At 86, Jo Baer is still painting vigorously. In the mid 1960s, she was an established New York Minimalist along with artists like Carl Andre and Sol Lewitt; but while they continued to explore abstraction, she changed tack – dramatically, or so it seemed. In the mid 1970s, she turned toward figuration declaring that the “naivety” of Minimalism (its refusal to engage with events in the real world) no longer made it relevant. Yet she still thinks of herself as an abstract painter and this survey, which spans 55 years, allows us to guage what she means by the claim.

Teetering on the edge of a Steve Reich weekend, Friday’s concert in the Minimalism Unwrapped series at Kings Place gave us a very mixed grill called “Pulses: Steve Reich and his Influences”. In the process it didn’t offer all that much of the concert’s organisers, the Aurora Orchestra – two flutes, two clarinets, two vibraphones, two pianos, two violins and cellos, and we were done. Still, Reich has never been at his best writing for conventional orchestral forces. And besides, Nicholas Collon, Aurora’s boss, is currently engaged with the Ulster Orchestra.

There’s nothing like Terry Riley’s In C to reawaken a past epoch. Of variable length, built from 53 melodic fragments, this minimalist construct of 1964 was almost designed to be performed and experienced lying on cushions in a marijuana haze – though a state somewhat ruptured by the home listener’s need to stir and turn over the vinyl LP in order to hear the other side. There was also the problem, at least in Britain, of the original LP’s inner sleeve, incongruously plastered with ads for the honeyed voice of easy-listening balladeer Andy Williams. As if…

The voice is unmistakably Icelandic. Fluting and dancing around the notes, the words it carries are broken into segments which don’t respect syllables. Although singing in English, Hildur Kristín Stefánsdóttir hasn’t sacrificed her Icelandic intonation.

As vaporous as the haze on its cover, the sound of Kiasmos resonates like clouds sweeping across low mountain peaks, intermittently breaking into a storm or opening to reveal wan sunlight. Although firmly within the boundaries of electronica, the self-titled debut instrumental album by Kiasmos still beats with an organic heart.

“I was a nigger for twenty-three years. I gave that shit up. No room for advancement.” This astute joke, by American comedian Richard Pryor, is stencilled in black capitals on the gold ground of a painting by Glenn Ligon.

According to the programme essay, Philip Glass describes his latest opera as “serious, but also hilariously funny”. All I can say is, if The Trial is his idea of thigh-slapping hilarity then never, ever let him pick the movie on a night out. Whether the humour’s failure to translate lies with score or production is hard to tell at a premiere, but my money lies with the former.

It seems that the gradual leakage of avant-garde-post-classical-call-it-what-you-will music from the rarefied environment of concert halls and into the spaces traditionally inhabited by alternative and club music is now inexorable. And violinist Aisha Orazbayeva is one of the instrumental (pun intended) figures in this move from trickle to flood.

Various Artists: I am the Center – Private Issue New Age Music in America, 1950–1990

Although most readily pigeonholed as a minimalist pianist whose compositions are as much about the space between the notes as what he actually plays, Germany's Nils Frahm has also worked with the Juno synthesiser and released pieces which edge towards techno. Until now, he hasn't made it easy to get a handle on his full scope. Spaces is the first release to capture this. A live album which doesn’t sound live, it includes compositions which never been released before. Despite occasional bursts of applause, it feels like a studio album.