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, 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.
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.
It’s Bandcamp Friday again: you know the drill. Buy music on Bandcamp today and the company waives its share of the proceeds, meaning more money for artists and indie labels. That means it’s a great day to look for new recordings… but older ones, too—now’s the time to snap up At Iridium 2004, the Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane collection from Burning Ambulance Music. It’s also a great day to pre-order upcoming titles like Prisoner’s Cinema, the second album by Sarah Hennies and Tristan Kasten-Krause, and the debut release for Hennies’s new label, Best Hill… or like the previously unreleased Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979, a blistering Cecil Taylor Unit set just posted this morning by Black Editions. Phew.
Speaking of new releases…
You might recall reading back in June about the press bio I wrote for pianist and composer Sophia Vastek, who performs for the first time as Sova on her inspiring new release, Alight! That album is out today. Embrace an earful.
Across Breath, Voice, Silence is a new solo recital by saxophonist Ellery Eskelin on some version or other of the Hat Hut label, which has issued a lot of his best music over the years. Recorded live at the Zen Center of New York City in May, the record documents beautifully Eskelin’s exploration of commonalities between Zen practice and improvisation: “While different in appearance they are both a process of opening in which something is revealed,” he writes. No histrionics, no virtuosity for its own sake; just the palpably unhurried sound of spirit at work, ideas uncoiling in the moment. (The Hat Hut page is selling downloads exclusively; limited CD copies are available via Eskelin’s personal Bandcamp page.)
And one more: The Approach, Ep. 1–3, composed by Paul Pinto for the versatile vocal group Quince Ensemble, proves that the lessons Robert Ashley taught about language and music weren’t lost on Paul Pinto, a matchless Ashley interpreter who’s taking the late composer’s ideas in exciting, effective, and beautiful new directions. Like Ashley, Pinto can crack you up and freeze you in your tracks, and Quince delivers it all with style and ease. Were anyone inclined to engage me to curate the “Ashley and After” festival of my dreams*, you can bet this will be on the bill.
*This could be a real thing btw, hmu.
The list of great new records that slipped out during my extended radio silence includes one more for which I had the distinct pleasure of writing the official record-release bio: Fifteen, new on Nonesuch from Henry Threadgill, Vijay Iyer, and Dafnis Prieto, a triumvirate for the ages. • A week later, Threadgill dropped Cut You Where You Was, the first installment in five years for his long-running ensemble Zooid. • Marty Ehrlich delivered a stunning labor of love with OPEN AIR: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill, an epochal set on Out of Your Head. • Last but not least, Peace & Justice, new from drummer-composer John Hollenbeck, emerged from a 2021 commission for which Hollenbeck was to arrange Ukrainian music. War prevented that project from reaching fruition, but Hollenbeck, a committed activist, transplanted its seeds to a session with the excellent Big Band of the Hot Club de Portugal. The result, issued last month on Hollenbeck’s Flexatonic label, is passionate, sophisticated, and completely beguiling, and the band rises to the occasion gloriously. Even in a consistently distinguished discography, this is something special—not to be missed by anyone interested in contemporary composition, jazz or otherwise.
Lots more options below—shop hearty. This year’s remaining Bandcamp Fridays are on Oct. 2, Nov. 6, and Dec. 4.
Unrelated to Bandcamp, John Zorn has turned 73 this week, and Downtown Music Gallery in NYC is having a big sale to celebrate; check it out here.
New this week.
Blacks’ Myths - On a Row - Live at Sisters (self-released)
Earth Tongues (Joe Moffett, Dan Peck, Carlo Costa) - Phases (Neither/Nor)
Ellery Eskelin - Across Breath, Voice, Silence (Hat Hut)
Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin - Second Attempt (Libra)
Grayfolded (John Oswald) - Phil Zone - Angelica orchestrA/Domenico Caliri (Fony; preview of forthcoming i dischi di angelica release)
Fergus Kelly & John Tilbury - Sound as a Bell (Flung)
Frank London-Knox Chandler-Ben Stapp - Brass Medi(t)ations (Zoar)
Paul Lytton, Eddie Prévost, Nate Wooley, Seymour Wright - Parallels & Diagonals (Fataka; recorded 2014)
Payton MacDonald - Transients Vol. 1, 2, & 3 (Infrequent Seams)
Huw Morgan - the sound of the sea is the memory of all it has experienced (mainly slow organ music)
Phill Niblock - BLK+LND / K&L for KL (Sub Rosa)
Paul Pinto - The Approach, Ep. 1-3 - Quince Ensemble (Gold Bolus)
Kaija Saariaho - Saarikoski Songs; Vista; Three Preludes - Anu Komsi, Marzi Nyman, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo (Ondine)
Elliott Sharp - SyndaKit All-Guitars (Zoar)
Sova - Alight! (Hout)
asher tuil - duets for arpeggiators (self-released)
Upcoming releases.
September 11.
Ton de Leeuw - The Electronic Works (Moving Furniture; recorded 1956–82)
Carl Stone - Arthur Fischl Conducts the Music of Carl Stone (Unseen Worlds)
September 14.
Philip Corner - Passage Through: A Ritual (The Hotel; recorded 1990)
Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet - Sure Grand Out (RogueArt)
September 18.
billy gomberg - capacity (Florabelle)
Roy Kiyo - Figures (Discreet Archive)
mingbauset (Gerry Hemingway, Vera Baumann, Florestan Berset) - the whirling (Auricle)
NODO + Cecilia López - Despedida de la última máquina (Buh)
Patrick Shiroishi & Jason Nazary - here i am no i (We Jazz)
Katherine Young - BIOMES - Yarn/Wire, Olivia Block, Tim Daisy, Ben LaMar Gay, Brian Chase (Chaikin)
September 20.
Michael Pisaro-Liu - black, white, red, green, blue - Cristián Alvear (Ftarri Classical)
September 25.
Julia Biłat - Selva Oscura (Relative Pitch)
Arlen Hlusko – komorebi - compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Reena Esmail, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Allison Loggins-Hull, Sulkhan Tsintsadze, Paul V. Cortez, Domenico Gabrielli, Gabriel Kahane, Mark Summer, Frankie Carr, Dawn Avery, and Carter Brey (Tippet Rise)
Liths (Sarah Hennies, Willie B., Keir Neuringer) - Ascending the Depths (Dinzu Artefacts)
Camila Nebbia’s The Hanged One - Limbo (Relative Pitch)
Weston Olencki & Bascaille - The Mortgage Burn (Relative Pitch)
Jon Rose - Rosenberg Museum (Relative Pitch)
claire rousay & Martyna Basta - hotel room (Unsound)
Trio Imagination (David Virelles, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille) - Creative Inspirations (Pi Recordings)
María Valencia, Leonel Kaplan - Translúcidas Criaturas Pulsantes (Relative Pitch)
September 30.
Weston Olencki - when the great fires were lit on the other side of the ocean - TAK Ensemble (Sweet Wreath)
October 1.
David Dunn - The Great Liberation Through Hearing - Apartment House (Sawyer Editions)
Myra Hinrichs - Nonalith (Sawyer Editions)
Sam Longbottom - Sion Transcriptions (Sawyer Editions)
Ben Luca Robertson and Matt Sargent - Walk in Praise of All Metals (Sawyer Editions)
Ed Williams - Studies on Tonality (Sawyer Editions)
October 2.
Balourdet Quartet - Strange Machines - compositions by Paul Novak, George Antheil, Nicky Sohn, Karim Al-Zand, Nina C. Young, Kyle Brenn, Guillaume Dufay, and Isaac Smith (Phenotypic)
Satoko Fujii Orchestra Nagoya – Korekara (Libra)
Sarah Hennies & Tristan Kasten-Krause - Prisoner’s Cinema (Best Hill)
Huerta Ensamble - S∞S (Elevator Bath)
iiisa - tanto te he querido (Leaving)
miska lamberg – presage (Discreet Archive)
Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp - Duologues 7: Distillation (Squid Note)
October 9.
Missy Mazzoli/Royce Vavrek - The Listeners - Nicole Heaston, Kyle Ketelsen, Jasmine Habersham, Daniela Mack, Jonas Hacker, Zachary Nelson, John Moore, Joseph Lim, Lyric Opera of Chicago/Enrique Mazzola (Pentatone)
more eaze - valley and structure (Thrill Jockey)
William Parker - Waltz for Gregory (Centering)
Midori Takada & Jakob Bro - From Such a Blue Sky (Loveland Music)
October 12.
Sylvie Courvoisier - Amalthea (Pyroclastic)
October 16.
Devra Hoff - Baile as Baile (AUM Fidelity)
Mali Obomsawin - Automatic (Out of Your Head)
Jonah Parzen-Johnson & Lau Nau - Live in Italy (We Jazz)
Jessica Pavone - ...Is In the Air (Relative Pitch)
Poiesis Quartet - Surfacing - compositions by Brian Raphael Nabors, Kevin Lau, Sky Macklay, traditional/Max Ball, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (Bright Shiny Things)
Cecil Taylor Unit - Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979 (Black Editions)
October 23.
Bow and Arrow (Lea Bertucci & Michael Beharie) - Bow and Arrow (NNA Tapes)
Stephan Crump - Passerine (Out of Your Head)
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily - Calling Antonín (TAO Forms)
Eric Wubbels - Altarpiece H. af K. - Dana Jessen, Ben Roidl-Ward, Katherine Young (Kou)
October 30.
Kali Malone - Burning Song (Ideologic Organ)
November 6.
Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo – Kappa Ondo (Libra)
Matthew Shipp & William Parker - A Whole System Of (TAO Forms)
Matthew Shipp Duo With William Parker - Zo (ESP-Disk’; originally issued 1994)
Peter Knight & TL;DR - Phosphenes (Earshift Music)
November 13.
Amanda Gookin - Forward Music Project 3.0: fever dream - compositions by inti figgis-vizueta, Camila Agosto, Pamela Z, Seong Ae Kim, Sarah Hennies, and Jessie Montgomery (Bright Shiny Things)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.