On 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 upcoming release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon and other online record stores, social-media posts, and similar resources. Dates cited correspond to U.S. release of physical recordings where applicable, and are subject to change. These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to steve@nationalsawdust.org.

Turning Jewels into Water
L-R Val Jeanty, Ravish Momin
Photograph: Ed Marshall

Album of the week

Turning Jewels into Water
Map of Absences
(FPE Records)

Sometimes a jam session is just a jam session, a chance encounter among disparate music makers, possibly for one time only—and sometimes it amounts to quite a lot more. Turning Jewels into Water is a definitive instance of the latter circumstance, to judge by Map of Absences, the project’s newly issued LP, and Which Way Is Home?, the EP that preceded it. The New York duo’s members, Val Jeanty (also know as Val-INC.) and Ravish Momin, first connected when Momin’s previous outfit, the electro-acoustic group Tarana, was in residence at Pioneer Works in 2017. Their live work since, and the two records they’ve now created together, prove that they’re kindred spirits in manifold ways.

It makes a world of sense, actually, that these two might prove compatible and companionable. Both are among the more prominent composer-percussionists involved in creating new paths in the interstices between traditional rhythmic practices and beat-oriented electronic music. Both are well-established musical polyglots who move easily among various areas of musical endeavor (no way I’m going to use the term genre here). Both are deeply attuned to the function and feel of ritual, in both physical and metaphysical senses. And, as artists who came to New York City from elsewhere – Jeanty from Haiti, Momin from India – both are keenly aware of matters concerning immigrants, refugees, and communities both a part of and apart from larger populations.

All those points of similarity resonate throughout Map of Absences, a lean, taut collection of wiry beats, spacious echoes, and snatches of voices tugged out of their original contexts and set adrift in foreign terrains. It’s as important to remember, though, that for all their affinities, Jeanty and Momin also are very different and distinct artists, and that’s every bit as much a part of their successful collaboration. I won’t pretend to know who’s doing what with 100 percent certainty: the video for standout track “Dark Waters Rushing In” proves that Jeanty handles plenty of the percussive effects, while Momin does a lot more than just keep time. But here and throughout Map of Absences, Jeanty’s self-proclaimed affinity for abstraction and mysticism melds beautifully with Momin’s lithe, propulsive rhythmic constructions.

Somehow, this skeletal, spirit-filled music is danceable, too; the video for “Dark Waters Rushing In” makes that much clear. Me, I was perfectly content to dance inside my head, soaking up this futuristic cyberpunk ritual music fashioned by heads, hands, and hearts well versed in ancient traditions, and devoted to its global migration and mutation. Brainy and seductive, this music honors tradition, while emphasizing transition and transmission.

Turning Jewels into Water performs at Areté Venue & Gallery on March 22 at 9pm; aretevenue.com

One last note: Illness prevented me from publishing “On the Record” last Friday, March 8—and I apologize for the omission. Please, remember to support recordings that were issued last week (some of which were listed here), including the fantastic new albums by Caleb Burhans (Past Lives) and Vanessa Rossetto (you & i are earth) that would have vied mightily for “Album of the week” designation.

Donnacha Dennehy
Photograph: Britt Olsen-Ecker

New This Week

☆ Samantha Boshnack’s Seismic Belt – Live in Santa Monica (Orenda)
Donnacha Dennehy – The Last Hotel – Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams, Katherine Manley, Mikel Murfi, Crash Ensemble/Alan Pierson (Cantaloupe Music)
☆ Kevin Drumm – Christ! (self-released)
☆ David Fennessy – Panopticon – performances by Psappha, Hebrides Ensemble, Ensemble Modern/Johannes Kalitzke; Munich Chamber Orchestra (NMC Recordings)
☆ Jason Lescalleet – This Is What I Do, Vol. 21 (Glistening Examples)
David Liptak – Dove Songs – compositions by Matthew Shlomowitz, Cara Haxo, Eric Wubbels, Theresa Wong, Sky Macklay, and Yannis Kyriakides (New Focus)
☆ Jim O’Rourke – Steamroom 44 (Steamroom)
Nick Sanders – Playtime 2050 (Sunnyside)
Splinter Reeds – Hypothetical Islands – performances by Tony Arnold, Alison D’Amato, Dieter Hennings, Steven Doane, Renee Jolles, Margaret Kampmeier, and Barry Snyder (New Focus)
Turning Jewels into Water – Map of Absences (FPE Records)

Coming Soon

(☆ – newly listed this week)

March 18

David First –  Same Animal, Different Cages Vol. 4: Sitar Music of North Brooklyn (Fabrica)
Aries Mond – Cut Off (IIKKI)

March 20

Polyorchard – Black Mountain (Out & Gone)
Polyorchard – Sommian (Out & Gone)

March 22

Beat Circus – These Wicked Things (Innova)
June Chikuma – Les Archives (Freedom to Spend)
Helen Grime – Woven Space – London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle (LSOLive)
William Hooker – Cycle of Restoration (FPE Records)
Louis Karchin – Dark Mountains/Distant Lights – performances by Miranda Cuckson, Steven Beck, and Jacqueline Leclair (New Focus)
Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan – New Rain Duets (Three Lobed)
Tobias Meinhart – Berlin People (Sunnyside)
Charles Rumback with Jim Baker, James Singleton & Greg Ward – Cadillac Turns (Astral Spirits)
Typical Sisters – Hungry Ghost (Outside in Music)

March 29

Fennesz – Agora (Touch)
Henryk Górecki – Symphony No. 3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) – Beth Gibbons, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Krzysztof Penderecki (Domino)
Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones – From Untruth (Northern Spy)
Dustin Laurenzi – Snaketime: The Music of Moondog (Astral Spirits/Feeding Tube)
☆ Joshua Redman Quartet – Come What May (Nonesuch)
Logan Strosahl Spec Ops – Sure (Sunnyside)
Third Coast Percussion – Perpetulum – compositions by Philip Glass, Gavin Bryars, David Skidmore, Peter Martin, and Robert Dillon (Orange Mountain Music)

April 1

Anthony Pateras – Collected Works Vol. II (2005-2018) (Immediata)
Pateras/Baxter/Brown – Bern · Melbourne · Milan (Immediata)

April 5

Michaël Attias – èchos la nuit (Out of Your Head)
Alejandro Coello – Percussion Theory (Sunnyside)
Anat Fort Trio – Colour (Sunnyside)
☆ Instruments of Happiness – The Happiness Handbook (Starkland)
Visible Cloaks, Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano – FRKWYS Vol. 15: serenitatem (RVNGIntl.)

April 12

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society– Mandatory Reality (eremite)
Luc Ferrari – Music Promenade/Unheimlich Schön (Recollection GRM)
Régis Renouard Larivière – Contrée (Recollection GRM)
Ben Monder – Day After Day (Sunnyside)
☆ Alex Weiser – and all the days were purple – performances by Eliza Bagg, Lee Dionne, Maya Bennardo, Hannah Levinson, Hannah Collins, and Mike Compitello (Cantaloupe Music)

April 19

Caroline Shaw – Orange – Attacca Quartet (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)

April 26

Laura Cannell – THE SKY UNTUNED (Brawl)

May 3

Kyle Bobby Dunn – From Here to Eternity (Past Inside the Present)
Qasim Naqvi – Teenages (Erased Tapes)

May 10

Tim Hecker – Anoyo (Kranky)
☆ Holly Herndon – PROTO (RVNGIntl.)
☆ Craig Leon – Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon (RVNGIntl.)

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