Ha-Yang Kim — Threadsuns (2014, TZ9008)
Ha-Yang Kim's sophomore album Threadsuns, a transcendent piece for string quartet, is absolutely among the most beautiful and impressive classical works of the past decade or two.
Haino Keiji/Yoshida Tatsuya — Uhrfasudhasdd (2008, TZ7265)
While it may be tamer than guitarist/vocalist Keiji Haino and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida's previous team-up New Rap, which contains some of the most unhinged noise rock you'll hear in your life, you still better hold onto something while listening to Uhrfasudhasdd. Otherwise its off-kilter avant-prog riffs and kaleidoscopic explosions of sound might knock you right on your ass.
Ruins — Hyderomastgroningem (1995, TZ7202)
From Tatsuya Yoshida's legendary drums/bass duo! Again, you're gonna want to grab a hold of something when you blast this.
John Zorn — Bar Kokhba (1996, TZ7108-2)
Of course Zorn's greatest chamber jazz and klezmer work had to make the cut.
Harry Partch — 17 Lyrics of Li Po (1995, TZ7012)
Finally, my favorite Tzadik release. Cellist Ted Mook and baritone opera singer Stephen Kalm bring to life for the first time the complete 17 Lyrics of Li Po, an early piece from microtonal composer Harry Partch written for adapted viola and intoning voice and based on the texts of 8th century Chinese poet Li Po. It simply does it for me.
And there you have it. If you're digging what you're hearing, it's my hope that you'll delve into the label's back catalog, which I've neglected to say is arranged into several series. Clearly I have a little bias toward the "Composer" and "New Japan" ones, but you might get more out of the others, including "Spotlight," which features up-and-coming bands, or the newly launched "Spectrum," which will be covering a wide array of sounds.
At any rate, thanks for reading! John Zorn. Downtown. Tzadik. Forever!
2023 Update A new comment reminded me of this article’s existence lol. But yeah, Tzadik has finally gone to streaming this year and it’s nice that all this music is now much more widely available. Have updated the listening links, so now they should all work again. Looking back on this list, it actually holds up decently apart from the writing being kinda cringeworthy. But the picks are generally good, many of them still pretty overlooked. I did change the Ribot pick tbh cause I didn’t really care for that Yo! album. If I have one other caveat it’d be the Bailey choice, as Standards has become not just my favorite album of his, but an all-time fave. Definitely don’t hate the shoutout for Carpal Tunnel though, which is a powerful swansong in its own right. Standards and The Advocate with Tony Oxley are more like moving postscripts. As my love of guitar has grown in the past decade, so too has my love for Derek’s work across the board, so just wanted to put that out there.
If you’ve just stumbled upon this article, have a great day. Week even.