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. (Links to Amazon, where used, do not imply endorsement.)

These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to steve@nationalsawdust.org.

Decca Gold catches Fire

On Friday afternoon, Universal Music Classics U.S. made a most unexpected, greatly exciting announcement: Decca Gold, the current label home of the New York Philharmonic, is set to release a recording of Fire in My Mouth, a contemporary oratorio composed by Julia Wolfe. The recording, made during the work’s world-premiere performances in January, features the orchestra as conducted by music director Jaap van Zweden, joined by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and the contemporary vocal ensemble The Crossing.

From the press release:

Fire in my mouth was premiered as part of “New York Stories: Threads of Our City,” the Philharmonic’s two-week examination of New York City’s roots as a city of immigrants. The work is a reflection on the New York garment industry at the turn of the 20th century through a focus on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrants. The title refers not only to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, but also to Ukrainian immigrant and labor activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson, who, when looking back on her radical youth, said, “Ah, then I had fire in my mouth.” The music evokes the roar of hundreds of sewing machines and the language of protest to recreate the world of women working in New York garment factories in the early 20th century, the majority of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrants.

The album is the fifth released by the New York Philharmonic via Decca Gold, and the first to emphasize a contemporary piece. (Earlier releases offered works by Beethoven, Debussy, and Stravinsky, a gala concert with Audra McDonald, and a compilation showcasing Philharmonic members as soloists.) As such, it’s a welcome departure for the orchestra, and a release more in keeping with the label’s previously announced recording of p r i s m, a Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins, which Decca Gold will release digitally on Friday, August 23, in a recording by the original cast and ensemble. Two selections from that recording are available for streaming already, “Lost in the Blue” (from Act I) and “Run” (from Act III).

No audio from Fire in my mouth has been posted yet, but the recording can be pre-ordered now on Amazon.

Jamie Drouin at Café Oto
Photograph: MUTEK

New This Week

☆ Ryan Carter – Chamber Works – performances by JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Calder Quartet, Emanuele Torquati, Duo Dillon-Torquati, and Keith Kirchoff (Kairos)
☆ Andrew Conklin – Field Reports (New Focus)
☆ Jamie Drouin – Ridge (Infrequency Editions)
☆ Jon Gibson – Violet Fire: an opera about Nikola Tesla – Katie Geissinger, Marie Mascari, Solange Merdinian, Scott Murphree, Greg Purnhagen, Peter Stewart, Violet Fire Orchestra/Mick Rossi (Orange Mountain Music)
☆ Evan Parker/Matthew Wright – Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf (Intakt)
☆ Nathan Schram – Oak & the Ghost – performances by Nathan Schram, Aya Nishina, Becca Stevens, Attacca Quartet (New Amsterdam Windmill Series; general release Nov. 15, 2019)
☆ Andrew Waggoner – Quantum Memoir: Concertos for Violin, Piano, and Guitar – Michael Lim, Gloria Cheng, Kenneth Meyer, Seattle Modern Orchestra/Julia Tal (Bridge)
☆ Keith Fullerton Whitman – STS (self-released)

Coming Soon

(☆ – newly listed this week)

August 23

☆ The Crossing – Voyages – compositions by Benjamin C.S. Boyle and Robert Convery (Innova)
☆ Fred Frith – Woodwork / Live at Ateliers Claus (Klanggalerie)
☆ Hugar – Varða (Sony Music Masterworks)
☆ Jimmy López Bellido – Symphonic Canvas – Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra/Miguel Harth-Bedoya (MSR Classics)
☆ Alexander Noice – NOICE (Orenda)
☆ Ellen Reid –  p r i s m – Anna Schubert, Rebecca Jo Loeb, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Novus NY/Julian Wachner (Decca Gold)
☆ Sirius Quartet – New World – compositions by Gregor Huebner, Fung Chern Hwei, Jeremy Harman, and others (Zoho)
☆ John Zorn – Encomia – performances by Stephen Gosling and Chris Otto (Tzadik)

August 30

☆ Philip Glass – Symphony No. 5 (“Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya”) – Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Trinity Youth Chorus, Novus NY/Julian Wachner (Orange Mountain Music)
☆ Nathalie Joachim –  Fanm d’Ayiti – Nathalie Joachim, Spektral Quartet (New Amsterdam)
☆ Kid Millions & Sarah Bernstein – Broken Fall (577 Records)
☆ Michael Leonhart Orchestra – Suite Extracts Vol. 1 (Sunnyside)
☆ Julia Wolfe –  Fire in my mouth – The Crossing, Young People’s Chorus of New York City, New York Philharmonic/Jaap van Zweden (Decca Gold)

September 6

☆ Enrico Rava/Joe Lovano – Roma (ECM)

September 12

☆ Philip Thomas – Morton Feldman Piano (Another Timbre)

September 13

☆ François J. Bonnet & Stephen O’Malley – Cylene (Editions Mego)
☆ Ben Melsky – Ben Melsky/Ensemble Dal Niente – compositions by Tomás Gueglio, Alican Camçı, Frederick Gifford, Wang Lu, Igor Santos, and Eliza Brown (New Focus)
☆ Various artists – Strain Crack & Break: Music From The Nurse With Wound List Volume One (France) (Finders Keepers)

September 20

☆ Taylor Ho Bynum 9-tette – The Ambiguity Manifesto (Firehouse 12)
☆ Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell – Common Practice (ECM)
☆ Grey Mcmurray– Stay Up (figureight)
☆ Louis Sclavis Quartet – Characters on a Wall (ECM)
☆ John Zorn – The Hermetic Organ, Vol. 7: St. John the Divine (Tzadik)

September 27

☆ andPlay – playlist – compositions by Ashkhan Behzadi, David Bird, and Clara Iannotta (New Focus)
☆ Ashley Bathgate –  ASH – compositions by Andrew Norman, Christopher Cerrone, Timo Andres, Jacob Cooper, Ted Hearne, and Robert Honstein (New Amsterdam)
☆ David Bowlin – Bird As Prophet – compositions by Mario Davidovsky, Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin, Martin Bresnick, George Walker, and Du Yun (New Focus)
☆ Caroline Davis & Rob Clearfield’s Persona – Anthems (Sunnyside)
☆ Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos – Cristal (Sunnyside)

October 4

☆ Binary Canary –  iterative systems (Carrier)
☆ Kris Davis – Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic)
☆ J. Pavone String Ensemble – Brick and Mortar (Birdwatcher)
☆ Michael Vincent Waller – Moments – performances by R. Andrew Lee and William Winant (Unseen Worlds)

October 11

☆ Ernest Hood –  Neighborhoods (Freedom to Spend; reissue of 1975 Thistlefield release)

October 15

☆ Cassandra Miller – Bel Canto; Traveller Song; Tracery: Hardanger; Tracery: Lazy, Rocking – Juliet Fraser, Plus-Minus Ensemble (all that dust)
☆ Tim Parkinson – piano music 2015-16 – Mark Knoop (all that dust)
☆ Georgia Rodgers – A to B; Late lines – Serge Vuille, Séverine Ballon (all that dust)
☆ Karlheinz Stockhausen – Kontakte – George Barton, Siwan Rhys (all that dust)

October 18

☆ Matana Roberts –  Coin Coin Chapter 4: Memphis (Constellation)

October 25

☆ Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich – a tangle of stars (New Amsterdam)

November 12

☆ Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash & Tony Orrell – BleySchool (577 Records)