Cuneiform Records SEPTEMBER 2024 Newsletter

CUNEIFORM RECORDS SEPTEMBER 2024 NEWSLETTER:             New Releases & Concerts read this newsletter online – on laptop/computer:  navigate via colored links,  or scroll down – on mobile: scroll down, or read online if images don't open ~~~~~~ CUNEIFORM RECORDS' SEPTEMBER 2024 RELEASE THUMBSCREW  – WINGBEATS JAZZ Eighth album by US jazz supergroup Thumbscrew, featuring Tomas Fujiwara - drums & vibraphone, Michael Formanek - bass, Mary Halvorson - guitar [USA] – Additional releases by Thumbscrew on Cuneiform Records ~~~~~ OUT NOW!  RELEASED AUGUST 2024 MOTHER MALLARD'S PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO. / DAVID BORDEN  – MAKE WAY FOR MOTHER MALLARD: 50 YEARS OF MUSIC ELECTRONIC / CLASSICAL MINIMALISM Two discs of previously unreleased music - one from 1970s, one from 2010s - by electronic music pioneer/ classical minimalist composer David Borden and his band, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co., the world's first all synthesizer ensemble [USA] – Make Way for Mother Mallard: credits & Bandcamp pre-order – Additional releases by David Borden, his various Mother Mallard ensembles and his son Gabe on Cuneiform ~~~~~ OUT NOW!  RELEASED JULY 2024 YANG – REJOICE!  ROCK / PROGRESSIVE ROCK French guitarist / composer Frédéric L'Epée and his quartet Yang release a new guitar-intensive rock album on Cuneiform with vocals by special guest Carla Kihlstedt of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum [FRANCE] – Additional releases by L'Epée's Yang & Philharmonie ensembles on Cuneiform ~~~~~ SNEAK PEEK with SOUNDS:  COMING OUT OCTOBER 2024 ELECTRONIC / AMBIENT / ROCK RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL – GALACTIC FURNACE New double album by the longstanding and highly prolific UK electronic trio Radio Massacre International [UK] ~~~~~   MORE SNEAK PEEKS COMING OUT LATER IN 2024 & 2025 A LIST OF UPCOMING JAZZ , ROCK, & EXPERIMENTAL/ ELECTRONIC RELEASES ~~~~~ CUNEIFORM ARTISTS ON TOUR: LIVE CONCERTS & TOURS   ~~~~~ ENJOY A WORLD OF MUSICAL ADVENTURE with  CUNEIFORM RECORDS ONLINE:   • EXPLORE Cuneiform Records'  SOCIAL MEDIA //  BANDCAMP PAGE // YOUTUBE CHANNEL //  SOUNDCLOUD PAGE ~~~~~ • Purchase music from 100s of labels at WAYSIDE MUSIC, our sister store, estab.1980 ~~~~~ • Missed seeing a CUNEIFORM NEWSLETTER? Access prior issues at cuneiformrecord.blogspot.com/   ~~~~~   2024 IS CUNEIFORM RECORDS' 40TH  ANNIVERSARY! "Truly this is one of the most challenging yet rewarding catalogs ever known. Long live Cuneiform."– QoBuz    "The Cuneiform catalog is rich: a long string of revelatory releases..."                                                                                                                                                                        – Jim Allan, Rock & Roll Globe FOUR DECADES in the biz: this IS an avant-music micro-business landmark.   Throughout our anniversary year, we're releasing at least one album of innovative, genre-defiant music each month, in both physical and digital formats, by rock, jazz, electronic and contemporary classical musicians from around the world. This month, SEPTEMBER 2024, we release the eighth album by American jazz supergroup Thumbscrew. Composed of bassist Michael Formanek, drummer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara, and guitarist Mary Halvorson – three of the most globally reknowned figures on the contemporary jazz scene – Thumbscrew is a collaborative ensemble whose recordings transcend the sum of their formidable parts. Cuneiform Records released their first, self-titled album – Thumbscrew – in January 2024, and is honored to have released all of their recordings since. We invite you to listen to a track from Wingbeats, Cuneiform's newest Thumbscrew release, and to explore other Thumbscrew albums that we released in the past. We thank our ARTISTS for entrusting us with their remarkable music. And we thank YOU, our listeners for your support; without you and our artists, our 40 years of releasing high quality new music into the world would not have been possible. A special thanks to the journalists who've covered Cuneiform Records' 40th Anniversary, including: – Jeff Laughlin, QoBuz Magazine, "40 Years of Cuneiform Records" – Jim Allan, Rock and Roll Globe, "Steve Feigenbaum on 40 Years of Cuneiform Records. An American institution of unconventional music has a big birthday" – Mike Borella, Avant Music News, "Cuneiform Records Overview" – Mario Calvitti, All About Jazz, "Una Gemma Soft Machine per il Quarantennale Cuneiform" /  "A Soft Machine Gem for the Forty-Year Anniversary of Cuneiform"                                                            ~~~~~                                                                    read this newsletter online return to top                                   COMING OUT                      SEPTEMBER 27, 2024                                       ON                     CUNEIFORM RECORDS:                                            THUMBSCREW                        WINGBEATS            Bio information: Thumbscrew Title: Wingbeats (Cuneiform Rune 520) Format: CD  / DIGITAL www.cuneiformrecords.com FILE UNDER: JAZZ                                Thumbscrew,          the All-Star Collective Trio featuring      Drummer / Vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara,                 Bassist Michael Formanek,               and Guitarist Mary Halvorson,             crafts more Musical Treasure at                         City of Asylum                                                   ~ ~ ~ ~               listen to / share "listen to/ share "Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk"                                                     from WINGBEATS by THUMBCREW              credits for "Orange Was the Color..":  Written by Charles Mingus. Performed by Tomas Fujiwara : drums and vibraphone //  Michael Formanek : double bass // Mary Halvorson : guitar                                                    ~ ~ ~ ~ Virginia Wolff was writing specifically about women when she observed that a room of one’s own is a crucial ingredient in the creative process, but it’s a truth universally acknowledged that artists of all stripes require their own space to thrive. The singular relationship between Thumbscrew and City of Asylum Pittsburgh vividly illustrates the creative synergy unleashed when collaborators share physical proximity for an extended period of time. Wingbeats is Thumbscrew’s eighth album and the latest to emerge from one of the trio’s three-week City of Asylum Pittsburgh residencies. It’s no exaggeration to say that the group’s productivity and sound is inextricably entwined with the grassroots program, with a purview that expanded from helping exiled writers resettle in the city to fostering a wide array of creative endeavors.   Featuring bassist Michael Formanek, drummer/vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara, and guitarist Mary Halvorson, Thumbscrew brings together three of jazz’s busiest and most acclaimed improvisers. City of Asylum has provided an oasis of concentrated time “and it’s such a luxury to develop this music in that environment,” says Halvorson. “We really have a flow with that, a system with how we work. We all arrive with our music fully or partially composed. From day one there are daily rehearsals, working through the material with the goal of recording. That’s been the process for all of the albums after the first one.”   From its inception, Thumbscrew possessed a singularly mobile, slippery sound. The repeated City of Asylum sequestrations have allowed the trio to deepen that elastic sense of time while honing new works with an attention to detail that would otherwise be unattainable. Knowing they’ll have concentrated time together “means there are zero limitations on what I write for the group,” Fujiwara says. “It takes out any voice in my head asking ‘Are we really going to get this? Is this asking too much?’” With each composer represented by three tunes, the album Wingbeats is a gorgeous, consistently enthralling dispatch from jazz’s creative frontier.     Wingbeats opens with Fujiwara’s title track, which juxtaposes melodic simplicity with metrical complexity as his orchestrated drum part moves through a series of rhythmic structures. It’s the kind of gravity-defying high-wire performance that has come to define the trio.   He dedicated “Irreverent Grace” to his mother (“Two words you wouldn’t connect but that are both very apropos to her,” he says), and the tune works backwards from Formanek’s solo into the balladic theme featuring Fujiwara’s bright, incantatory vibes work. “The two sections might sound unrelated, but there’s a connection, with the A section emerging from the B according to my own logic,” he says.   Halvorson’s “Greenish Tents” is a quietly mysterious theme built on precisely calibrated passages. Designed to showcase Fujiwara’s vibraphone, an instrumental addition that has reconfigured the band’s sonic palette in recent years, the piece features interplay so interwoven it can be hard to discern her chiming guitar notes from the vibes. In contrast to dense harmonies of “Greenish,” Halvorson’s “Singlet” is an unadorned rubato melody that wends along buoyed by Formanek’s counter line. A line sketch of a tune, parts of it feel like a round, with the trio shifting to a unison melody by the end.                   photo by Amy Touchette Working backwards from the conclusion, Formanek’s “How May I Inconvenience You” opens with a bass-driven passage that evolved out of the concluding section, with Fujiwara soloing over his partners’ interplay. They don’t make it sound easy. For his vibes-tune contribution, Formanek created “Somewhat Agree,” a stutter-stepping dance between Fujiwara and Halvorson with repeated harmonic and sonic collisions as they move into the same terrain.   “This is the second album where we’ve composed for the vibes,” Formanek says. “It’s been fun to see Tomas take that on, and he put in an incredible amount of work to make it a viable option. Even having an unusual take on a guitar trio, it’s still a guitar trio. With the vibes, it think about the Red Norvo Trio with Tal Farlow and Mingus. This is totally different, but we’re still working with those colors.” Best known as a vehicle for original compositions, Thumbscrew can deliver revelatory interpretations of tunes by a far-flung array of composers, from Anthony Braxton (on 2020’s The Anthony Braxton Project) to Benny Golson, Wayne Shorter, Jacob do Bandolim and Misha Mengelberg (on 2018’s Theirs). The Wingbeats album concludes with another masterful reinterpretation, Mingus’s “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” a tune they introduced to the repertoire for a centennial celebration of the legendary bassist/composer at Constellation in Chicago. A piece recorded by Mingus in a variety of settings, from its solo piano debut to the epic version by the Changes quintet, “Orange” is Thumbscrew’s take on this extremely complex but naturally flowing song form, a deftly shaded interpretation built on subtle shifts in tempo and rhythm and odd bar structures.   “It’s one that I’ve always loved,” Formanek says. “We didn’t bring some big arrangement idea. One thing I always liked about ‘Orange’ is the way it evolved in the course of his recordings, with each one reflecting what he was thinking about at that time.”          While Thumbscrew has become one of the primary vehicles for collaboration between three artists in perpetual motion, it’s hardly their only project. Halvorson and Fujiwara first started playing together in cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum’s Sextet in the mid-aughts and have performed and recorded widely in each other’s ensembles. Based in Brooklyn, Tomas Fujiwara has also earned renown as a composer and bandleader who performs and records with some of the most exciting musicians of the current generation. He’s been described by Point of Departure as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming.” He leads and composes for a number of ensembles, including Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double (with Halvorson, Taylor Ho Bynum, Ralph Alessi, Brandon Seabrook, and Gerald Cleaver), and Tomas Fujiwara’s 7 Poets Trio (with Patricia Brennan and Tomeka Reid), which released its eponymous debut in 2019 on the Rogue Art label, and a 2023 sophomore album, Pith, on Out of Your Head Records. Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up (with Halvorson, Jonathan Finlayson, and Brian Settles) released three albums on the 482 label, including Actionspeak (2010, with bassist Danton Boller), The Air Is Different (2012, with bassist Trevor Dunn), and After All Is Said (2015, with Formanek).   Fujiwara engages in a diversity of creative work with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Matana Roberts, Joe Morris, Nicole Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Tomeka Reid, Amir ElSaffar, Benoit Delbecq, and many others. In 2021, he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Drummer, and premiered two suites of new music as part of his Roulette Residency: “You Don’t Have to Try” (with Meshell Ndegeocello) and “Shizuko.” His most recent work is “Dream Up,” a suite for percussion quartet, commissioned by NYSCA and Roulette Intermedium, with an album release slated for early 2025.                    photo by Amy Touchette   Also based in Brooklyn, Mary Halvorson has been described by JazzTimes as “a singular talent,” and by the Wall Street Journal as “one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz—or otherwise.” In recent DownBeat Critics Polls Halvorson has been celebrated as Guitarist, Rising Star Jazz artist, and Rising Star Composer of the year, and in 2019 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. One of New York City’s most in-demand guitarists, Halvorson has worked with a dauntingly diverse array of musicians such as Tim Berne, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Dieterich, Trevor Dunn, Bill Frisell, Ingrid Laubrock, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey, Jessica Pavone, Tomeka Reid, Marc Ribot and John Zorn. She released a series of critically acclaimed albums on the Firehouse 12 label, including her acclaimed 2018 and 2020 albums with her band Code Girl, which features a rhythm section of Formanek and Fujiwara and a repertoire of songs with her original lyrics based around poetic forms. Recording for Nonesuch, she released two albums simultaneously in 2022, Amaryllis and Belladonna. The former features a new sextet with Fujiwara, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Nick Dunston, trombonist Jacob Garchik, and trumpeter Adam O’Farrill (augmented by the Mivos string quartet on the album’s second side). On Belladonna, Halvorson wrote solely for guitar and Mivos. Her latest album, 2024’s Cloudward, adds Laurie Anderson’s violin to the Amaryllis sextet. Halvorson and Fujiwara connected with Michael Formanek when he subbed in Bynum’s band in 2011, and the chemistry was so readily apparent they immediately started looking into performance opportunities as a trio. Born in San Francisco in 1958 and now based in Portugal, Formanek has been described as “a bold and unclassifiable bassist and composer,” while The New York Times notes that his music is always “graceful in its subversions, often even sumptuous.” Whether it’s for a small band or a large ensemble, he creates modern jazz that is earthy yet atmospheric, always alive with dark-hued melody and bone-deep rhythms, rich in dynamic possibility and the sound of surprise. Even with decades of experience to his credit – he got his start as a Bay Area teenager playing with the likes of Joe Henderson and Tony Williams – Formanek has made some of his keenest creative leaps in recent years, documented on a sequence of justly lauded recordings.    Formanek's three ECM albums as a leader each scored rare five-star reviews in DownBeat. These included two discs – Small Places (2012) and The Rub and Spare Change (2010) – featuring a powerhouse quartet with saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver; the third was a magnificent record – The Distance (2016) – that showcased his compositions for an all-star big band, playfully dubbed Ensemble Kolossus. Formanek recently launched his own label, Circular File Records, with Were We Where We Were by the Michael Formanek Drome Trio with Chet Doxas and Vinnie Sperrazza, though he’s also recording for other labels like Intakt, which will soon document the Splash Trio with pianist Myra Melford and Ches Smith on drums and vibes. Formanek has performed in myriad contexts over the decades, including with masters from Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz to Freddie Hubbard and Fred Hersch. Among his peers, the bassist has collaborated closely with Tim Berne, making a duo album with the saxophonist (Ornery People) and performing extensively in Berne’s iconic Bloodcount band in the ’90s. Formanek also released a solo LP – Am I Bothering You? – via Berne’s Screwgun label in 1998. Formanek’s early recordings as a leader included a string of quartet and septet releases for Enja from 1990 to 1996. As a sideman, he has recorded with Uri Caine, Dave Burrell, Jane Ira Bloom, Gary Thomas, Jack Walrath, Harold Danko, Lee Konitz, Freddie Redd, Art Pepper, Chet Baker and even Elvis Costello, along with appearing on albums by frequent partners such as Halvorson and Fujiwara, Berne, Tony Malaby, multi-reedist Marty Ehrlich, trumpeter Dave Ballou, saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, drummer Devin Gray and pianist Angelica Sanchez. From 2001 to 2018, Formanek taught jazz bass and jazz history and directed large and small ensembles at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He continues to teach, mainly giving workshops and masterclasses in universities and music schools worldwide.            Listen to / Pre-Order WINGBEATS  on Bandcamp pre-order CD or DIGITAL                                                                pre-order HD DIGITAL .        ALBUM CREDITS: Tomas Fujiwara – Drums and vibraphone Michael Formanek – Double Bass Mary Halvorson – Guitar Recorded September 21-22, 2023 and mixed December 15, 2023 by Aaron Nevezie at The Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY. Mastered April 4, 2024 by Nick Lloyd at Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT. Produced by Thumbscrew. composers: Thomas Fujiwara : 1, 4, 7 Mary Halvorson : 2, 5, 8 Michael Formanek : 3, 6, 9 Charles Mingus : 10                         ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ return to top PRIOR THUMBSCREW RELEASES ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS All titles available in both Digital (download & streaming) and CD formats. Most titles also available in HD/High Resolution Digital. Some titles also on Vinyl. photo by Brian Cohen MULTICOLORED MIDNIGHT                                                                                       NEVER IS ENOUGH                                              THE ANTHONY BRAXTON PROJECT     OURS                                                                      THEIRS .        .        CONVALLARIA                                                                THUMBSCREW return to top                                 !!OUT NOW!!                 MOTHER MALLARD'S                               PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO. /                      DAVID BORDEN                     MAKE WAY FOR MOTHER MALLARD:                  50 YEARS OF MUSIC                 RELEASED AUGUST 30, 2024                                        ON                        CUNEIFORM RECORDS                         Bio information: Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co./ David Borden Title: Make Way for Mother Mallard: 50 Years of Music (Cuneiform Rune 513 / 514) Format: CD  / DIGITAL www.cuneiformrecords.com FILE UNDER: ELECTRONIC / CLASSICAL MINIMALIST / POST CLASSICAL                 MOTHER MALLARD'S PORTABLE                                      MASTERPIECE CO.  – the World's First All Synthesizer Ensemble –            Wraps up 50 Years of Performing Works                          by its Founder,               the Composer, Keyboardist &                 Electronic Music Pioneer                        DAVID BORDEN,                     with a Two-Disc Set                                           Spotlighting Recordings made in       the Ensemble's Early and Recent Years    In a groundbreaking career spanning more than half a century, American composer and musician David Borden helped pave the way for electronic music – via both analogue synthesizers and digital instruments – to be integrated into New Music/ Creative/ Classical composition and live performance. In 1969, he founded the world's first synthesizer ensemble – Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. – in Bob Moog's Trumansburg studio, working with Moog's prototypes and analogue equipment, and he later founded (1987) and headed Cornell University's Digital Music Department, inspiring new generations with digital music via Apple desktop and laptop computers. Simultaneous with his work at Cornell, Borden was a prolific composer, creating countless classical, experimental and 'beyond genre' works often performed with his ensemble. His work includes one of the most important documents of American classical minimalism: The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, a 12-part cycle that Cuneiform Records released on three CDs between 1989-1991. This 2-disc Cuneiform Records release, Make Way for Mother Mallard: 50 Years of Music, features one disc of early (1970s) and one disc of recent (2019) Mother Mallard performances of several key Borden pieces.                                                    ~ ~ ~ ~                             listen to / share "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, Pt. 1" from                                       Make Way for Mother Mallard: Fifty Years of Music                               by  Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co./ David Borden                           Credits for "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, Pt. 1" :                  David Borden : RMI piano & Minimoog D                  David Yearsley : Roland Juno 60 & Minimoog D                   Blaise Bryski : Juno 106 & Moog Voyager                                                  ~ ~ ~ ~                                                               STEVE FEIGENBAUM, CUNEIFORM'S HEAD, REMINISCES ON WORKING WITH DAVID BORDEN AND HIS ENSEMBLE, MOTHER MALLARD'S PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO.: "David Borden and Cuneiform’s relationship go back to even before Cuneiform, as I was a partner in a short-lived record label called Atmosphere that was meant to focus on electronic music and managed to put out two releases (Darren Kearns and The Nightcrawlers) before calling it a day. If my long-term memory serves me correctly, David Borden’s Anatidae was scheduled as Atmosphere’s third release, but when that label folded and as I had recently established Cuneiform on my own, it became Cuneiform’s fourth release, coming out on vinyl in 1985.                                                     David Borden is a woefully under-valued pioneer of electronic music and a marvelous composer. We've been proud to work with him on numerous projects, including releasing his minimalist masterwork, The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, in Cuneiform's early years. Besides Borden's pioneering work in Bob Moog's Trumansburg studio, his establishing the world's first synthesizer ensemble, and his hugely important recordings, compositions and performances, Borden's remarkable accomplishments include founding and heading Cornell University’s Digital Music Program. He’s had a hugely active career and I’m personally thrilled to be able to work with Dave again on a release for Cuneiform Records' 40th year!"                                                                                      – Steve Feigenbaum, 2024               COMPOSER / MUSICIAN DAVID BORDEN REMINISCES ABOUT 50 YEARS OF MUSIC WITH HIS MOTHER MALLARD PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO. ENSEMBLES                                                                                            “I founded Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. in the spring of 1969. I was Composer-Pianist for Dance at Cornell University but I had also been working nights for two years at the Moog Company in Trumansburg trying to understand the synthesizer for making music and possibly to use in live performance.   At first I used Mother Mallard to perform new music at Cornell because no one else was doing it. Steve Drews was the first member of my band. He was a graduate student at Cornell earning a DMA in music composition. I had already introduced him to the modular Moog Synthesizer. He took to it very quickly, whereas I had taken a long time to master it. Shortly he quit his degree program and concentrated on making music with this new electronic instrument. I was 30 and he was 23.                                                                                                                      Steve Drews & David Borden Our first few concerts involved asking other musicians to help and gathering amplification and sound system gear, which was new at the time for classical music. Some of the composers we presented on these early concerts were Robert Ashley, Morton Feldman, Daniel Lentz, Jon Hassell, Terry Riley, John Cage, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and others. By 1970 Steve and I started performing with synthesizers while the MiniMoog was being invented. Bob Moog was an early supporter of the band and made sure we had the synthesizers we needed. We used the Model A Mini as well as a few portable modular models. It soon became obvious that we needed another keyboardist because all of the Moogs were monophonic (one could not play more than one note at a time, like a wind instrument.) We soon found Linda Fisher, a 21-year-old keyboardist with the Creative Act, an Ithaca rock group that composed much of its own music. Intrigued by the synthesizers, she decided to join our ensemble. She also brought her RMI Electra Piano with her, which was our only polyphonic instrument. Mother Mallard became a synthesizer ensemble playing our own compositions.                                                                       Steve Drews / David Borden / Linda Fisher “Although Bob’s synthesizers became very well known in 1968 due to Wendy Carlos’s LP Switched On Bach, and were also soon used by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, they were very expensive. Soon the MiniMoog started to make money for the company but too late to make as much money that was needed to keep the company afloat. So in the fall of 1971, Bob chose to sell his company to an entrepreneur rather than declare bankruptcy so that he could keep giving his customers technical support. Bob remained as the company’s inventor but he had to move to Buffalo, NY. It was at this time that Mother Mallard had to buy the synthesizers we used or give up the band. So the three of us invested in three modular Moogs, the MiniMoog A and a MiniMoog D. These, along with the RMI Electra Piano, gave us an instrument for each hand. The band was officially born after being together for three years.                                                              Judy Borsher / Steve Drews / David Borden This Moog Synthesizer band lasted until the summer of 1978 when we all decided it was time to move on. But during its first nine years, Mother Mallard gave many concerts and was managed by Performing Artservices. In 1975 Linda Fisher left the group to join David Tudor and the Composers Inside Electronics group in New York City. She was replaced by Judy Borsher, a 22-year-old Cornell graduate who had already helped us release our first LP. In 1976 Steve Drews decided he wanted to be a photographer instead of a musician, so he was replaced by Chip Smith. Chip also brought his Fender Rhodes keyboard with him.  This last ensemble of Chip, Judy and me was probably the best performance group of all.                                               Chip Smith / David Borden / Judy Borsher (cut off from photo on far right) After 1978 I gave a few concerts with Edmund Niemann and Nurit Tilles, also known as Double Edge, a piano duo. They were also members of Steve Reich’s ensemble. But I mostly spent time with family matters and bringing up Gabe.  It wasn’t until 1987 that I formed the second version of Mother Mallard. In addition to using various kinds of synthesizers including Yamaha FM, Roland analog, and Korg sampled sounds, it included a voice—soprano Ellen Hargis, who was introduced to me by Penny Crawford, an old friend from the Eastman School of Music. We also added a wind player, composer Les Thimmig, who played several instruments. I had also known Les from Eastman days. The keyboardist was Lynn Purse, who knew how to perform on synthesizers. I met her in Virginia with her husband Bill, a guitarist. Eventually we included my son Gabe, who had become a virtuoso electric guitarist. This band lasted until 1991 and gave many American concerts, two European tours and a major concert at Town Hall in Manhattan. Our last concert was at Columbia University. Although the performers were from various parts of the country and we didn’t have much rehearsal time, it all worked because they were all well-trained professional musicians.                                     The 1990s were a decade I spent founding and organizing the electronic music section of Cornell’s music department. I called the project the Digital Music Program, which offered classes in making music using synthesizers with Apple Macintosh computers. The courses became the most popular ones in the music department and when I retired in 2005, it became a permanent part of the department with a tenured track position. During this time period I gave a few synthesizer ensemble concerts with various local artists but mostly I returned to my jazz roots and gave many two-piano jazz concerts with my friend Edward Murray, who was a conductor and theorist in the music department.                                      David Borden performing with his Mother Mallard ensemble at the Berlin Atonal 2015 When Ed died in 2000 I returned to my live synthesizer music and began working with David Yearsley and Blaise Bryski. David is one of the world’s best organists and Blaise is an all-around excellent keyboardist and musician. They are both technically superior to me. This lineup often also featured Gabe as well as singer Louise Mygatt, a versatile musician who is a faculty member at the Ithaca College School of Music. This version of Mother Mallard lasted from 2000 until 2019 when we gave our 50th anniversary concerts. In 2006 I changed the live performance setup. Using Reason and Samplit software, we became a laptop-with-attached-keyboard-controllers ensemble—a computer ensemble. This made it much easier to travel. Sometimes the sponsor supplied the keyboards and we simply showed up with our laptops. But for our last concerts in 2019, we reverted back to analog using many of the same instruments as the original 1970s band. After these concerts I retired from public performing.                                                                                                                       David Borden at Issue Project Room [photo by Brian Harkin for NYTimes]                  This double CD recording is our last one. We have been with Cuneiform Records since the 1980s. The middle Mother Mallard band recorded the entire Continuing Story of Counterpoint  [released on 3 CDs by Cuneiform Records] as well as other pieces. Even the first two vinyl albums were reissued as CDs with bonus tracks. The original LPs have become collector’s items. There have also been a few other CDs on my Lameduck label.  It’s been a great 50 years with various ups and downs but it has always been fulfilling and continuously enlightening to be working with so many hard-working beautiful and generous people."                                                                                                        – David Borden  2023 return to top ~ ~ ~ ~ Buy / listen on Bandcamp to Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. / David Borden's             Make Way for Mother Mallard: 50 Years of Music                credits & tracks: Disc One 1. Endocrine Dot Patterns (1970) synthesizers: David Borden, Steve Drews, and Linda Fisher trumpets: Woody Peters recorded at the R.A. Moog Company studio in Trumansburg, NY recording engineer: David Borden 2. CAGE I (1973) synthesizers: David Borden, Steve Drews RMI piano: Linda Fisher recorded at the Mother Mallard farmhouse in Enfield, NY recording engineer: David Borden 3. Anatidae/CAGE III (1978/1975) synthesizers: Judy Borsher, Chip Smith RMI piano: David Borden recorded live at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA in 1978 recording engineers: Tom Buchler, Steve Drews Disc Two 1. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 01 (1976) RMI piano & Minimoog D: David Borden Roland Juno 60 & Minimoog D: David Yearsley Juno 106 & Moog Voyager: Blaise Bryski 2. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 03 (1976) RMI piano & Minimoog D: Richard Valitutto Roland Juno 60 & Minimoog D: David Yearsley Roland Juno 106 & Moog Voyager: Blaise Bryski voice: Louise Mygatt (recorded in Louise's living room in Ithaca, NY) 3. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 05 (1977) Roland Juno 106 & Moog Voyager: David Borden Fender Rhodes piano: David Yearsley RMI piano: Blaise Bryski electric guitar: Gabriel Borden 4. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 06 (1978) RMI piano: Annette Richards Roland Juno 60 & Minimoog D: David Yearsley Roland Juno 106 & Roland Juno 60: Blaise Bryski 5. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 07 (1978) Roland Juno 60: David Borden Fender Rhodes piano: David Yearsley Roland Juno 106 & Moog Voyager: Blaise Bryski 6. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 08 (1979) Roland Juno 106 & Minimoog D: Roger Moseley Fender Rhodes piano: David Yearsley RMI piano: Blaise Bryski recorded live at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University on November 15, 2019 recording & sound engineer: Greg McGrath 7. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 11 (1986) piano 1: Xak Bjerken piano 2: Richard Valitutto recorded at Barnes Hall, Cornell University in December 2019 recording engineer: Alex Perialas 8. The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, part 12B (1987) 6:29 RMI piano & Minimoog D: David Borden Roland Juno 60 & Minimoog D: David Yearsley Roland Juno 106: Blaise Bryski voice: Louise Mygatt drums: Tom Killian recorded live at Barnes Hall, Cornell University on November 8, 2019 recording and sound engineer: Greg McGrath Except where otherwise noted, all Disc Two tracks were recorded in David Yearsley's studio in Ithaca, NY, in 2019, with Gabriel Borden as recording and post-production engineer. All music composed by David Borden. Photo credits for album (except where otherwise noted in this eblast): David Yearsley Thomas Bruce   return to top Buy / listen on Bandcamp to additional David Borden and Mother Mallard albums released on Cuneiform Records MOTHER MALLARD PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO. "...the pioneering efforts of MMPMC stand as a monument to the gimmick-less magnificence that can be achieved with a pure application of this technology." – Magnet "...it’s eye-opening in terms of innovation, providing the missing links between several disjunctive musical styles. …Each of the five tracks here provides some sort of Rosetta stone in terms of figuring out how several styles of music evolved in the way that they did." – New York Press   MOTHER MALLARD'S PORTABLE MASTERPIECE CO. 1970-1973          LIKE A DUCK TO WATER 1974-1976   "A marvel of pioneering electronica." – The Wire "The compositions are absolutely gorgeous, with layer upon layer of repeating rhythmic phrases that gently shift their flow with the purposeful effortlessness of a Zen meditation. … Although it is more than 25 years old, MMPMC’s work on Like a Duck to Water still stands as a fresh-sounding milestone in musical innovation.” - The Scene Online   MMPMC: Linda Fisher / Steve Drews / David Borden             MMPMC:   Chip Smith / Judy Borsher / David Borden        DAVID BORDEN PERFORMED BY MOTHER MALLARD THE CONTINUING STORY OF COUNTERPOINT A masterpiece of classical minimalism, The Continuing Story of Counterpoint is David Borden's magnum opus. A 12-part work consisting of over 3 hours of music, Cuneiform Records released it 1988-1991 on 3 CDs, each containing 4 parts.    “the [Counterpoint] cycle...placed Borden with the giants of the first wave of minimalist composers (Glass, Riley, and Reich). For those who appreciate this dizzying rapidly-repeating and hypnotic form of music, the release of this CD stands as a landmark in the field.”   – Alternative Press                              The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, Parts 1-4+8 (Complete)   "...this series may stand as the 'Goldberg Variations' of minimalism, a canon of work that defines a style and an era." – Audio Magazine "Cage-Riley-Glass are ghosts of an important past but Borden is the spirit for the future. The contents are stunning, fulfilling and I await further episodes with an absorbing interest.” – Outlet [UK]   The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, Parts 5-8  .         .         The Continuing Story of Counterpoint, Parts 9-12    “Within the minimalist ranks, David Borden’s music has always stood alone with its logic of motion, elegance of line and form, and deft use of state-of-the-art technology...  Borden writes a complex and hyperactive form of counterpoint, often through-composing each line as a separate entity yet interlocking them in synchronous orbits. He winds his pieces up like gyroscopes and sends them spinning full-tilt from the start." - John Diliberto, Audio (USA)     GABRIEL BORDEN BORDEN ON BORDEN: GABRIEL BORDEN PLAYS DAVID BORDEN "Having heard my father's pieces, especially The Continuing Story of Counterpoint (TCSOC) series, throughout my childhood, as they were being composed and premiered, I had subconsciously begun to develop my own arrangements and interpretations. The process of learning some of the parts and recording and performing them led to the conscious crystallization of these ideas.” – Gabriel Borden "This is Van Halen meets Philip Glass in the best way possible." – adelrune [Bandcamp supporter] "Simply amazing. I normally find minimalism to be redundant and boring. Instead, this album is riveting and almost infectious the way each song builds to a much-too-soon climax. My current choice for Album of the Year." – PDD [Bandcamp supporter]   DAVID BORDEN "...rich with emotion, depth and subtlety, painting warm flashes of gentle color over shimmering electronic soundscapes." – Expose    SMART HUBRIS     HEAVEN-KEPT SOUL                   "...this album is brilliant and beautiful. Easily one of the best albums of 2021." – PDD [Bandcamp Supporter] “Minimalist composer David Borden’s best compositions match those of contemporaries Philip Glass and John Adams... Places, Time & People...manifests the broad range of his talent, from works with spiky, yet fitting dissonances, to a Philip Glass pardoy. All of it fine stuff.” –  Wired      CAYUGA NIGHT MUSIC                                                                           PLACES, TIMES & PEOPLE “An unreconstructed minimalist, Borden has a touch of Andriessen’s relentlessness, but his images are more varied and arresting... The textures are more elaborate and pop-influenced than Reich’s or Glass’s; the growling electric bass recommends itself to rock fans, and the urgently bittersweet atmospheres might appeal to New Agers. But in Esty Point and Malaise Borden explores some of the most convoluted harmonic changes post-minimalism has approached.”   -– The Village Voice   return to top "David Borden: Continuous Counterpoint" Written by Frank J. Oteri New Music Box, Jan. 1, 2012 A conversation at the The Cornell Club: June 30, 2011—4:00 p.m. Video presentation by Molly Sheridan Transcribed by Julia Lu return to top                            !!OUT NOW!!                                             YANG                         REJOICE!                  RELEASED JULY 26, 2024                                       ON                     CUNEIFORM RECORDS                  Bio information: YANG Title: REJOICE! (Cuneiform Rune 524) Format: CD  / DIGITAL www.cuneiformrecords.com FILE UNDER: ROCK / ART ROCK / PROGRESSIVE ROCK           French Guitar Virtuoso, Composer & Lyricist                            FREDERIC L'EPEE         unleashes YANG, his guitar-centric quartet,              to record a powerful album of Frippian,                counterpoint-fueled compositions             set further ablaze by the vocals of guest                  CARLA KIHLSTEDT (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum)  Composed in the wake of Covid and as Fascism, Wars and Climate crises globally rise, Rejoice! offers a healing response for surviving this New Dark Age. Yang reveals music's power to purge darkness from our souls. In Rejoice!, L'Epee reminds us to embrace whatever beauty and light the world retains, and to transform the darkness into art.       listen to/ share "Step Inside" from Rejoice! by Yang                                                                        ~ ~ ~ ~   According to most professional journalists, comparisons are odious. And according to most professional musicians, critics are useless. But what happens when a critic makes a comparison that turns out to be useful and also transformative in the most positive way?   Look no further than Rejoice!, the fifth album—and third for Cuneiform Records—from the masterful French progressive-rock quartet Yang.   This, naturally, needs some explanation, and in fact there are two intertwined origin stories that can be applied to what is possibly Yang’s most accessible yet most deeply felt full-length.   We’ll get to the first later. But what primarily gave Rejoice! its sound and its shape came when an online reviewer compared Yang’s previous album, Designed for Disaster, to the dark and psychologically disturbing work of the Bay Area band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. And while there are similarities, for sure, the notion struck Yang guitarist and composer Frédéric L'Épée as odd, given that he had never heard—or even heard of—his American counterparts. Intrigued, he decided to listen, and found not just a team of kindred spirits, but the perfect singer to bring life to his songs.   “I didn’t know them, so when I saw this review, I said ‘Okay, what is this band? Is it something that I’ve missed?’” L'Épée notes, laughing. “ And, yes, it really was something I’d missed."                                                                                                                           photo of Yang by Yang “I don’t like the sound of my own voice,” the bandleader continues, and so for most of its existence Yang has focused primarily on instrumental music. On Designed for Disaster, however, the German singer Ayse Cansu Tanrikulu added her jazz-inflected phrasing to five tracks, and now on Rejoice!, Sleepytime violinist and singer Carla Kihlstedt has come on board for most of the album.   It’s an ideal match, and one that wound up shaping Rejoice! far more than L'Épée had intended. In writing Designed for Disaster, he explains, he concerned himself with lyrics that were “meant to communicate an impression but not a meaning”. But after having discovered Kihlstedt, he opted to follow a different path.   “It’s interesting,” he says now. “I started to write the words like I did with Designed for Disaster; not with apparent meaning, but through the sound more than anything. But as soon as Carla accepted, I started to have her voice in my mind. So as soon as I started to write, I heard her singing at the moment I was writing. This forced me to search for the reason inside, because I realized that I wanted her to understand what I was saying, to give all the expression that I wanted. So this is one of the many reasons I started to write things with meanings, because I wanted her to be driven by these meanings.”   At the same time, circumstances were giving L'Épée plenty to write about. The world was coming out of lockdown, new wars were starting, fascism was on the rise, and all of these things were having a profoundly negative effect on some of the musician’s associates.                                                               photo of Yang by Anne Chomicki “In 2023, several of my friends had a kind of breakdown,” he reports. “They started to have dark thoughts, bad ideas, and they were really bad with themselves. And I wanted to help them, actually. I wanted to make them feel better. It was really with this idea, this mood, that I started to write Rejoice!”   It wasn’t therapy for himself that he was after, he stresses. “I have had the chance to live an ideal life, I would say,” he notes. “I’m living with the love of my life and I’m making music all the time, so I am someone who’s pretty happy. But I would also say that I’m empathic, so when I see someone or I hear someone that feels not right, I feel that suffering as well. So I want to help these people to get above whatever it is. And this is maybe why the album is named Rejoice!, because this is a dark time. It’s a dark age for everyone.    “It’s not a happy time, but we have to rejoice in what we have,” he adds. “Everything is wrong, nothing is going properly,  but there are so many things to enjoy anyway, if you know what I mean.”   L'Épée considers Rejoice! to be “healing music”, but with its surging polyrhythms, intricately conjoined guitar parts, and Kihlstedt’s fiercely committed singing, it’s not like any music you’d hear in any spa on earth. Consider the record’s final track, “The Final Day”, which opens with fingerstyle guitars and breathy vocals that present a comforting, lullaby-like ambience. But once a powerful bass ostinato kicks in a darker mood emerges, and it becomes clear that L'Épée is describing some kind of mass extinction. “Over the land, fiery sand falls,” Kihlstedt sings. “Everyone’s horizon burns.”   The intimation of a final, climate-change-induced “fire season” is clear. And yet it’s impossible to encounter this performance without also feeling a sense of joyous release. The end is nigh—but the end is always nigh, and it’s never really the end. In that light, “The Final Day” is a perfect finale to Rejoice!, because once it’s over you’ll want to return to Track One, “Step Inside”, and play the entire record again.                                                                                                    photo of Yang by Yang                    credits: Frédéric L'Epée : guitars, keyboards, chorus Laurent James : guitars, voice, chorus Nico Gomez : bass, chorus Volidia Brice : drums with Carla Kihlstedt : voice, chorus  Album art:  Peg Pizzadili                                                          ~ ~ ~ ~                                Buy / listen to Yang's Rejoice! on Bandcamp:                                             return to top Listen to & buy additional releases on Cuneiform Records by Fréderic Le'Epée's Yang and Philharmonie ensembles YANG DESIGNED FOR DISASTER                                                    A  COMPLEX NATURE                                                                                                ~ ~ ~ ~ PHILHARMONIE THE LAST WORD / LE DERNIER MOT             LES ELEPHANTS CARRIONNEURS/                                                                                          THE ELEPHANT BELL-RINGERS                     .         NORD                                                    RAGE                                                   return to top ! SNEAK PEEK WITH SOUNDS ! COMING OUT ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS IN OCTOBER 2024 RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL GALACTIC FURNACE   Radio Massacre International (RMI) is one of the longest-standing continuously-active electronic ensembles on the British scene. Its members, Steve Dinsdale, Duncan Goddard and Gary Houghton, first staring playing together when they were 16-year old students.. Their music is largely improvised and performed live, without overdubs, gathering shape via post recording editing. Their discography, which includes nearly 100 BandCamp-only releases, is extensive. A double-disc CD, Galactic Furnace is their 4th release on the American Cuneiform Records label “Galactic Furnace was made over the course of a week, in the middle of summer, in beautiful North Yorkshire. We inhabited a cottage space which was very kindly loaned to us by a good friend and unlike many recording environments, it was extremely pleasant with plenty of natural light and air.” – RMI listen to/ share "Galactic Furnace Part 2 (edit)" from GALACTIC FURNACE by RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL credits Steve Dinsdale (keyboards, electronics, drums), Duncan Goddard (keyboards, electronics, bass) and Gary Houghton (guitar, keyboards) ~ ~ ~  return to top SNEAK PEEKS OF DISTANT TREASURES   COMING OUT IN LATE 2024 & 2025 ON CUNEIFORM RECORDS (Listed in alphabetical order. Sound samples to come out in future newsletters) ~~~~~ JAZZ ~~~~~ CURLEW – FASCHING, GERMANY APRIL 1990 & SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA MAY 1990 (More live, archival material, this time from the later period of the ‘classic quintet’ line-up of Pippin Barnett, George Cartwright, Tom Cora & Ann Rupel)  [USA] ~~~~~ GHOST RHYTHMS – MISSING TIMES  (New studio album by young French avant progressive ensemble [FRANCE] ~~~~~ DENMAN MARONEY – NITS MUSICA (Pianist Denman Maroney’s unique concepts; here featuring his Hyperpiano.) [USA] ~~~~~ LUKE STEWART / SILT REMEMBRANCE ENSEMBLE (New jazz recording by a quintet ensemble featuring Luke Stewart, Chad Taylor, and Brian Settles – the members of Luke Stewart's Silt Trio – with Jamal Moore (sax & percusison) and Daniel Carter (sax & trumpet)) [USA] ~~~~~ JOHN SURMAN – FLASHPOINTS AND UNDERCURRENTS (Double CD release of jazz recordings from April 18,1969 by British saxophonist John Surman's ensemble with Kenny Wheller, Alan Skidmore, Mike Osborne, Harry Miller, Alan Jackson & more. A completely different recording & version than on Cuneiform's release Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69) [UK] Jazzwise, September 2024 ~~~~~~     ROCK ~~~~~~ ANGLING – ANGLING (Only recordings made by the NYC-based quartet of Zeena Parkins, George Cartwright, Chris Cochrane, & Fred Chalenor) [USA] ~~~~~~ DIRK BRUINSMA – LOW RELIEFS (Instrumental music by one of the co-leaders of Blast) [THE NETHERLANDS] ~~~~~~ MIKE JOHNSON – THE GARDEN OF EVANESCENCE (Mike Johnson, leader/ composer/ guitarist of Thinking Plague, releases an album under his own name featuring orchestration - strings, brass reeds, etc - combined with rock instrumentation.) [USA] GILLES LAVAL – 100 GUITARS SUR UN BATEAU IVRE  [100 GUITARS ON A DRUNKEN BOAT] (100 electric guitars, conducted. Designed for public performances) [FRANCE] ~~~~~~ ROGER CLARK MILLER – CURIOSITY FOR SOLO ELECTRIC GUITAR ENSEMBLE (Guitarist / keyboardist/ composer Roger Clark Miller [Mission of Burma, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Alloy Orchestra/The Anvil Orchestra), releases his second Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble album on Cuneiform  - an extravaganza of guitars, electronics and looping ) [USA] ~~~~~~ NEBELNEST – LIVE AT PROGDAY 1999 (Hard hitting, French instrumental, zeuhl / dark symphonic rock ensemble)  [FRANCE] ~~~~~~ NEBELNEST – unreleased fourth album  (Previously unreleased 4th album by this hard hitting, French instrumental, zeuhl / dark symphonic rock ensemble) [FRANCE] ~~~~~~ return to top CUNEIFORM ARTISTS ON TOUR 2024 - 2025 CALENDAR IMPORTANT COVID REMINDER: In an evolving (and now endemic) COVID-19 world, and with adverse weather "events" happening in increasing frequency, these dates are ALL tentative. Please check with venues, close to the concert date, to confirm. We're ecstatic that live concerts are happening worldwide, but we remain aware that emergent variants - as well as severe weather - can unexpectedly affect schedules. See also the Tours Page at Cuneiform Records. ANTISTATIC After releasing their debut album in early 2024 on Cuneiform, Danish quartet Antistatic tour Japan in the Fall. “Recommended: experimental trance rock album from Danish Quartet Antistatic…exponents of what Keith Richards once called “the ancient art of weaving”, bringing two-guitar interplay to new levels of complexity and sophistication.” — Klof Magazin _______________________________ October 7 - Jazzspot Candy - Chiba, Japan October 8 - Spread - Tokyo, Japan October 9 - Wildside - Tokyo, Japan October 10 - CHOP Ikebukoro - Tokyo, Japan October 11 - Growly - Kyoto, Japan October 12 - Soto - Kyoto, Japan October 13 - Makeshift - Kobe, Japan October 15 - Rinkaitan - Kobe, Japan October 16 - Environment Og - Osaka, Japan October 17 - Namba Bears - Osaka, Japan   Listen to & Buy:  Relics      Founded in 1980, Boston's Birdsongs of the Mesozoic weave rock, punk, classical, minimalism, and free-form sound into instrumental music that's simultaneously innovative, sophisticated and broadly appealing.  "the world's hardest rocking chamber music quartet." – The New York Times _______________________________ August 31 / September 1 - ProgDay - Chapel Hill, NC   Listen to & Buy:  Relics   Dawn of the Cycads    The Fossil Record        Faultline        Pyroclastics           Dancing on A'A The Iridium Controversy            2001 Live Birds    Petrophonics           Extreme Spirituals with Oral Moses   EMPIRICAL Featuring Nathaniel Facey (alto saxophone), Shaney Forbes (drums), Lewis Wright (vibraphone) and Tom Farmer (bass), Empirical buildson the extroverted improvisational ethos of the 1960s New Thing, embracing oblique harmonies, translucent textures and jagged, quick shifting rhythms, transformed for new generations.   "The coolest of Britain's young jazz bands." – Daily Telegraph   October 8 - Vortex - Dalston, London, UK November 7 - Newhampton Arts Centre - Wolverhampton, UK December 3 - Jazz Hastings - Hastings, UK December 6 - Sheffield Jazz Festival - Crucible Theatre - Sheffield, UK January 23 - Singen Jazz Club - Singen, Germany January 25 - Peggy's Skylight - Nottingham, UK January 27 - Jazz In The Round - London, UK February 21 - Reading Jazz Festival - Progress Theatre - Reading, UK February 22 - Stapleford Granary - Cambridge, UK     Listen to & buy:        Connection                            "[Empirical] remains enthusiastically devoted to remaking jazz for a contemporary audience... This fine set is a significant renewal of Empirical’s commitment to giving 1960s hard bop and free jazz (probably still their deepest loves) a 21st-century identity." – John Fordham / The Guardian JANEL & ANTHONY Washington DC's premier music power duo, Janel & Anthony individually are internationally acclaimed master players and composers who lead their own ensembles. In June 2024, they'll release a new, double-disc studio recording on Cuneiform Records, called New Moon In the Evil Age - their second duo release for the label.   "Janel & Anthony - guitars and 'cello respectively - play a haunting and humbly virtuosic form of music wherein the elements of electronics, looping, and lo-fi timbres live both in intimacy and in majesty in the same house as acoustic instruments and folk/blues-inspired melodies. As such, it is both timely and timeless..." – Nels Cline   August 31 / September 1 - ProgDay - Chapel Hill, NC October 19 - Orion Studios - 2903 Whittington Ave - Baltimore, MD [opening for Gong] October tba - WFMU live radio session 2025 CONCERTS January 10 / 11 - Winter Jazz Fest -  NYC, NY   Listen to & buy:  New Moon In the Evil Age                             Where Is Home    "The result is a marvelous surprise at every turn, as the duo...two absolute virtuosos...create atmospheres that at times evoke the music of Steve Tibbetts, Brian Eno, even soundtrack music" – DownBeat HENRY KAISER Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– THE HENRY KAISER MONTHLY SOLO SERIES, presented exclusively on the CUNEIFORM RECORDS YouTube Channel  When Covid pandemic lockdowns began in 2020, Henry Kaiser began curating & presenting a weekly series of pre-recorded music videos exclusively on Cuneiform's YouTube Channel for music lovers isolating at home. These "live" concerts are taped beforehand and not streamed - Henry discusses the process in a Guitar Moderne interview, "The New "Live"".  Many videos in the series depict duets and larger bands, despite the program being called the "Henry Kaiser Weekly Solo Series".  While many depict new or recent performances, other videos in this series are vintage footage of performances not available elsewhere (The Valentines' 1994 concert in the Fukuoka Dome). Over time, the series converted to monthly and currently, a quarterly release schedule.  All 52 videos from the Henry Kaiser's Weekly Series, the entire two year Monthly Series and all current quarterly videos are archived & available on Cuneiform's YouTube Channel.  We invite you to visit and follow Cuneiform Record's YouTube Channel to see the videos that Henry regularly presents. A must see: the WINTER 2024 video is HENRY KAISER QUARTERLY #4: BARITONE GUITAR SPECIAL, featuring Henry's awesome guitar work along with Special Guests: Luciana Bass, Jim Clark, Janet Feder, Sandy Ewen, Vanessa Gould, Sandor Nagyszalancy, Anthony Pirog, Gregory Stephen, Sid Stephen, & Carl Weingarten. Just released, the SUMMER 2024 video , HENRY KAISER QUARTERLY SHOW #6 : You Can't Get There From Here, features Morgan Ågren  Jennifer Burnes,  Jaya Drats, Trey Gunn, Killick Hinds, Michael Manring,  Ed Petterson, Damon Smith, Jim Thomas, and Bill Walker. In addition to his video series, Kaiser occasionally presents special videos:  some focusing on current events and guitar legends, and some providing free guitar lessons, focusing on tunes associated with legendary guitarists. For instance, his September 2022 guitar lesson video, focusing on the whole tone scale and Sonny Sharrock, is titled The Whole Tone Scale! Sonny Sharrock’s DICK DOGS lesson with Henry Kaiser. Besides his work as a musician, Kaiser is also a scientific diver and underwater videographer in the U.S. Antarctic program. Several of his Solo Series videos on the Cuneiform channel feature Henry's stunning underwater videography in addition to his guitar playing, as in this stunning video from May 2020:  HENRY KAISER : Cuneiform Weekly Solo #2 : Under The Ice Again . Because all videos are archived on the Cuneiform Records' YouTube Channel, you can watch anything in the series at any time.   Listen to & buy: Albums by Henry Kaiser & Friends  on Cuneiform A Love Supreme Electric [Vinny Golia / John Hanrahan / Henry Kaiser / Wayne Peet / Mike Watt]: A Love Supreme Electric: A Love Supreme and Meditations  Yo Miles!: Henry Kaiser & Wadada Leo Smith: Sky Garden & Upriver     Five Times Surprise [Henry Kaiser / Anthony Pirog / Tracy Silverman / Jeff Sipe / Andy West]:  Five Times Surprise Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell:  The Celestial Squid Henry Kaiser: Lemon Fish Tweezer; Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser: Friends & Enemies     Healing Force [Vinny Golia • Aurora Josephson • Henry Kaiser • Mike Keneally • Joe Morris • Damon Smith • Weasel Walter]: Healing Force:  The Songs of Albert Ayler                       V.A.: 156 Strings: Nineteen Totally Original Acoustic Guitarists JANEL LEPPIN A composer and cellist who’s honed a singular synthesis of composition, orchestration and improvisation, Janel Leppin is an avant-jazz luminary. Besides performing as half of the experimental duo Janel and Anthony, which she co-leads with her husband guitarist Anthony Pirog, she leads the seven-piece chamber-jazz Ensemble Volcanic Ash, as well as performing and recording with other jazz, rock, and experimental  groups. In June 2024, Cuneiform released Ensemble Volcanic Ash's second album, To March Is To Love "An Absolute Virtuoso - 4 Stars" - Downbeat Magazine, reviewing the first EVA album "Leppin is a rarity..ahhh-vant garde at its finest." - Capital Bop JANEL LEPPIN September 29 - with James Brandon Lewis' Red Lily Quintet - Monterey Jazz Festival - Monterey, CA ENSEMBLE VOLCANIC ASH October tba - with Ensemble Volcanic Ash - WFMU live radio session Listen to & buy: Janel Leppin Ensemble Volcanic Ash    To March Is To Love                 Ensemble Volcanic Ash Janel & Anthony New Moon In the Evil Age,   Where Is Home         THE MILLER TWINS The Ann Arbor, Michigan  brothers, Laurence and  Ben Miller, are composers and multi-instrumentalists/ reed players whose original  music embraces jazz, contemporary classical and rock influences. "In 1973, the idea of a wind ensemble backed with bass guitar and drums was quite revolutionary, and I can’t think of any other examples outside of jazz — which this clearly isn’t, although there’s a bit of influence." – Expose   October 11 - Avant-Garde a Clue Festival - 75 Stutson St - Rochester, NY Listen to & buy albums              THE MILLER TWINS  Early Compositions 1973-1976                  THE FOURTH WORLD QUARTET Grand Bland Vapid Rapids  //  1975 .        ROGER CLARK MILLER Roger Clark Miller is a guitarist, pianist, bassist, composer, singer, percussionist and occasional cornet player. His career officially began in 1979 when he co-founded the influential post-punk band Mission of Burma on guitar and vocals. He formed Birdsongs of the Mesozoic on piano in 1981, and from 1983-1989 he began his Maximum Electric Piano work. Miller joined the Alloy Orchestra in 1998 - "the best [orchestra] in the world at accompanying silent film" says Roger Ebert – which continues today as The Anvil Orchestra. He recently released new solo looping-based music on Cuneiform - Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble.. Boston Globe: "Less a recital than a musical minefield... Miller is a man in constant motion, a one-man symphony."   with the Anvil Orchestra: September 22 - Hamilton College - Colgate NY  [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Man with the Movie Camera] September 29 - Real Art Ways - Hartford, CT  [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] - Afternoon show. ____ Solo as Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble: October 10 - The Horseshoe Tavern - Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 11 - Avant-Garde a Clue Festival - 75 Stutson St - Rochester, NY October 12 - Sacred Root Kava Bar - Ithaca, NY Listen to & buy: Roger Clark Miller, Eight Dream Interpretations for Electric Guitar Ensemble        Birdsongs of the Mesozoic Dawn of the Cycads, The Fossil Record       The Fourth World Quartet, 1975   MIRIODOR Quebec's legendary avant-progressive/ chamber-rock/ RIO / avant rock ensemble Miriodor have released 9 studio and 1 live album on Cuneiform. In October they play a very special show in Quebec City.   October 12 - Théâtre des Prés 506 - rue Jean-Baptiste-Moreau - Saint-Germain-de-Kamouraska, Québec Canada October 25 - Palais Montcalm - Quebec City, Quebec, Canada [opening for the David Cross Band] October 27 - Club Soda - 1225, Blvd Saint-Laurent - Montreal, Quebec [opening for the David Cross Band]   Listen to & buy MIRIODOR'S albums on Cuneiform Records: Elements              Signal 9       Cobra Fakir     //  Avanti         Parade/Live at NEARfest // Mekano  .     Rencontres //  Jonglieres Elastiques       3rd Warning   //  Miriodor          THE ED PALERMO BIG BAND "Twenty-first century big-band music doesn’t get more exciting and impressive than this." – Jazz Times An astounding 18 piece jazz ensemble of five woodwind players, four trumpeters, three trombonists, two keyboardists, guitar, violin, bass and drums, led by arranger, composer & saxophonist Ed Palermo, one of America's most singular arrangers who draws on jazz, pop and rock tunes for his top-notch band. There are a number of ensembles performing the music of Frank Zappa, one of the greatest American composers of the 20th century, but no one does it with the ease, skill and originality that Ed and his band do! –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Don't miss seeing the ED PALERMO BIG BAND live!  THEIR SHOWS SELL OUT, so buy your tickets well in advance. ~~~~ August 24 - The Falcon - 1348 Rte 9W - Marlboro, NY 12542 September 30 - Iridium - 1650 Broadway (corner 51st & Broadway) - New York, NY 10019 October 26 - The Falcon - 1348 Rte 9W - Marlboro, NY 12542 November 18 - Iridium - 1650 Broadway (corner of 51st and Broadway) - New York, NY 10019 December 21 - The Falcon - 1348 Rte 9W - Marlboro, NY 12542   Listen to & buy Ed Palermo Big Band albums on Cuneiform: The Adventures of Zoyd Zundgren // The Great Un-American Songbook Vols. 1&2  // One Child Left Behind // Oh No! Not Jazz!!  // Eddy Loves Frank. //  Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance                               RICHARD PINHAS One of France's major experimental musicians, guitarist/ electronic musician / writer Richard Pinhas is a key figure in the global development of electronic rock via his group Heldon and solo projects. In March 2024, he plays a number of special shows in England. __________________________ March 4 - Just Dropped In - Coventry, UK March 5 - Just Dropped In - Coventry, UK March 7 - Café Oto - London, UK March 8 - Café Oto - London, UK Listen to & buy releases by Richard Pinhas & friends on Cuneiform: Richard Pinhas: Process and Reality, Desolation Row, Metatron, Metal/Crystal, Tranzition, Event & Repetitions                      Richard Pinhas & Oren Ambarchi: Tikkun    Richard Pinhas & Merzbow:  Keio Line, Rhizome, Paris 2008            Richard Pinhas & Yoshida Tatsuya: Welcome in the Void    Schizotrope (Richard Pinhas & Maurice Dantec): The Life & Death of Marie Zorn   ANTHONY PIROG "[Palo Colorado Dream] covers a sprawling musical terrain–avant jazz, atmospheric soundscapes, earthy Americana, math-rock...with an arsenal of effects hardware and studio production techniques..." – JazzTimes "One of jazz’s most reliable conduits to a living, breathing audience is electric-guitar heroism, and Anthony Pirog, from Washington...seems poised to become a hero of the instrument." – The New York Times ________________________________ Anthony Pirog with Janel Leppin Janel & Anthony August 31 / September 1 - ProgDay - Chapel Hill, NC October 19 - Orion Studios - 2903 Whittington Ave - Baltimore, MD [opening for Gong]   Pirog featured with  The Messthetics &  James Brandon Lewis: [featured with The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis] [ * without James Brandon Lewis] September 5 - Soda Bar - San Diego, CA September 6 - The Lodge Room - LA, CA September 7 - Pappy and Harrietts - Pioneertown, CA September 8 - The Ojai Deer Lodge - Ojai, CA September 9 - Felton Music Hall - Felton, CA September 10 - Rickshaw Stop - San Francisco, CA September 12 - Polaris Hall - Portland, OR September 13 - Capital Theater - Olympia, WA September 14 - Clock Out Lounge - Seattle, WA September 21-22 - Woodsist Fest - Accord, NY * October 3 - White Eagle Hall - Jersey City, NJ October 4 - Higher Ground - 1214 Williston Rd - South Burlington, VT October 8 - Bronson Centre - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada [opening for Mdou Moctar] October 9 - The Concert - Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 24 - Lido - Berlin, Germany October 25 - Meetfactory - Prague, Czech Republic October 28 - Loppen - Copenhagen, Denmark October 29 - Debaser - Stockholm, Sweden October 30 - Goldie - Oslo, Norway October 31 - Nefertiti - Gothenburg, Sweden November 1 - Merjeriet - Lund, Sweden November 2 - G Livelab - Helsinki, Finland November 5 - Ab Club - Bruxelles, Belgium November 8 - Le Guess Who - Utrecht - The Netherlands November 9 - Rockit Fest - Groningen, The Netherlands November 10 - Sonic City - Kortrijk, Belgium   Listen to & buy: Anthony Pirog: Pocket Poem; Palo Colorado Dream .       Janel & Anthony,     New Moon in the Evil Age,     Where Is Home            in other groupings: Location Location Location: Damaged Goods Five Times Surprise: Five Times Surprise The Spellcasters, Music from the Anacostia Delta   Janel Leppin/ Ensemble Volcanic Ash To March Is to Love,  Ensemble Volcanic Ash            RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL UK electronic ensemble Radio Massacre International bring "Berlin School electronics" into the 21st  century and onto the live stage. The longstanding improvisational synth & electronics trio has released dozens of recordings - including 3 on Cuneiform – and mesmerized festival audiences worldwide. In  October 2024, the trio releases a new album, Galactic Furnace – their fourth release on Cuneiform Records. Galactic Furnace   November 9 - Saltburn Theatre - Albion Terrace - Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Yorkshire TS12 1JW, UK     Listen to & buy: Time & Motion,   Rain Falls in Gray       Emissaries   TOMEKA REID QUARTET 2022 MacArthur Award winning cellist Tomeka Reid's all-star Quartet  (Jason Roebke-bass,Tomas Fujiwara-drums, 2019 MacArthur Award recipient Mary Halvorson-guitar, Reid-cello) plays new material while also celebrating Old New, its second release and first on Cuneiform Records. Both accessible and adventurous, Old New became a critically acclaimed 2019 jazz favorite, prolifically reviewed and featured on Best of Year lists worldwide.  2024 has been eventful year for Reid. Besides a commissioned piece performed with an ensemble at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, her Quartet released a new album - 3+3 - on Cuneiform and then toured Japan.   The Wire - July 2024, Issue 485 August 30 - Chicago Jazz Festival - Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park - Chicago, IL [4:00 pm] 2025 January 30 - February 10, 2025 EUROPEAN TOUR  January 31 - Philharmonie Luxembourg - Luxembourg February 1 -  Muziekpodium Paradox - Tilburg, The Netherlands February 4 - NOSPR - Chamber Hall - Katowice, Poland February 5 - tba - Oslo, Norway February 6  - tba  - Essen, Germany February 7 - Kulturzentrum  Gems -  Singen, Germany February 8 - Gemeindehalle Gschwend - Gschwend, Germany   Listen to & buy: 3+3 //  Old New       SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER ""The Best Music of 2015: A Banner Year for the Bold: …here are a dozen albums released in 2015 that I savored repeatedly for their musicality, clarity of statement and courage. …“X” by Schnellertollermeier marries brutality to avant-garde rock and jazz. A classic power trio from Switzerland, the band plays with punk fury and dazzling technical dexterity to create booming, bone-rattling music that stalks, confronts and astonishes." – The Wall Street Journal Brutal-jazz power trio Schnellertollermeier doesn't compromise. Their fresh and uncompromising mix of jazz, punk, rock, sound and free improvised music, combined with great musicianship, interplay and intense energy, has awed audiences at festivals of jazz, rock, pop and experimental music worldwide.  _____________________________ September 27 - Kulturschiene Malters - Bahnhofstrasse 10 - Malters, Switzerland     Listen to & buy: 5  // Rights //  X         WADADA LEO SMITH Trumpeter, composer, and improviser Wadada Leo Smith is one of America's foremost creative musicians.  His epic tribute to the American Civil Rights movement, Ten Freedom Summers, was one of 3 finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and his albums have won Album of the Year awards in jazz polls worldwide.  “Smith uses his magisterial instrumental voice, his inspirational leadership and his command of classical, jazz and blues forms to remind us of what has gone down and what's still happening.” –Bill Meyer, DownBeat’s 80 Coolest Things in Jazz Today _____________________________ October 4 - A Tribute to Lester Bowie - New Spire Arts - 15 West Patrick Street - Frederick, Maryland     Listen to & buy: WADADA LEO SMITH America's National Parks // Ten Freedom Summers        Heart's Reflections  //  Spiritual Dimensions              Tabligh ________________________ HENRY KAISER & WADADA LEO SMITH: YO MILES! Upriver  // Sky Garden       LUKE STEWART SILT TRIO Called “one of the 25 most influential jazz artists of his generation” by DownBeat Magazine and a member of several earth-shaking ensembles, including Irreversible Entanglements and Heroes Are Gang Leaders, polymathic bassist Luke Stewart, a creative catalyst on the Washington D.C. (and beyond) music scene for almost two decades, introduces his protean trio with Chicago drum legend Chad Taylor and powerhouse DC saxophonist Brian Settles.    September 13 - Guelph Jazz Festival 2024 - Guelph, Ontario, Canada     Listen to & buy: The Bottom      THUMBSCREW All-star jazz supergroup Thumbscrew prepare to release Wingbeats, their 8th album on Cuneiform, with album launch shows at NY's Jazz Gallery, followed by a European tour.                 WINGBEATS                 "Thumbscrew are one of the essential contemporary jazz groups"– Brian Morton, The Wire “Thumbscrew...are likeminded souls with decades of experience among them. Encapsulating a rare chemistry, their music offers a virtual masterclass of communal interplay.” – Point Of Departure _____________________________ October 9 - Jazz Gallery - NYC, NY [two shows; record release shows for Wingbeats] November 14 - tba - Genova, Italy November 15 - tba - Lavin, Switzerland November 17 - Elbphilharmonie - Kleiner Saal - Hamburg, Germany November 20 - Kuturlabor Stromboli - Hall, Austria November 21 - tba - München, Germany November 23 - tba - Puerto Real, Spain November 24 - tba - Baden, Switzerland Listen to & buy: Multicolored Midnight  //         Never Is Enough // The Anthony Braxton Project       Theirs  //   Ours         Convallaria  //  Thumbscrew        UZ JSME DOMA When Uz Jsme Doma (pronounced "Oozh (rhymes with 'rouge') Smeh Dough-Ma) (in English, “Now I Get It”) were founded in Teplice, Czechoslovakia in 1985, rock was freedom and freedom was illegal. It wasn't until the fall of the Communist government that they were able to record and tour, which they then proceeded to do with a vengence. Their music combines the energy of punk rock while adding more complex structures taken from avant-garde and avant-progressive bands and even from folk music. They are living, fire-breathing, alternative rock legends: one of “the two great Bastions of the Czech alternative scene” said the Prague Post, who ranked them in importance beside the Plastic People of the Universe. "...fierce commitment to the freedom inherent in Western art-damaged music. Uz embody the absolute unpredictability in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention primarily, but also the multi-influence, anti-pop clatter of the Residents, Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, 1977 punk, and...prog. You won't know what they're singing about in Czech, but the limitless hyper-energy and collision of styles piling on each other with remarkable precision, always turns ears....It's glorious..."  – Jack Rabid  _____________________________ FALL 2024 USA TOUR   October 1 - AS220 - 115 Empire St - Providence, RI October 2 - Bug Jar - 219 Monroe Ave - Rochester, NY October 3 - Beachland Tavern - 15711 Waterloo Rd - Cleveland, OH October 4 - Radio Radio - 1119 East Prospect Ave - Indianapolis, IN October 5 - Cole's - 2338 No. Milwaukee - Chicago, IL October 6 - Off Broadway - 3509 Lemp - St Louis, MO October 7 - Record Bar - 1520 Grand Boulevard - Kansas City, MO October 8 - Moe's Original BBQ & Bowl - 3295 South Broadway - Englewood, CO October 9 - DLC @ Quarters - 5 East 400 South - Salt Lake City, UT October 10 - Neurolux - 111 North 11th Street -  Boise, ID October 11 - Substation - 645 NW 45th St - Seattle, WA October 12 - The Infinity Room - 210 Liberty St, SE, ste 150 - Salem OR October 13 - Mississippi Studios - 3939 No. Mississippi Ave - Portland, OR October 14 - Humbrews - 856 10th St - Arcata, CA October 16 - Starlet Room - 2708 'J' St - Sacramento, CA October 17 - Bottom Of The Hill - 1233 17th St - San Francisco, CA October 19 - The Lodge - 104 North Avenue 56 - Highland Park, CA October 21 - Club Congress - 311 East Congress - Tucson, TZ October 23 - The Lost Well - 2421 Webberville Rd - Austin, TX October 24 - 1810 Ojeman - 1810 Ojeman Rd - Houston, TX October 25 - Rubber Gloves - 411 East Sycamore - Denton, TX October 26 - Pocket Theatre - 170 Ravine St - Hot Springs, AR October 27 - Hi Tone - 282-284 North Cleveland St - Memphis, TN October 28 - 529 - 529 Flat Shoals Ave SE - Atlanta, GA October 29 - The Pilot Light - 106 East Jackson Ave - Knoxville, TN October 30 - Cat's Craddle - 300 East Main, ste A - Carrboro, NC October 31 - Ottobar - 2549 North Howard St - Baltimore, MD November 1 - Milkboy - 1100 Chestnut St - Philadelphia, PA November 2 - Zone One at Elsewhere - 599 Johnson Ave - Brooklyn, NY   Listen to & buy: Jesknye / Caves                 YANG Frédéric L’Épée’s compositions primarily have their genesis in Baroque music, minimalism, and of course progressive rock, with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp as his acknowledged influence. His quartet Yang, which features two guitars, electric bass, and drums, releases a new album, Rejoice!, on Cuneiform in July 2024, and plays in August in the USA at ProgDay, the legendary outdoor progressive rock festival in North Carolina.                                                                                Rejoice!                                                                         _____________________________ August 31 / September 1 - ProgDay - Chapel Hill, NC   Listen to & buy: Designed for Disaster               A Complex Nature  To set up press and radio interviews with Cuneiform Artists while on tour or at home, please contact: promo@cuneiformrecords.com return to top SPEND 2024 WITH MUSIC & VIDEOS ONLINE !   CUNEIFORM RECORDS has a treasure chest of interesting music to serve as soundtrack, inspiration and solace during these evolving and challenging times. Our mammoth catalogue of over 500 releases by artists from around the world includes many of avant music's most esteemed icons as well as young rising stars, and is available for purchase in digital and physical formats at the CUNEIFORM RECORDS BANDCAMP store, and in physical formats at one of our sister companies, WAYSIDE MUSIC as well as in RECORD SHOPS worldwide (see our DISTRIBUTORS).  Your purchases of our CDs, LPs, and digital downloads supports or indie musicians, indie labels, and small businesses.    • VISIT the official CUNEIFORM RECORDS WEBSITE  for extensive information on the artists and recordings on our label,  upcoming concerts & much more.   • WATCH VIDEOS on Cuneiform Records' YOUTUBE CHANNEL Cuneiform Records has an extremely active YouTube Channel which you should bookmark as a favorite:  free music videos, videos of live shows, & samples from 500+ adventurous releases!   And we began expanding our video content during the pandemic, most notably with an ongoing video series curated  and produced by guitarist Henry Kaiser.  • PURCHASE & LISTEN to releases on CUNEIFORM RECORDS BANDCAMP PAGE  Discover new music on our Bandcamp Page, and support artists & our indie label by purchasing music.   • PURCHASE music from100s of LABELS from around the world at  WAYSIDE MUSIC, our sister store.  At our internet store, WaysideMusic.com (established in 1980!), you can purchase hard-to-find CDs and LPs from ALL your favorite labels!  • ENJOY and SHARE SAMPLES of music by releases of countless Cuneiform artists on the Cuneiform Records' SoundCloud Site. • VISIT, LIKE & FOLLOW  Cuneiform Records' Official FACEBOOK PAGE.  • JOIN the Cuneiform Records FACEBOOK GROUP:  FANS Of Cuneiform Records.  • FOLLOW @CuneiformRecord on TWITTER (now X) • LICENSE music from Cuneiform for movies, ads etc via our sister site TheMusicOutpost.com. • SIGN UP for the CUNEIFORM RECORDS NEWSLETTER if you're not already one of our subscribers, and  get BOTH this monthly newsletter in your email box AND receive notices for Cuneiform's weekly "$5 Friday" offers – Cuneiform selects a special album from its archive each weekend,  to be sold in download format via Bandcamp, that weekend only,  for half price. • VISIT our TOURS PAGE for upcoming concerts WORLDWIDE by our artists.   • ACCESS PRIOR ISSUES of the CUNEIFORM RECORDS MONTHLY NEWSLETTER at cuneiformrecord.blogspot.com/     Cuneiform Records' Monthly Newsletter announces and gives in-depth info on ALL of the label's NEW RELEASES - both physical and digital formats - and also provides TOUR / CONCERT info from its artists.   return to top CUNEIFORM RECORDS SOCIAL ONLINE Cuneiform YouTube Cuneiform Website Facebook FanGroup Facebook Page Cuneiform Twitter Cuneiform SoundCloud Cuneiform Bandcamp Instagram Email Cuneiform return to top Cuneiform Records' Monthly Newsletter is compiled by Joyce (Joy) [Nalewajk] Feigenbaum, DIRECTOR OF THE MUSIC OUTPOST – PUBLICITY FACEBOOK PAGE: MusicOutpostPublicityAndLicensing TWITTER: @TheMusicOutpost return to top WELCOME 2024! IT'S CUNEIFORM RECORDS' 40th ANNIVERSARY   Since its birth in 1984 in the Washington D.C. DMV, Cuneiform Records' mission has been to spotlight cutting-edge, boundary-defying New Music from around the world: music ignored by major labels and the mainstream music industry. To our founder Steve Feigenbaum, this music was too interesting, too important to ignore. Dynamic and progressive, it held the keys to music's future. Musicians globally were crossing geographic and musical borders, destroying genre borders between rock and classical, electronic and jazz; reexamining and imploding musical traditions and creating new hybrid genres and forms. Steve wanted to open music lovers' eyes and ears to music they'd otherwise have missed, and to give avant garde musicians opportunity for their recordings to be released, distributed and promoted around the world. With offices on DC's border in Silver Spring, Cuneiform Records became an international platform for musicians progressing beyond staid tradition, the visionary musicians paving music's future course.   Steve Feigenbaum   Cuneiform Records released albums by both up and coming stars (Schnellertollermeier, Tomeka Reid Quartet) as well as established icons of the avant garde (Wadada Leo Smith, Soft Machine, Richard Pinhas/Heldon & more). Over 4 decades, we've released and promoted over 540 albums in a variety of formats and galaxy of genres by artists from around the world. Our releases have placed in countless Best of Year lists in multiple musical genres (jazz, rock, electronic, 'beyond') worldwide and, in 2017, one won the DownBeat Jazz Album of the Year Award for Smith's America's National Parks. Cuneiform & Wayside Music staff in 2017 with DownBeat Album of the Year Award A lifetime releasing non-commercial music has not been easy – the road less travelled is inherently bumpy and hazard strewn. In 2018, the evolving digital landscape required us to rigorously streamline operations.  But Cuneiform Records survived that transition, as have our smiles: we've always released music that we believed in, and we look forward to releasing a world of music to come. We gave edgy, creative music the spotlight. And hopefully, once you saw what treasures lay on the tip of every wave, the cutting edge of each musical genre, you now believe in this music, too. Many of the radical musical innovations forged by artists we spotlit generations ago have since been absorbed by the mainstream. We know that more jaw dropping innovations lay ahead, and look forward to bringing them to you.  We thank each and every one of you for the support, love and encouragement you've given us for nearly a half-century. Onward! – Cuneiform Records   return to top Copyright © 2024 Cuneiform Records, All rights reserved.   Washington, DC // Silver Spring, MD Our mailing address is: Cuneiform Records P.O. Box 8427 Silver Spring, MD 20907 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Was this email forwarded to you from a friend? Subscribe to the Cuneiform Records Newsletter. Read this email online   return to top