New vinyl re-releases: October 3, 2025

There are a lot of new reissues this week, but you can be forgiven for being preoccupied with the Record Store Day Black Friday list that was just announced. (Live Bad Brains! The original version of Freewheelin'! A Love box set! It's a darn good list this year.)

We’ll have plenty more to come on that front, as we’ll be covering many of those RSD Black Friday releases in upcoming newsletters. Starting next week, The Vinyl Cut will launch a weekly series that highlights the best and most interesting Black Friday vinyl to prepare you for the big day—we’ll give you the heads-up on what shouldn’t be missed and let you know what isn’t really worth waiting in line for. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to get the latest newsletters delivered right to your inbox. Your subscription helps support this project and allows us to give you lots more vinyl news and in-depth reviews.

For now, let’s look at this week and the bounty of vinyl reissues in our immediate future. There’s a ton coming out right now—and your local record store is going to be busier than usual this weekend, thanks to a certain new album by you-know-who—and things are just going to get crazier as we approach the holidays. So let’s enjoy all of this free-market capitalism while we can, and dig in! NL

RHINO

It’s going to be a very busy month in Vinylville, and a lot of that has to do with Rhino Records. The reissue arm of Warner Music wants your October to be a ROCKtober, and to make sure of this, they’ve got more than 40 reissues, represses, and colored variants headed to independent record stores. The starting lineup for this week got slightly reduced with several titles pushed back to later in the month, but for the kickoff, Rhino’s got a clear vinyl pressing of 1977’s Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, which comes hot on the heels of the Rhino High Fidelity premium version they dropped mere weeks ago. (Read our review here.) This one should be a standard edition—probably from the same plates that Warner’s been using the past few years—and not the all-analog Kevin Gray cut used in the RHF. 

Also for ROCKtober, Deep Purple’s 1972 live opus Made in Japan comes on black vinyl, featuring the new Steven Wilson remix that appeared on the album’s deluxe box set earlier this year. That remix was released on its own on vinyl in Europe a few weeks ago, but this is its North American debut outside of the mammoth 10-LP or 5-CD box set. If neither of these wet your whistle, don’t worry: A veritable barrage of ROCKtober stuff is on the way from Rhino in the coming weeks.

Lastly, Rhino just announced a Rhino High Fidelity version of the Monkees’ 1967 album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. It’s been pretty funny to see a few of the RHF diehards get all bent out of shape about what they think is a teenybopper pop record, but as anyone who’s actually listened to it knows, Pisces is not merely the peak of the Monkees’ recording career but an excellent ’60s pop album on par with the Beatles, Kinks, and Byrds. In fact, I’ll say that “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and “The Door into Summer” are two of the best songs ever recorded by anyone. This new RHF version is apparently the first vinyl edition to ever be cut directly from the album master tape, as previous vinyl versions all used EQ’d copy tapes. It was, of course, cut all-analog by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal, and it’s currently limited to 5,000 numbered copies, but Rhino often represses these when the initial run sells out. These aren’t available at record stores (if it goes to an unnumbered repressing, that’s when stores will get it), but for now it can be purchased direct from Rhino—and you can also go over to the Monkees’ web store at Warner Music to snag a just-announced 4-CD box set that comprehensively documents the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. recording sessions. NL

[INTEGRAL]

This sub-label within the Play It Again Sam Entertainment Group graces the world with colored vinyl repressings of the first four solo works by David Sylvian: 1984's Brilliant Trees, 1986's Gone to Earth, 1988's Secrets of the Beehive, and Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities, a 1985 work initially issued only on cassette. This quartet uses the most recent remasters and are pressed on pretty lovely looking colored wax. I can't say that I've heard any of these recent reissues, but all four are among my favorite post-punk albums. On them, Sylvian continued to explore the lush, abstract work that crept into the final albums by his former band Japan and has vital contributions from Jon Hassell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Torn, Robert Fripp, and Holger Czukay. RH

BECAUSE SOUND MATTERS/WARNER

Everyone’s getting into the one-step business these days. With dollar signs in their eyes, Warner Records took a cue from the success of MoFi and Analogue Productions and resurrected their dormant Because Sound Matters slogan/imprint as the haven for their fancy new one-step releases. The one-step process can be better explained elsewhere but is, in a nutshell, fairly simple: 1) Cut multiple lacquers instead of one. 2) Create your stampers directly from those lacquers, bypassing the father-mother reproductive step of the process. 3) Profit. Following one-steps of albums by Green Day, k.d. lang, and (for some reason) Linkin Park, the Because Sound Matters series continues with this week’s release of Prince and the Revolution’s Purple Rain. 

With a sticker price of $100, this one-step of the 1984 blockbuster—an album you already own—is cut by Levi Seitz of Black Belt Mastering from a new high-res digital file of the quarter-inch EQ’d analog master that Prince originally delivered to Warner Bros. Records. Because the one-step process requires several runs of the master in order to create multiple lacquers, it was deemed wiser to use a digital file rather than put wear and tear on Prince’s tape. The disc was pressed at RTI on a supposedly high-grade vinyl compound and comes in a Stoughton gatefold with the original album poster and inner sleeve, all inside a fancy slipcase. With the high price point, it’s easy to be skeptical, but some are convinced that these one-steps are head and shoulders above the rest. Are there enough of them to sell out all 6,000 copies? We shall see. (If this isn’t enough to satisfy your one-step fix, Universal Music also recently announced their own DSS One-Step series, with releases coming out this month.) NL

STRATA-EAST

This past Record Store Day saw all 1,500 copies of Pharoah Sanders' Izipho Zam (My Gifts), a tectonic-plate-shifting rumble of free jazz featuring a double bass assault from Cecil McBee and Sirone, and Sonny Sharrock's paint-peeling guitar, disappear from the racks of shops in the US, Canada, and the UK almost immediately. (Did I manage to mail-order a copy from a British location? No comment.) If you missed out on this in April, you'll be happy to know that many more copies of this monumental album have been pressed and are arriving in shops tomorrow. RH

ANALOGUE PRODUCTIONS

Chad Kassem’s two-years-and-running Atlantic 75 campaign rounds the home stretch with three new releases this week. They’re all crucial records, given the indulgent 45 RPM double-disc treatment with all-analog transfers from the original masters. (Keen observers will note the price point on some titles in this series has crept up from $60 to $65 a pop.) Otis Redding’s debut LP, Pain in My Heart, contained his earliest hits such as “These Arms of Mine” and the title track, and it was a fitting introduction to one of the greatest singers in history. Atlantic’s lawyers and accountants long ago snatched the early Stax/Volt catalog away from Stax, which is why they’re part of the Atlantic 75 series today, but records like this one are very much the bedrock on which Stax’s legacy—and that of soul music in general—was built. This reissue is of the mono LP, as it was never properly recorded or mixed for stereo.

Aretha Franklin’s 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black immediately preceded her groundbreaking Amazing Grace recording, and it very much pointed the way to her embrace of traditional gospel within her established soul style. It’s a terrific record; nobody ever married soul and gospel as tightly and effectively as Aretha. And Billy Cobham’s Spectrum from 1973 was the drummer’s first LP as bandleader. It captured a watershed moment in jazz fusion where virtuosity met wild abandon, resulting in a showcase that’s miles away from the rigidity and sterility that would set into the genre later in the decade. Kevin Gray cut the Aretha Franklin and Billy Cobham discs, and Bernie Grundman cut the Otis Redding; all three were pressed at Analogue Production’s sister company, Quality Record Pressings, and come inside Stoughton gatefolds. NL

OJO DE MUJER

We here at The Vinyl Cut HQ are skeptical but cautiously optimistic about the legitimacy of Ojo de Mujer, a new reissue label based in Brazil. They have distribution through Forced Exposure, but have no other internet presence that we could find. But looking at the imprint's first run of releases certainly has us intrigued. Among them are reissues of Gilberto Gil with Os Mutantes, a 1968 meeting of two MPB giants that amps up the psychedelic textures already present in Gil's 1967 debut album to Magical Mystery Tour levels; The Twinkling Star, a 1961 release from Umm Kulthum, the singer known as "the Voice of Egypt"; Milton Nascimento's second album, Courage, a 1969 effort produced by Creed Taylor that finds the Brazilian artist working with US jazz players Herbie Hancock, Bill Watrous, and Jerome Richardson; and, in a stylistic curveball, Hard Attack, the second and final album by Dust, a proto-metal power trio from New York whose drummer Marc Bell went on to join the Voidoids and the Ramones. RH

CRAFT

Craft Recordings have two tip-top reissues of music that your groovy aunt will really get a kick out of. First is Joan Baez’s Farewell Angelina, the 1965 LP that was her first to include an electric guitar, played by the legendary Mr. Tambourine Man himself, Bruce Langhorne. The title track and “Daddy, You’ve Been on My Mind” were Dylan tunes that he never put on an album until The Bootleg Series, and there are two more Dylan songs as well as a rendition of Donovan’s “Colours” and other traditional and well-known folk songs. The reissue comes from an analog source and was cut by the busiest man in lacquer cutting, Kevin Gray.

Meanwhile, Craft also has a reissue of Tremendo Trio!, the collaborative salsa album that finds singers Celia Cruz and Adalbergo Santiago backed by the Ray Barretto Orchestra. It’s the first time it’s been reissued since its original 1983 release, and is “remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Polster and Clint Holley at Well Made Music,” although I don’t know if that means it’s all-analog. If it doesn’t explicitly say so, probably not. The vinyl comes in black and tremendo rojo variants. NL

BLUE NOTE

I hope we never take the Tone Poet series for granted, because what a wealth of excellent Blue Note jazz it has provided us with over the years. That said, the series has been so prolific and terrific that it’s easy to lose track of all the good stuff. Consider this your reminder. This week they’ve got Stanley Turrentine’s In Memory Of, a 1964 session that went unreleased for a decade and a half. It features Curtis Fuller, Herbie Hancock, Blue Mitchell, and more all playing swinging hard bop, and it’s reissued now in a period-appropriate cover with all-analog Kevin Gray mastering, pressed at RTI.

The kids might say Bobby Hutcherson’s 1975 joint Montara is “vibes,” and that’s actually correct, with the vibraphonist holding down an ensemble that delves into Latin jazz, fusion, and sun-dappled West Coast cool. It’s a mostly (but not entirely) chill and laid-back listen that’s both very much of its moment and anchored in the continuum of jazz history—the result being that it turns into something timeless, with surprisingly broad appeal. Gray cut this one too, from the analog master, and it was pressed at—you guessed it—RTI. NL

BE WITH

Pianist and composer Keith Tippett was a vital force in the Canterbury scene, connecting the worlds of prog, rock, folk, and jazz through his appearances on albums by King Crimson, Iain Matthews, and Arthur Brown, and his own groundbreaking work in a variety of ensembles. One of his strongest efforts remains Dedicated to You, But You Weren't Listening, a 1971 album credited to the Keith Tippett Group that vibrates with energy and coiled fury, and features contributions from various members of Soft Machine and Pilot bassist Neville Whitehead, among many others. Though many reissues of this album have happened over the past 30 years or so, this new edition from Be With looks to overshadow them all with mastering work from Simon Francis and a lacquer cut by Cicely Balston at Abbey Road Studios. RH

MOBILE FIDELITY

No one appreciates Linda Ronstadt more than The Vinyl Cut does, but look: There is no shortage of her imperial ’70s run on vinyl. You’ve probably got some on your shelf right now, and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that your local record vendor has a dozen used copies of Prisoner in Disguise that he’ll gladly sell you for two bucks a piece. Featuring covers of Neil Young, Little Feat, Jimmy Cliff, and Dolly Parton, the 1975 album functions as a state-of-the-art document of what was happening in the pop-country end of big-league songwriting during the mid-’70s. And original pressings sound great. Nevertheless, the opportunists at MoFi have seen fit to grace audiophiles’ turntables (and empty their wallets) with a 45 RPM double-LP version, even after they attempted a 33 RPM version back in 2008 and made a bit of a hash of it. This one is cut from a digital transfer of the quarter-inch master tape and was pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing. NL

CHARLY

The Nice were among the baton-passers when psychedelia evolved into prog, and while they’re often remembered as Keith Emerson’s precursor to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the band’s catalog is probably stronger than ELP’s, or at least has a higher batting average. Their third album, Nice, is back on vinyl for the first time since the ’80s, and it’s a half-studio, half-live affair that has the band at their energetic best and bombastic worst. “Azrael Revisited” is a charming whatsit that playfully toys with typical rock-song expectations, and the live “Rondo” was repeated by ELP for years in their live set. The album is part of Charly Records’ celebration of the 60th anniversary of Immediate Records (the label started by Andrew Loog Oldham), which dovetails nicely with Charly’s new comp, The Twisted Wheel Club: Land of a Thousand Dances. Twisted Wheel was a legendary dance club in Manchester where the Northern Soul movement was incubated; this comp collects 16 killer Northern Soul tracks to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the club’s second and longer-lived location on Whitworth Street, which held all-night dance parties from 1965 to 1971. NL

CLUE

The fans of the Wedding Present that I know are completists in the mode of GBV and Grateful Dead obsessives. Every last scrap of music must be collected. And the Leeds, England, pop group happily play into the hands of those folks, releasing multiple singles and compilations alongside their full-length albums. I imagine, then, that fans will look over the tracklist for 40, a 4-LP box set tracking the history of the group over the past four decades via album tracks, B-sides, and choice cuts from BBC Radio sessions and realize that they likely have every last song in some form or another, even as they plunk down cash for a copy. Guilty as charged. RH

BIG BROTHER RECORDINGS

During this pause in their comeback tour, Oasis fans can satisfy their fix with the 30th anniversary edition of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? The three-LP package contains, of course, the famed “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday,” the charming goof that was on the original vinyl edition of Morning Glory, but does not contain any of the many, many excellent B-sides that were on this era’s singles—nor does it have the period live performances that featured on the 3-CD deluxe edition from 2014. This is the very definition of a missed opportunity, as instead, the third LP contains, rather ominously, “newly unplugged” renditions of five tracks. Punters can choose from black vinyl, indie-store exclusive “Cast No Shadow” clear vinyl, and “Acquiesce”-inspired neon orange vinyl. (If you have any clues as to how that last one came about, please write in.) NL

BUREAU B

Originally released on CD in Japan in 2006 under the name Consequenz 2+, the material on Consequenz III, a collaboration between former Tangerine Dream member Conrad Schnitzler and drummer Wolfgang Seidel, aka Wolf Sequenza, is getting a vinyl release for the first time this week. Recorded during the same mid-’80s sessions that yielded the previous volume in this series, this collection of short, rhythm-heavy pieces was the next logical step forward beyond the motorik grooves of Cluster and Neu! and toward the glitchy electronics of Mouse on Mars and Kreidler. RH

ATO

My Morning Jacket’s Z turns 20, so there’s a triple LP with B-sides and demos to commemorate it. Read our vinyl review here. NL

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE
Peter & The Test Tube Babies: The Mating Sounds of South American Frogs [Captain Oi!/Cherry Red]
Boris the Sprinkler: Saucer to Saturn [Hey Suburbia]
Deathpile: G.R. [Hospital Productions]
Alicia Keys: Unplugged 20th anniversary edition [Sony Legacy]
Casiopea: self-titled; Mint Jams [Sony Japan]
Cathedral: Society’s Pact with Satan; The Garden of Unearthly Delights [Rise Above]
Jason Isbell: Something More Than Free 10th anniversary edition [Southeastern]
Jennifer Rush: Heart Over Mind; Movin’; Passion; Wings of Desire [Sony UK]
Ladytron: Witching Hour 20th anniversary edition [Nettwerk]
King Creosote: KC Rules OK 20th anniversary edition [Warner Bros UK]
Ozobby Horn: Born to Move [Afrodelic]
Parliament: Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome [BGP Records/Ace]
Ronnie McNeir: Makes a Move [Kent/Ace]
Skids: Land, Sea & Sky: Skids Singles 1978–1981 [Demon]
White Boy and the Average Rat Band: self-titled [Riding Easy]
Yuji Takahashi: Music for Cyber Cafe [Em Records]
Supergrass: Road to Rouen [BMG]