New vinyl re-releases: September 12, 2025
Lots more vinyl reissues arrive this week, with some familiar work back on wax and some undiscovered gems poised to reach ears for the first time. As we mentioned last week, tariffs continue to be a real problem, with many countries and vendors justifiably unwilling to send merchandise to the US until our country gets its act together. Our advice is to befriend your local record merchant and work with them patiently to get the vinyl you need into your hands. We've provided links to the labels where possible to help you learn more about these albums, but buying from a local brick-and-mortar is always the way to go if you're able. They definitely need your support right now, especially because a lot of them have had much of their overseas stock vanish due to the situation.
Enough bellyaching (for now). Let's get into it.
NOW-AGAIN
After logging time as a member of the Spinners—including a performance at the famed Zaire ’74 music festival on a bill that included James Brown and B.B. King—keyboardist Rodney Stepp broke out on his own, recording an album’s worth of deeply funky, Sly Stone-indebted material with pals like guitarist Lonnie Williams and drummer Harry Eaton in 1977 under the name Rapture. Those sessions are finally seeing release this week thanks to Now-Again with a fantastic vinyl edition produced by label founder Eothen Alapatt and crystalline remastering by Jason Bitner. NOW-AGAIN RH
ARABUSTA
Italian label Arabusta has excavated Jacinta Sanches - Pedro Ramos, the 1988[?] joint effort by the longtime Cape Verdean couple who ran the Dancing Bar in Cova da Moura, the Cape Verdean enclave in Lisbon. There, they primarily brought reggae music to Portuguese ears, but on this marvelous album they incorporate saudade from Portugal, reggae from the Caribbean, and African and morna sounds from their home. It's a lovely and unique mixture, containing countless corners of the Atlantic within a harbor-safe, upbeat sound. ARABUSTA NL
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
The legendary German classical label continues their Original Source series with a reissue of a 1974 4-LP set that collected orchestral works by the composers Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, the trio that defined the Second Viennese School and pioneered atonal composition and, later, 12-tone technique. This stuff was the crest of the wave of modernism that came to define 20th-century classical music. These performances come from the Berliner Philharmoniker with Herbert Von Karajan behind the baton, and when you read about DG's Original Source series, it's tough not to get excited by their method of going back to the original quadraphonic four-track masters to create all-analog discs with no mixdown generational loss. However, there have been reports of pressing flaws with this series (pressed by Optimal), and with a very high price point, one has to really be enamored with the music to take the plunge. With luck, this set has potential to be mind-blowing if it manages to be free of blemishes. DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON NL
WARNER
The massive box-set project that Rhino/Parlophone embarked on 10 years ago to cover the (near) entirety of David Bowie's career reaches its end this week with I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016), a whopping 18-LP crate (or a mere 13 CDs) that collects the albums from the final 15 years of his life. This includes Bowie's self-written eulogy, the tremendous ★ [AKA Blackstar], plus the albums Heathen, Reality, and The Next Day, as well as the No Plan EP. Also included is the live album A Reality Tour, a previously unreleased 2002 live set from the Montreux Jazz Festival, and a 4-LP collection of loose tracks continuing the Re:Call series. To go into depth about the contents would take up this entire newsletter, so let it suffice to say that there's a wealth of stuff to explore here, although it may all be overshadowed by the weight of the Blackstar material. I believe the only Bowieworks untouched by these Rhino/Parlophone sets are the pre-"Space Oddity" recordings and the Tin Machine years. RHINO
Rhino's also revisiting Phil Collins's 1985 blockbuster No Jacket Required, with a 4-LP "Fully Tailored" edition. This might prove a tough sell for those who aren't Collins-devoted, as the bonus material replicates the hodgepodge of live stuff that made up Disc 2 of the 2016 Deluxe Edition reissue—mostly recorded in the 1990s, with the actual No Jacket Required 1985 tour represented by a couple of tracks. What appears to be new here are a BBC recording of "One More Night," a song from Live Aid, and a proper round-up of the album's contemporaneous B-sides, including "The Man with the Horn" and "I Like the Way," previously only found on singles and the digital-only comp Other Sides. As for the No Jacket Required album itself, it's included in a half-speed cut from Abbey Road, which I believe means there's a digital step involved. RHINO
Led Zeppelin's double album Physical Graffiti turned 50 earlier this year, and Rhino's releasing a semicentennial edition to capitalize. It repeats the 3-LP Deluxe Edition from 10 years ago, with the extra disc containing seven rough mixes and alternate takes from the album sessions. There's also a new Live E.P. with four live tracks, two from 1975 and two from 1979. This is a nice gesture but falls well short of a more substantial live document of these two periods. Fingers crossed that the release of the EP means more is on the way, but I'm not holding my breath. RHINO NL
SPEAKERS CORNER
Arriving in the midst of one of the hottest streaks that any jazz musician has ever had, Ornette!, the 1961 album from the Ornette Coleman Quartet, earns that exclamation point with four white hot, freewheeling tracks that continued the startling course of the previous year's Free Jazz and set the stage for the saxophonist's future work with fellow freaks like Albert Ayler and Yoko Ono. Curiously, the last vinyl edition of this album arrived way back in 2001, but this new edition will surely eclipse it, sonically speaking, what with Speakers Corner's devotion to an all-analogue production process and the sure hand of engineer Kevin Gray handling the mastering. SPEAKERS CORNER RH
ANALOGUE PRODUCTIONS
Three news ones from the Salina, Kansas, audiophile powerhouse, two of which come from their Pablo Records reissue series: Benny Carter Meets Oscar Peterson is a peppy, fruity set from 1987 with Joe Pass, Dave Young, and Martin Drew rounding out the quintet. The AAA disc was cut by Matthew Lutthans at the Acoustic Sounds in-house Mastering Lab and pressed at Salina plant Quality Record Pressings (QRP), also part of the Analogue Productions/Acoustic Sounds industrial complex. ACOUSTIC SOUNDS
Memories of Duke by trumpeter Clark Terry is a more mysterious set (coincidentally also featuring Pass on guitar) that dates from 1980—naturally, its indigo flavor comes direct from the Duke Ellington songbook, but these numbers are delivered in stripped-down, late-night arrangements. It's also an AAA pressing cut by Lutthans at the Mastering Lab and pressed at QRP. ACOUSTIC SOUNDS
Lastly, Chad Kassem & Co. are issuing a 2-LP 45 RPM version of Humble Pie's Smokin', a 1972 set of lunkheaded rock at its finest. It's the first record Humble Pie released after Peter Frampton left, with Steve Marriott picking up the slack and howling charming numbers such as "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "30 Days in the Hole." Kevin Gray of Cohearent cut this one, an all-analog pressing made at QRP. ACOUSTIC SOUNDS NL
MOBILE FIDELITY
MoFi just dropped a 45 RPM 2-LP rendition of Parliament's Mothership Connection, perhaps the best-known album from the legendary funk outfit. Bizarrely, it looks like disc 1 (consisting of Side 1 of the original release) is taken from a 1/4” 30 IPS analog master while disc 2 (the original Side 2) is taken from a 1/4” 15 IPS analog master. Different speed tapes for different album sides? I guess stranger things have happened, and things were probably pretty wild in the recording studio, so maybe no one was really paying attention. The usual MoFi caveats apply here, with the DSD digital step involved, but likely with impressive results, and it does sound like the actual master tape was involved, not a copy. MOBILE FIDELITY
MoFi also has James Brown's Sex Machine ready to go. The 1970 double album was purportedly live, but the first half was actually doctored studio recordings with overdubbed applause, while the second half does indeed come from a live show in Augusta, Georgia. In my opinion, that fake live half was never a paragon of audiophile sound, but MoFi has tackled it all the same. And the funk is undeniable. Per the label: "1/4" / 15 IPS analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe." MOBILE FIDELITY NL
BUREAU B
Compilations like A Piece of the Action (1995–2005), a gathering of a decades' worth of singles released by Germany house music duo Egoexpress, are welcome additions to the collections of electronic music heads. It's nice to have the original 12-inch releases, sure, but unless you're in proper DJ mode, it can become a pain to head back to the stereo again and again to flip the records on the turntable. Better to let this set of club-centric jams, pressed on two LPs by the good people of Bureau B, keep your apartment dance party roll along free of interruption. BUREAU B RH
OH BOY
John Prine's 1995 album Lost Dogs + Mixed Blessings seems to have fallen out of circulation, but a deluxe reissue is finally here, with a 2-LP edition of the album making its first appearance on vinyl. It looks like those four sides will only include the 55 or so minutes of the original album and none of the bonus material that will be on the CD version, which is a bit of a shame, but at least this music is available at all, especially the winding, nostalgic "Lake Marie." It's pretty '90s sounding production, so maybe we'll take the Mixed Blessings of the album title at face value. OH BOY NL
DAMAGED GOODS
Fourteen Rhythm & Beat Greats is making its way to Stateside distributors this week. The 1982 album from Kent, UK's Thee Milkshakes—the former stomping ground of Billy Childish—recalls the Beat movement of the early to mid-'60s, with mean and lean music meant for mods and rockers alike (surely they've learned to get along by now). The album was given a re-release back in July by Damaged Goods, but it's just now showing up on some US retailers' websites, which is welcome news. DAMAGED GOODS NL
WEWANTSOUNDS
French imprint Wewantsounds has quickly become one of my favorite sources for freshly recycled music. Their rich catalog mines the dustier corners of the jazz universe while uncovering lost gems of the global market. Their latest release is a shiny pearl from Fairuz, the internationally adored vocalist from Lebanon. The album, Chat Iskandaria, finds the artist lending her honeyed voice to a collection of songs written by the similarly legendary songwriting team of Assi and Mansour Rahbani. WEWANTSOUNDS RH
BORN BAD
French label Born Bad is dropping a fascinating-looking (and -sounding) collection of music from the French West Indies, which include Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, and Saint Barthélemy. While music of the region, specifically from Jamaica (reggae and ska), Cuba (cubano, bolero, et al), and Trinidad and Tobago (calypso) is very familiar to American ears, this comp—titled Dolores: Salsa & Guaracha from '70s French West Indies—targets a slightly different bit of the Afro Caribbean diaspora. BORN BAD
Born Bad is also reupping their 2022 reissue of the 1985 coldwave synth-pop album by the band Ruth, titled Polaroïd/Roman/Photo, in time for the album's 50th anniversary. With Farfisa organ and kalimba in the mix, this is both a futuristic and organic-sounding brew, albeit one that apparently fell upon deaf ears upon its original release, reputedly selling only a mere 50 copies. This latest edition comes with a bonus 7-inch. BORN BAD NL
MUSIC ON VINYL
The Only Ones' 1979 comp Special View, which gathered tracks from their first two British albums, is given a limited red pressing via Music on Vinyl, and the chance to get "Another Girl, Another Planet" on wax is always worth investigating. The Dutch label also has a turquoise repress of Upsetters' 1970 disc Eastwood Rides Again, a woozy batch of instrumentals that show dub being invented in real time by producer Lee "Scratch" Perry. And they've got Consecration I, a 1980 live set by the Bill Evans Trio that's seen various releases over the years, plus a turquoise press of British boogie juggernauts Status Quo's 1968 debut LP, Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo. Purists note that MoV uses a digital step with their vinyl, and also be aware that not all titles are available in America for direct purchase from MoV's site; ask your local retailer. MUSIC ON VINYL NL
SILENCE
In spite of previously released box sets from International Harvester and the outfit that band morphed into, Träd, Gräs Och Stenar, the 1970 debut album by that latter outfit has, until this week, yet to be brought back into circulation. A tip of the midsommarkrans goes then to Swedish label Silence for finally repressing this psych-folk monster, which kicks off with a molasses-slow burn through "All Along the Watchtower" and an appropriately wobbly take on the Stones' "Satisfaction" before launching into equally tripped-out realms. SILENCE RH
REAL GONE MUSIC
The generically bouncy pop of singer Lyn Christopher's 1973 self-titled debut album might be totally lost to obscurity, were it not for a pair of backup singers who made their recording debuts on it: Chaim Witz and Stanley Eisen, better known as Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. This absolutely mediocre album sounds like a '70s New York City bar band on an off-night, but it manages to command high prices from collectors because Kiss fans are absolute maniacs. They can rest easy this weekend with this new reissue tucked snugly beneath their Kiss-brand pillowcases. REAL GONE
Real Gone also has a reissue of Philly Joe Jones's 1958 album Blues for Dracula, Jones's debut as a bandleader and the perfect jazz album perfect for Halloween. The opening title track has Jones doing his best Bela Lugosi impression, but the rest is potent stuff, with Nat Adderley and a crew of talent on board. This purple pressing might not be the pure-chain Stoughton-jacket reissue jazz nuts are hoping for, but with the audiophile big dogs neglecting this one thus far, this might be the best chance for you to make your October 31 as cool as possible. REAL GONE NL
NUMERO GROUP
Numero continues their thorough Karate reissue series with If You Can Hold Your Breath: The First Five Years. That's exactly what it sounds like, with a deep dive on the Boston post-hardcore band's recorded works from 1993 to 1998, including albums Karate, In Place of Real Insight, and The Bed Is in the Ocean, plus lots of other goodies within its five LPs, including an unreleased demo from 1993. NUMERO NL
OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
Earlier this year, Sony Music France released a 14-LP box set encompassing all of Françoise Hardy's output for the Disques Vogue label, covering her breakthrough years of 1962 to 1967. In August, Omnivore Recordings made that box available for sale to American customers, and this week they are releasing the first three carveouts from that box: reissues of 1962's Tous Les Garçons et les Filles; 1963's Le Premier Bonheur du Jour; and 1964's Mon Amie la Rose. These are all on colored vinyl and feature bonus tracks (Mon Amie is even expanded to two LPs). Meanwhile, Sony is releasing black vinyl versions in Europe. The relationship between Omnivore and Sony is not totally clear to me, but I imagine it is a licensing one, and these pressings are probably more or less identical. The Sony box received mixed marks on pressing and sound quality, which is a shame, because they otherwise seemed positioned to be the definitive word on this stage of Hardy's remarkable career. Without the Omnivore discs in hand, I couldn't say if these are free of similar problems. They will continue the series with more colored vinyl releases later this year. OMNIVORE
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
Chet Baker: Five From ’65: The Quintet Summer Sessions [Newland]
Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow [Heavy Flowers]
Mike Oldfield et. al.: The Original 1976 Broadcast of the Orchestral Hergest Ridge [Gonzo]
The Earth: The Legendary Lost 1969 Tapes [Big Bear]
Foghat: Fool for the City 50th anniversary 2xLP [Rhino]
The Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah 50th anniversary [Grateful Dead Productions/Rhino]
Marillion: Misplaced Childhood picture disc [Rhino]
Heins Hoffman-Richter (AKA Rod McKuen): Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease - repress [Real Gone]
Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier: Windflower - repress [Real Gone]
Alina Ibragimova & Arcangel: Bach - Violin Concertos [Hyperion]
Augustus Pablo: Crucial Cuts [Shanachie]
Metronomy: Greatest Hits; BBC Sessions [Because]
Linval Thompson: Negrea Love Dub [Jamdung]
Spice: Let There Be Spice [Sonic Wax]
Tadaaki Misago & the Tokyo Cuban Boys: On Stage [Lawson Entertainment]
Various Artists: Alts ’n’ Outs - black repress of colored RSD '25 release [Blue Note]
Vince Guaraldi: You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown - black vinyl repress (zoetrope vinyl released earlier this year) [Lee Mendelson Productions]
