Best of 2021: Rock/Adjacent
G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! Godspeed You! Black Emperor Constellation Records As with their previous album Luciferan Towers, a published manifesto accompanied the release of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s seventh…
Best of 2021: New/Experimental Recordings
Best New/Experimental Recordings Trio IX and Exercises Christian Wolff Trio Accanto Nicholas Hodges, piano; Marcus Weiss, saxophone; Christian Dierstein, percussion Wergo CD Three String Quartets Christian Wolff Quatuor Bozzini New…
Best of 2021: ECM Recordings
Parker Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola György Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve Antonin Dvořák: String Quintet op. 97 ECM Records The Czech composer Antonin Dvořák (1844-1901) and Hungarian composer György…
Best of 2021: Recording of the Year
Number Pieces John Cage Apartment House Another Timbre 4XCD boxed set John Cage’s Number Pieces, late compositions (from 1987-1992) are given two designations, a number indicating the size of the…
Happy 80th Birthday Wadada Leo Smith!
Best of 2021 – Happy 80th Birthday Wadada Leo Smith! Wadada Leo Smith turns eighty today, and Sequenza 21 wishes him many more years of health, creative improvisation, and composing.…
Best of 2021 – Piano Music
William Byrd and John Bull The Visionaries of Piano Music Kit Armstrong, piano Deutsche Grammophon CD In The Visionaries of Piano Music, Kit Armstrong plays two of the greatest English…
Best of 2021: Holiday Music
Hodie Christus Natus Est Boston Camerata, Anne Azéma Harmonia Mundi CD A trio of female singers accompanied by hurdy gurdy, harp, rebec, and bells present a diverse program of medieval…
Best of 2021: BMOP plays Piston and Barber
Walter Piston: Concerto for Orchestra Variations on a Theme of Edward Burlingame Hill, Divertimento, Clarinet Concerto Michael Nosworthy, clarinet Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor BMOP/sound CD Samuel Barber:…
Best of 2021: Electronic
Supermundane John Thayer Self-released Far In Helado Negro 4AD Weightless (10 hour version) Signals Marconi Union Just Music Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Arthur King AKP Fast Idol Black Marble…
Best of 2021: Three Recordings Featuring Matthew Shipp (CD Review)
Codebreaker Matthew Shipp TAO Forms CD Village Mothership Whit Dickey, drums; William Parker, bass Matthew Shipp, piano; TAO Forms CD Procedural Language CD Live at SESC Blu-ray DVD Ivo Perelman,…