As 2014 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of 2015, it's time to take a look back and remember all of the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists over the past year—a year in which we marked our 50th anniversary. Many Nonesuch artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made music critics' and fans' year-end best lists in 2014. Here, in words and music and in chronological order, is a look back at the year in Nonesuch music.
As 2014 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of 2015, it's time to take a look back and remember all of the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists over the past year. It was a year in which we marked our 50th anniversary, on February 14, and celebrated with two unforgettable month-long series of concerts at the Barbican in London in May and Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in September, as well as Nonesuch President Bob Hurwitz's own 30th anniversary as head of the label. Many Nonesuch artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made music critics' and fans' year-end best lists. Here, in words and music and in chronological order, is a look back at the year in Nonesuch music:
FEBRUARY
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The new year in Nonesuch music began with the release of Kin (←→), the debut album from Pat Metheny Unity Group, on February 4. On 2012's Grammy-winning album Unity Band, Pat Metheny had recorded with a band that highlighted tenor saxophone for the first time since 1980, featuring Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass. With Kin (←→), Metheny added multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi and christened the ensemble Pat Metheny Unity Group. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Jazz Chart and earned four-star reviews across the board from Jazzwise, Evening Standard, Q, BBC Music, Financial Times, and Mojo, which says it "takes guitar-led improvisation to new aesthetic levels," says Mojo, Metheny's "eloquent guitar etching a kaleidoscope of sonic hues."
Kin (←→) was named Jazz Album of the Year in the 79th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll. The Pat Metheny Unity Group was also voted top Jazz Group, Metheny top of the Guitar category, and Chris Potter top of the Tenor Saxophone category. All About Jazz included the album on it's year-end Best Jazz New Releases of 2014
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Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana
Mehliana: Taming the Dragon
February brought another great jazz debut later in the month, as pianist Brad Mehldau and drummer Mark Guiliana released their first electric duo album, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, on February 24. The album features Mehldau on Fender Rhodes and synthesizers and Guiliana on drums and effects, performing 12 original tunes—six written by the duo and six written by Mehldau.
Mehliana: Taming the Dragon earned the Edison Jazz Award for Best International Jazz Album and was included in the Year's Best list from Jazzwise, which calls it "astonishing." All About Jazz included the album on it's year-end list of the Best New Discoveries of 2014. Brad Mehldau has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for his performance on the album track "Sleeping Giant."
MARCH
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Abraçaço, the final installment of Caetano Veloso's trilogy with the youthful trio heard on Cê and zii e zie known as the Banda Cê—Pedro Sá on electric guitar, Ricardo Dias Gomes on bass and Rhodes piano, and Marcelo Callado on drums—made its way to the US and Canada with the area release on Nonesuch on March 25. The album had previously won a Latin Grammy for Best Singer-Songwriter Album and earned the #1 spot on Rolling Stone Brazil’s Best National Albums list following its release outside North America the previous year. A fusion of the traditional Tropicália style and the indie pop of contemporary Rio, Abraçaço includes 11 original songs written by Veloso. KCRW calls it Veloso "at his best."
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Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet
Noah: Music from the Motion Picture
Also on March 25 came the soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah, featuring a score by Clint Mansell performed by Kronos Quartet. This follows earlier collaborations between Mansell and Kronos Quartet, on scores for Aronofsky's films Requiem for a Dream (2000) and The Fountain (2006). In addition to Mansell's score, Kronos joins Patti Smith on the soundtrack to perform the song "Mercy Is," for which she and Lenny Kaye have been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
The music "is appropriately stirring, threatening, terrifying and majestic," says the Wall Street Journal.
APRIL
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The Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling trio Nickel Creek—Chris Thile (mandolin/vocals), Sara Watkins (fiddle/vocals), and Sean Watkins (guitar/vocals)—officially reunited for the first time since its 2007 self-described “indefinite hiatus” for the release of a new album, A Dotted Line, on April 1, and a US spring and summer tour. As part of the tour, the band performed a set for Austin City Limits, which will air when the series returns to PBS on Saturday, January 3, the group's third appearance on the show.
"The most striking feature about A Dotted Line is the sheer strength of the singing, and the frequency with which it takes flight in three-part harmony," writes the New York Times. "The signature Nickel Creek blend comes across loud and clear." "It's tight, it's masterful; it's totally grown-up," says NPR. "But it's also a blast."
A Dotted Line has been nominated for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Performance. (That's two of five Grammy nominations this year for Chris Thile; see September for more.)
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Kronos Quartet
Kronos Explorer Series | A Thousand Thoughts
Kronos Quartet celebrated its 40th anniversary this year with the release of two special collections on April 8. Kronos and its artistic director/founding violinist David Harrington have long been known as interpreters of music from around the world, expanding the string quartet repertoire with works from across genres.
Released in honor of this anniversary year, Kronos Explorer Series comprises five classic albums from five different parts of the world—Pieces of Africa, Night Prayers, Caravan, Nuevo, and Floodplain—with new liner notes that include an in-depth interview of Harrington by renowned author Jonathan Cott. The Independent calls the set "extraordinary."
A Thousand Thoughts looks at the group's geographically wide-ranging sources, featuring music from 14 different countries, including China, India, Sweden, and Vietnam. The album includes the four cellists who have been in Kronos Quartet over the last 36 years. Ten of the album’s 15 pieces are previously unreleased. Songlines gives A Thousand Thoughts five stars, calling Kronos "one of the musical marvels of our age," and includes the album on its year-end list of the Best of 2014.
Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed includes Kronos's 40th anniversary performance in LA with Laurie Anderson, of her "magically melancholic" piece Homeland, among the Best Classical Moments of 2014, saying the Quartet has reached "middle age in their prime." Kronos Quartet will be Artists-in-Residence at the Big Ears Festival, held in Knoxville, Tennessee, March 27–29. The festival's line-up also includes Laurie Anderson, Rhiannon Giddens, and Sam Amidon.
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April 8 also saw the release of another celebratory collection: the three-disc reissue of Emmylou Harris’s groundbreaking, Grammy Award–winning album Wrecking Ball, produced by Daniel Lanois. The new reissue features the remastered original album, a bonus CD of previously unreleased material, and a DVD of the documentary Building the Wrecking Ball, which includes interviews and studio footage of Harris and Lanois as well as special guests Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Neil Young, Steve Earle, Brian Blade, and others.
The reissue earns five stars from Mojo and Uncut, which calls it "ambitious and audacious ... a masterpiece." Indeed, Uncut has included Wrecking Ball in its year-end list of the Best Reissues of 2014, as has fRoots.
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Composer Jacob Cooper made his label debut with the release of Silver Threads on April 29. The album comprises a six-song cycle performed by soprano Mellissa Hughes, for whom Cooper wrote the title track in 2011, setting a haiku attributed to Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō for voice and electronic track. To expand it into a full cycle (for voice and track), he enlisted five other poets to write text that was inspired by the haiku: Greg Alan Brownderville, Tarfia Faizullah, Kristin Kelly, Dora Malech, and Zach Savich.
Silver Threads was featured in a live concert event presented by Q2 Music celebrating the Best of 2014, "riveting, jaw-droppingly gorgeous new recordings," and is featured on the NewMusicBox list of 2014 Staff Picks.
"As the title track of this stunning minimalist song cycle, Silver Threads is Jacob Cooper’s quiet and contemplative interpretation of modern-day lied," writes NewMusicBox's Emily Bookwalter. "An album I often revisit, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing portions of the entire cycle performed live; the immersive experience his work elicits both in person and in recording never disappoints."
MAY
The Barbican Centre presented a marathon weekend of concerts, May 17 and 18, to celebrate Nonesuch Records' 50th anniversary year. Entitled Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records, the curated weekend of events included concerts in five venues around London and performances from myriad Nonesuch artists. The Barbican's Nonesuch celebrations continued with several satellite events throughout the month.
"Musical visionaries and true pioneers have been recorded by the label in the last 50 years," said the Barbican in its podcast prior to the event, "and here we celebrate their legacy, their free spirit and what's still to come."
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Nonesuch released composer John Adams's new album, City Noir, on May 6. The album includes the 2009 title piece, inspired by LA "noir" films of the 1940s and '50s, and the debut recording of his 2012 Saxophone Concerto, both performed by the St. Louis Symphony led by David Robertson, featuring saxophonist Timothy McAllister. "Dense, brash and exuberant," says the New York Times, "these two stellar works by John Adams are love letters to the confidence of the 1950s and a time when some of the greatest feats of virtuosity were often performed in smoky jazz clubs ... McAllister sizzles."
NPR includes City Noir on its year-end list of the Ten Best Classical Albums of 2014. The album has been nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Engineered Album, Classical, and Best Orchestral Performance.
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Natalie Merchant
Natalie Merchant
Natalie Merchant released her sixth solo work, a self-titled album, on May 6. It is her first collection of entirely original songs in 13 years. Merchant describes the self-produced release as informed "by decades of experience and keen observation," dealing with issues of "damage, love gained and lost, regret, denial, surrender, greed, destructiveness, defeat, and occasional triumph." The AP calls it a "rich musical tapestry." The Telegraph lauds her "quietly magnificent" voice. Merchant "is in terrific form," says the Times of London. "It is Merchant’s mature, versatile voice that steals the show."
The New York Times music critic Jon Pareles includes the Natalie Merchant track "Maggie Said" on his year-end list of the Top Songs of 2014.
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David Byrne & Fatoby Slim
Here Lies Love: Original Cast Recording
May 6 also brought the release of the original cast recording of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's Here Lies Love. The album features performances by the original 2013 Public Theater cast of the Obie Award-winning Here Lies Love musical, starring Ruthie Ann Miles and Jose Llana as Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos and featuring seven new songs written for the musical. Here Lies Love, raves the Daily News, "will leave you walking on air." On the album, says Playbill: "The score is revealed to be as glitteringly faceted as the production itself." PopMatters calls it "exceedingly seductive."
The Public Theater production of Here Lies Love won an Obie Award for Music/Lyrics, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical, and five Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway; performances run through January 4. The London production of Here Lies Love opened at the National Theatre this fall and will open in Sydney, Australia, as part of the Vivid Festival in May.
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The Black Keys released their eighth full-length album, Turn Blue, on May 13. Produced by Danger Mouse, Dan Auerbach, and Patrick Carney, Turn Blue features 11 new tracks. Mojo says the album "underlines the fact that The Black Keys are the most vital rock band in the world right now." Rolling Stone calls it "a giant step into the best, most consistently gripping album the Keys have ever made."
Turn Blue is featured on several year's best lists, including those of Rolling Stone, Uncut, Mojo, Q, WFUV, and Amazon. NPR includes the Turn Blue track "Weight of Love" on the year-end list of its Favorite Songs of 2014. BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe included The Black Keys’ April session on his "2014's Best Sessions" show. The band's latest Austin City Limits performance will air on PBS on January 31.
Turn Blue has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Rock Album, Best Rock Performance for "Fever," and Best Rock Song for the same.
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Conor Oberst
Upside Down Mountain
Conor Oberst made his Nonesuch Records debut with the release of his new solo album, Upside Down Mountain, on May 19. The album features many of his friends, including producer Jonathan Wilson, engineer Andy LeMaster, bassist Macey Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Blake Mills, and the Swedish folk-rock vocal duo First Aid Kit. Rolling Stone raves: "A sumptuous immersion in '70s California folk pop, it is the most immediately charming album he has ever made." The New York Times says: "All of Mr. Oberst’s gifts align on Upside Down Mountain."
Amazon, Drowned in Sound, Mail on Sunday and the DJs at WFUV include Upside Down Mountain on their year-end lists of the Best Albums of 2014.
Oberst helped celebrate both big Record Store Day events this year with two special, limited-edition 7" vinyl singles: one with the Upside Down Mountain track "Hundreds of Ways" and outtake "Fast Friends" for Record Store Day in April, and a second with two exclusive tracks recorded during the Upside Down Mountain sessions, "Standing on the Outside Looking In" and "Sugar Street," for Black Friday Record Store Day in November.
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Toumani Diabaté & Sidiki Diabaté
Toumani & Sidiki
Toumani Diabaté, widely recognized as the greatest living kora player, and his eldest son Sidiki, released the recording Toumani & Sidiki on World Circuit, distributed in North America by Nonesuch Records on May 19. The album is a set of unaccompanied kora duets, featuring both obscure, almost forgotten kora pieces and a new look at some Mandé classics from Mali. The Evening Standard calls it "a rare treat, one of the albums of the year." The Guardian calls it "the finest Toumani collaboration since his classic work with Ali Farka Touré ... gently exquisite." Songlines and the Sydney Morning Herald include the album on their year-end list of the Best of 2014.
On November 24, the collection of tunes was expanded with the release of the Toumani & Sidiki five-track digital EP features music from the recording sessions for the album.
Toumani & Sidiki has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.
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Louis Andriessen's Grawemeyer Award–winning film opera La Commedia, a collaboration with director Hal Hartley, was release in a two-CD-plus-DVD collection on Nonesuch Records on June 10. La Commedia is based on Dante's Divine Comedy, with additional texts including the Old Testament's "Song of Songs." The Dutch National Opera production heard and seen on this release features the Asko | Schönberg Ensembles, led by Reinbert de Leeuw. The Washington Post calls La Commedia "an exciting, powerful and rich piece that shows Andriessen at the top of his game." The Los Angeles Times considers it "the greatest opera of the century so far."
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Joshua Redman's latest album, Trios Live, was released on June 17. It was recorded during stands with two different trios: Redman and drummer Gregory Hutchinson with bassists Matt Penman (at Jazz Standard in NYC) and Reuben Rogers (at Blues Alley in Washington, DC). Trios Live features four original tunes by Redman and interpretations of three additional songs.
"It's a great set," says the Financial Times, "full of muscular rhythms and the abandon of live performance, yet as tightly argued as a rigorous studio date." BBC Music Magazine gives it four stars, calling it "a thrill-a-minute set." Chicago Reader calls it "one of the best records of his career."
JULY
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Boyhood
Music from the Motion Picture
Richard Linklater's new film, Boyhood, was released to critical acclaim this summer and has landed atop many a year-end list of the best films of the year. Shot over 12 years with the same cast, the film is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child who literally grows up on screen before the viewers' eyes. On July 8, Nonesuch released the soundtrack, which spans the story's 12 years, with songs ranging from the year 2000 (Coldplay's "Yellow" and The Hives' "Hate to Say I Told You So") to 2013 (Yo La Tengo's "I’ll Be Around"). The album also includes the classic "Band on the Run," by Paul McCartney and Wings, and the debut of a new song written by Jeff Tweedy and performed by the father/son duo Tweedy, "Summer Noon."
Boyhood has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and eight Critics Choice Awards. The film has already been awarded four LA Film Critics Awards, four Boston Film Critics Awards, and three New York Film Critics Circle Awards, including Best Picture from all of the above. All three New York Times film critics include it among the year's best films, including A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden, both of whom place the film in the No. 1 spot on their lists, as do New York, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, and Indiewire. (Not to mention that President Barack Obama recently told People magazine that Boyhood is his own favorite movie of the year.)
SEPTEMBER
The Nonesuch Records 50th anniversary celebration continued with some two dozen performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) throughout the month of September. The wide-ranging series of concerts and events, Nonesuch Records at BAM: Celebrating a Label Without Labels, began with three consecutive nights of concerts from Philip Glass and Steve Reich and ran through September 28, concurrent with BAMcinématek's presentation of Nonesuch Records on Film, a salute to the label’s rich catalogue of movie soundtracks. The New York Times said Nonesuch Records at BAM reflected "the broad curiosity and high standard of a label that has had notable successes ... with no guiding criteria other than instinct and taste."
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Robert Plant
lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar
Robert Plant, who closed out the Nonesuch Records at BAM series with two sold-out shows, made his Nonesuch / Warner Bros. Records debut with the release of his new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, on September 9. The album was produced by Plant and features 11 new recordings, nine of which are original songs he wrote with his band, The Sensational Space Shifters. "It’s really a celebratory record," says Plant, "powerful, gritty, African, Trance meets Zep." Q calls it "his best solo album yet … a beautifully moving, soul-stirring, bravely genre-blurring album."
Plant appeared on a number of year-end-best lists, with lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar listed among the best of 2014 by Uncut, Mojo, Q, Sunday Times, Guardian, Evening Standard, Songlines, fRoots, WFUV, and NPR Music, which also named the album track "Little Maggie" among its Favorite Songs of 2014. New York Times music critic Jon Pareles includes the track "Embrace Another Fall" on his year-end list of the Top Songs of 2014.
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Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer
Bass & Mandolin
It was a typically music-filled year for Chris Thile, who followed the Nickel Creek reunion by joining bassist Edgar Meyer for their second duo recording collaboration, Bass & Mandolin, released September 9. The album features ten original compositions by the two artists, who have been performing together sporadically for more than a decade and made their recording debut as a duo with 2008’s Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile. Meyer also plays piano on the new album, and Thile plays guitar.
Bass & Mandolin has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Composition for the track "Tarnation," and Best Engineered Album.
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Steve Reich’s new album, Radio Rewrite, was released on September 30. It features the first recording of the 2012 title piece, which references two songs by Radiohead and is performed by Alarm Will Sound led by Alan Pierson; Electric Counterpoint (1987), performed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood; and Piano Counterpoint, a 2011 transcription by Vincent Corver of Reich’s 1973 piece Six Pianos performed by pianist Vicky Chow, a member of Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The Observer calls the title piece "instantly accessible, instantly enjoyable." NME says of the album: "Deeply affecting, this is a great showcase of a compelling mind."
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September 30 was quite a day for new music, including Lily-O, an album of reimagined folk songs by singer/fiddler/banjoist/guitarist Sam Amidon. The album was produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson and features jazz guitarist/composer Bill Frisell, a longtime hero of Amidon's, along with Amidon’s other frequent collaborators, bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro.
The new album "showcases his ability to transform music," says NPR. "Every little unexpected twist shimmers with originality ... His highly personal approach opens a window on the American past and lets us feel it like nothing else around." The New York Times calls it "hauntingly beautiful." MusicOMH calls it "gorgeous."
The Guardian music critic Robin Denselow includes Lily-O among the Best Albums of 2014, as does fRoots, which also names Nonesuch its Label of the Year, and New York Observer contributor Howard Wolfson, who calls it "a brilliant exploration of Americana."
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September 30 also brought the Nonesuch Records debut album of composer Nico Muhly with the release of his opera Two Boys. The album was recorded live during the Metropolitan Opera’s 2013 production with conductor David Robertson and director Bartlett Sher, featuring mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and tenor Paul Appleby. The opera, featuring a libretto by award-winning playwright Craig Lucas, is loosely based on true events and follows a lonely detective whose investigation of a seemingly simple crime draws her into a complex web of online intrigue.
The New Yorker praised Two Boys as a “bighearted, fearless work.” BBC Music Magazine lauds “Muhly’s radiant post-minimalistic score.” The Independent on Sunday calls it "enthralling."
OCTOBER
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City Folk, the sophomore album from James Farm—saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland—was released on October 27. The album features 10 original tunes reflecting the members' many influences.
"While their acoustic instrumentation, virtuosity, and improvisational brio scream jazz, their music displays influences from all over the map, including classical, rock, ambient, and electronica," says the Boston Globe. "The quartet grooves fiercely." The Financial Times describes City Folk as "ten beautifully crafted miniatures that rock with rhythm."
The Guardian gives four stars to the new album from this "talented US collective," saying "it's Parks and Redman’s enthralling improvisations that give this inviting set its special character."
NOVEMBER
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Wilco
Alpha Mike Foxtrot | What's Your 20?
This year of milestone anniversaries—Nonesuch 50th, Kronos 40th—includes one for Wilco as well. The band marked the 20th anniversary since its first concert on November 17 with the release of two special collections: Alpha Mike Foxtrot and What's Your 20?.
Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994–2014 is a four-disc box set of rare studio and live recordings collected from the band’s extensive audio archives, plus 64 pages of liner notes, including track-by-track recollections from Jeff Tweedy, notes by band members Nels Cline and John Stirratt, and dozens of archival and never-before-seen photos chronicling all phases of the band’s career.
What’s Your 20?: Essential Tracks 1994–2014 is a two-disc compilation of essential tracks culled from the band’s previously released studio recordings. The collection gathers songs from Wilco’s eight studio albums plus two songs from Mermaid Avenue, the collection of Woody Guthrie–penned tunes set to music by Wilco and Billy Bragg.
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The recordings made by Abelardo Barroso with Orquesta Sensación in Havana during the 1950s represent one of the pinnacles of the golden age of Cuban music. Cha Cha Cha, a re-mastered selection of 14 of their most irresistible recordings from one of Cuba's all-time great singers, was released by World Circuit, the label behind Buena Vista Social Club, and distributed in North America by Nonesuch Records on November 24.
The Guardian gives Cha Cha Cha four stars, calling it both "another reminder of Cuba’s extraordinary musical history" and "almost uncannily contemporary."
DECEMBER
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Jonny Greenwood
Inherent Vice: Official Motion Picture Soundtrack
The final Nonesuch release of the year came from Jonny Greenwood: his soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Inherent Vice, which includes nine works by Greenwood; an unreleased Radiohead tune performed with members of Supergrass; and recordings from the movie’s era, the tail end of the psychedelic ’60s. Performers on this "excellent playlist" (New York Times) include The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Neil Young, Can, and The Marketts, among others.
Jonny Greenwood's score to Inherent Vice won the LA Film Critics Award for Best Music Score and the soundtrack won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Use of Music in a Film. Inherent Vice has been nominated for four Critics Choice Awards; the film's star, Joaquin Phoenix, is up for Golden Globe for Best Actor.
AND MORE ...
There is, of course, more great music to come in 2015. Pre-orders are already available for the long-awaited release of the live album from the one-night-only concert at New York's Town Hall, Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of "Inside Llewyn Davis"; the latest album from Punch Brothers, The Phosphorescent Blues; the label debut from pianist Tigran Hamasyan, Mockroot; the solo debut album from Rhiannon Giddens, Tomorrow Is My Turn; and the vinyl release of the Inherent Vice soundtrack.
All of the 2014 albums above can be purchased in the Nonesuch Store, where all currently released albums (pre-orders excluded)—on CD, LP, MP3, and FLAC—are 15% the everyday low prices listed on the site through New Year's Day in celebration of the store's seventh anniversary; final discount is shown at checkout.
Happy Holidays from everyone at Nonesuch Records!
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