter Archive)
Tomas Fujiwara - Pith (Out of Your Head)
Brandon Patrick George - Twofold - compositions by C.P.E. Bach, Saad Haddad, Reena Esmail, Shawn Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Claude Debussy, and Tōru Takemitsu (In a Circle)
Atte Elias Kantonen - a path with a name (Students of Decay)
Louis Karchin - Keyboards/Winds - performances by Marrianne Gythfeldt, Stephen Drury, Michael Stephen Brown, Han Chen, Carson Cooman, and Windscape (Bridge)
Ryosuke Kiyasu - Dig Up Roots (Notice Recordings)
Piotr Kurek - Smartwoods (Unsound)
David Lang - man made - Sō Percussion, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Louis Langrée (Apple Music)
Ingrid Laubrock with Jon Irabagon, Zeena Parkins and Tom Rainey - Monochromes (Intakt)
Brian Lavelle - Wavecrash One (self-released)
Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz - Ex Machina (Pi Recordings)
Cassandra Miller - Traveller Song/Thanksong - performances by Cassandra Miller, Plus-Minus Ensemble, Juliet Fraser, and Quatuor Bozzini (Black Truffle)
Eric Nathan - Some Favored Nook - Tony Arnold, William Sharp, Seth Knopp (New Focus)
Angelika Niescier - Tomeka Reid - Savannah Harris - Beyond Dragons (Intakt)
Nick Norton - Music for Sunsets (people places records)
Aki Onda - Transmissions from the Radio Midnight (Dinzu Artefacts)
Pathos Trio - Polarity - compositions by Ian Chang, Phong Tran, Andrew M. Rodriguez, Vicente Hansen Atria, Paul Mortilla, and Clara Warnaar (Imaginary Animals)
Tobias Picker/Aryeh Lev Stollman - Awakenings - Jarrett Porter, Adrienne Danrich, Joyce El-Khoury, Andrew Morstein, Katharine Goeldner, César Delgado, Odyssey Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose (BMOPsound)
Kory Reeder - Texas: Vol. III - performances by Kory Reeder, Joseph Reding, Nico Clark,
Christopher Rouse - Symphony No. 6 - Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Louis Langrée (Apple Music)
Matthew Shipp - The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp (Mahakala Music)
Stella Silbert/Nat Baldwin - 01.30.22 (Notice Recordings)
SLUGish Ensemble - In Solitude (Slow & Steady)
Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis - Calibrating Friction (New Amsterdam)
Telescoping - Grey Matter Community Center (self-released)
Austin Wulliman - The News from Utopia - Austin Wulliman, Jay Campbell (Bright Shiny Things)
John Zorn - Homenaje a Remedios Varo (Tzadik)
Upcoming releases.
September 21
AF Jones and Andrew Weathers - Stewburner (Gertrude Tapes)
October 6
Thomas Larcher - The Living Mountain - performances by Sarah Aristidou, Alisa Weilerstein, Aaron Pilsan, Luka Juhart, Andrè Schuen, Daniel Heide, and Münchner Kammerorchester/Clemens Schuldt (ECM New Series)
October 13
Bridget Kibbey - Crossing the Ocean - compositions by Kinan Azmeh, Du Yun, Paquito d’Rivera, Avner Dorman, Kati Agócs, and David Bruce (Pentatone)
October 20
Sybarite5 - Collective Wisdom - compositions by Curtis Stewart, Jessica Meyer, Pedro Giraudo, Jackson Greenberg, Michael Gilbertson, Komitas, and Punch Brothers (Bright Shiny Things)
October 24
Ian Power - Ave Maria: Variations on a Theme by Giacinto Scelsi - Anne Rainwater (Carrier)
October 27
Siavash Amini - eremos (American Dreams)
Jasper String Quartet - Insects & Machines – String Quartets of Vivian Fung (Sono Luminus)
Ruiqi Wang - Subduing the Silence (Orchard of Pomegranates)
November 3
Joe Santa Maria - Echo Deep (Orenda)
Eric Moe - Strenuous Pleasures - performances by David Russell, Elliott Riley, counter)induction, Da Capo Chamber Players, and Horszowski Trio (New Focus)
November 10
Bruce Brubaker - Eno Piano (InFiné)
David Shapiro - Sumptuous Planet - The Crossing/Donald Nally (New Focus)
Patrick Shiroishi - I was too young to hear silence (American Dreams)
Christopher Whyte - Cold Stability - compositions by Christopher Whyte, Toshio Hosokawa, Sarah Hennies, and Lou Harrison (New Focus)
November 17
Kate Carr - A Field Guide to Phantasmic Birds (Room40)
Loren Stillman - Time and Again (Sunnyside)
December 8
Joseph Branciforte & Theo Bleckmann - LP2 (greyfade)
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.