Here are the new releases I've been checking out since the start of April - mostly albums with the odd EP. Hat tips, as ever, to John Kieffer's Sound Unbound, Ted Gioia, Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone on BBC 6Music, Radio 3's New Music Show and Record Review, Frank Hopkins and Boomkat. I've included links to Spotify or Bandcamp, label information and short, occasionally somewhat subjective descriptions.
Sam Amidon
Salt River (River Lea)
Folk music from the future
Amosphère
Cosmogonical Ears (Hallow Ground)
Slowly evolving sonic meditations from the Paris-based composer and multi-disciplinary artist
John Barber
Rivers, perf. Sarah Latto/ Fourth Window (Signum Classics)
Elegant choral settings of poems from Robert Herrick to Emily Dickinson
Bon Iver
SABLE, fABLE (Jagjaguwar)
Neo-folk meets neo-soul
Anouar Brahem
After the Last Sky (ECM)
Graceful chamber pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass
Benjamin Britten
Sinfonia da Requiem/Winter Songs/Prince of the Pagodas, perf. LPO/Gardner (LPO)
Exuberant symphonic Britten performances
Helen Charlston
If the Fates Allow - Music by Purcell & his Contemporaries (BIS)
Stunning songs from the English Baroque
Djrum
Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth)
Minimalist piano improvisation + spellbinding electronics
Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe
Lateral (Decca)
Blissful, super-minimal ambient collaboration
Jürg Frey
Voices, perf. Exaudi Vocal Ensemble (Neu)
Contemporary choral composition.
Gaiko
Gaiko (Nous'klaer Audio)
Debut album by a young Belgian-Japanese producer
Gazelle Twin
Black Cab (Invada)
Soundtrack to Bruce Goodison's horror film
Lukas Geniušas & Anna Geniushene
Hallelujah Junction: Adams, Stravinsky, Gershwin and Copland (Alpha)
20th Century American music for two pianos
Ghazi & Boom.Diwan x Arturo O'Farrill
Live in the Khaleej!
Kuwaiti pearl diving work songs go jazz!
Mary Halvorson
About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
Cutting-edge jazz guitar
Barbara Hannigan/Katia Labèque/Marielle Labèque/David Chalmin
Electric Fields (Alpha)
Music for soprano, piano and electronics
Toby Hay
New Music for the 6 String Guitar (The state51 Conspiracy)
Beutiful solo acoustic guitar work
Arve Henriksen/Trygve Seim/Anders Jormin/Markku Ounaskari
Arcanum (ECM)
Folk-jazz-improv supergroup!
Hiromi's Sonicwonder
OUT THERE (Concord/Telarc)
Shamelessly virtuosic 21st century jazz fusion
Toshio Hosokawa
Futari Shizuka - The Maiden from the Sea (Naxos)
Contemporary Japanese single-act opera
Keith Jarrett
New Vienna (ECM)
The piano master returns with a series of challenging solo improvisations
Guillaume de Machaut
A Lover's Death, perf. Orlando Consort (Hyperion)
The final instalment of the Orlandos' Machaut’s complete songs
Mazenta Z
Doubt thou the stars are fire (Bandcamp)
Exquisite guitar and electronics improvisations
Pan-American & Michael Grigoni
New World, Lonely Ride (Kranky)
Exquisite pedal steel, guitar and electronic soundscapes
Stephano Pilia
LACINIA (Die Shachtel)
Sacred minimalism and chamber drone
Lucy Railton
Blue Veil (Ideologic Organ)
Stunning cello drone recorded in the Église du Saint-Esprit church in Paris
Timothy Ridout
Telemann-Bach-Britten-Shaw (Harmonia Mundi)
Solo viola works, ancient and modern
Robert Schumann
Twilight Schumann Songs, perf. Ian Bostridge & Saskia Giorgini (Pentatone)
Liede perfection
Tenebrae, Nigel Short
A Prayer for Deliverance (Signum)
Modern and post-modern choral works
These New Puritans
Crooked Wing (Domino)
Ethereal but urgent post-rock
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Aeris (ECM)
The tenth symphony from the Estonian composer
Alex Ventling & Kim Paterson
Conversations (Thick Recoreds NZ)
Intimate electric piano and flugelhorn jazz
Yo La Tengo
Old Joy (Mississippi)
Soundtrack to a 2006 film by Kelly Reichardt
Comments