Category: Releases

Source: Cuneiform Records.

CUNEIFORM RECORDS’ MAY 2024 RELEASE
SOFT MACHINE – HØVIKODDEN 1971
Limited edition, 4 album box set of two concerts in Norway from 1971, featuring Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge, & Robert Wyatt.

TOMEKA REID QUARTET – 3+3
3rd release by cellist, composer & MacArthur Fellow Tomeka Reid’s all-star Quartet with Jason Roebke, Tomas Fujiwara, & fellow MacArthur Fellow Mary Halvorson.

PRESENT – THIS IS NOT THE END
Belgian Chamber Rock/ Post Rock/ Post Classical/ RIO ensemble PRESENT release the album composer/ leader Roger Trigaux was completing at the time of his 2021 death.

JANEL & ANTHONY – NEW MOON IN THE EVIL AGE
DC’s premier duo of cellist Janel Leppin & guitarist Anthony Pirog release a double album.

JANEL LEPPIN’S ENSEMBLE VOLCANIC ASH – TO MARCH IS TO LOVE
Cellist/ composer/ bandleader Janel Leppin’s DC jazz group, Ensemble Volcanic Ash, release their 2nd album on Cuneiform.

Source: Clean Feed Records.

TE TI’AMĀ
Christelle Séry | Jérôme Descamps
Christelle Séry electric Guitar | Jérôme Descamps trombon

NEW YORK CITY (5CD BOX)
CD1 Miha Gantar Trio | Ultima
Miha Gantar piano | Eric McPherson drums | John Hébert double bass
CD2 Miha Gantar Quintet | Transitions
Miha Gantar piano | Doori Na violin | Sarah Thomas violin | Amy Huimei Tan viola | Irène Han cello
CD3 Miha Gantar Duo | Sanctuary
Zoh Amba tenor saxophone | Miha Gantar piano
CD4 Miha Gantar Trio – Angels
Miha Gantar piano | Kweku Sumbry drums and hand percussion | Jeremy Dutton drums
CD5 Miha Gantar Solo – Towards Purity
Miha Gantar piano

LOVELY MUSIC
Simon Nabatov Quartet feat. Ralph Alessi
Ralph Alessi trumpet | Sebastian Gille saxophones | Simon Nabatov piano | David Helm bass | Leif Berger drums

Source: Pi Recordings.

Kim Cass’ “Levs” feat. Matt Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey Out June 28th

Bassist Kim Cass is among a vanguard group of Brooklyn-based improvisors who are creating works at the leading-edge of rhythmic acuity. Levs, his debut with Pi Recordings, features pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, who called Cass “a singular composer and player: the man can do things that doesn’t seem possible on the bass, displaying a technical command of the instrument on the level of the most celebrated virtuosic performers in any genre of music.”

Coming Summer ’24 Matt Mitchell Trio Zealous Angels feat. Chris Tordini and Dan Weiss

Source: Hyperdelia.

splitter musik
Splitter Orchester

Hyperdelia is proud to present “splitter musik” – the first Splitter Orchester album solely consisting of the ensemble’s own music. Previous recordings have highlighted the orchestra’s vast genre-bending output in collaboration with George Lewis, The Pitch and Felix Kubin. This 3CD release aptly titled “splitter musik” showcases for the first time the orchestra’s very own musical process.

As a large scale improvising ensemble, Splitter Orchester has no central leader and is organised through direct democratic principles. Founded in 2010, Splitter is a unique collective of composer-performers with various backgrounds in the Echtzeitmusik, free improvisation and experimental music scenes in Berlin. Despite the long lasting collaboration and the mostly consistent line-up of musicians, the band maintains an incredible dynamism, continuously reinventing concert formats and composition processes. Collective and free improvisation involves risk-taking: Splitter’s endeavour of integrating up to 24 musicians takes this motto to heart. The result is a music characterised by an inherent possibility of failure.

All The Patterns Inside
Sun Kit

Hyperdelia is happy to present Sun Kit’s debut record All The Patterns Inside. Sun Kit is an experimental band, formed in Berlin. The band consists of Jules Reidy (guitar) and Andreas Dzialocha (bass) and fuses both artists’ singular sounds. Their debut album All the Patterns Inside is a moody and ecstatic ride that navigates distance and closeness, breaking and re-forming.

The record was produced completely self-sufficiently at home, the two sending each other recordings and sketches back and forth, mostly as direct input signals. These layered interactions gradually turned into songs which increasingly were abstracted through electronics, filterings, effects, autotune and a whole lot of distortion. As a result, the album holds song-like structures with vocals (such as the title track, “Vain” or “Red”), electronically powered hyper-ballads (as on “Springtime Rain” or “Tunnel Vision”) as well as more grainy tracks which highlight the band’s experimental side (“All In”, “Release”).

Source: Rune Grammofon.

Elephant9: Mythical River (LP/CD)

FIRE!: Testament (LP/CD)

Motorpsycho: Another Ugly EP (LP)

Motorpsycho: Mountain EP (LP)

Motorpsycho: Lobotomizer (LP)

Source: Cantaloupe Music.

Alex Weiser
in a dark blue night

David Lang
the little match girl passion

Rakhi Singh
Purnima

Kronos Quartet, Ghost Train Orchestra
Songs and Symphoniques: the Music of Moondog

Michael Gordon and Kronos Quartet
Campaign Songs

Source: Confront Recordings.

A Thousand Years To A Bristlecone Pine
Minimum Wage Immanence Unit

Amongst English Men
Mark Wastell

Parr’s Ditch
Tom Jackson / T.J. Borden

Vectorial Spaces
Andrew Lisle / Dirk Serries

At Sound 323
Derek Bailey / Simon H. Fell

Three months ago, Avant Music News partially sponsored the release of the In Darkness is Light (IDIL) Music Award for 2024. Twenty-six musicians from around the world submitted tracks of experimental/dark ambient music for inclusion on the album. The winning entries were provided with a modest stipend.*

We posted our thoughts on the album here. ConcreteWeb and Luminous Dash also reviewed the album. Once again, we express our gratitude to Eighth Tower Magazine, Raffaele Pezzella, the jury who evaluated the submissions, and of course the musicians.

I am proud to announce that we are discussing an IDIL 2025 project. We have not converged on the details yet but are throwing around ideas and have already secured more funding than this year’s effort. There is a great deal of enthusiasm for making these releases into a series.

Stay tuned for more as our discussions continue. In the mean time, listen to the album – I am biased here due to my involvement, but it is great!

-M

* To be clear, no one affiliated with Avant Music News including myself gains financially from the project. This is about giving back to a wonderful community of artists.