New vinyl re-releases: September 5, 2025
There's an insane number of vinyl re-releases happening this week, with labels across the globe continuing to put great music back into circulation. Here are some of the ones that look most interesting.
A quick note, first: At the moment, the US tariff situation is, uh, unclear, to say the least, and several labels and international retailers are holding off on shipping to the US until things can be clarified. Technically, phonograph records (and all physical media) are considered "informational materials" and should be considered exempt from any additional tariffs—however, the reality is that US policy has been maddeningly inconsistent thus far, and no one can say for certain what will and won't get dinged at the Customs Office. As a result, some countries have suspended all shipments.
This is going to have repercussions for months to come in the vinyl community, and we'll try to stay on top of any developments. But right now, it seems that nobody knows anything (especially the people in Washington making decisions), so we'll proceed with the information we have at hand. The vinyl marketplace is decidedly an international one, with even major American labels doing a lot of their pressing overseas, so it's likely that things could get messy in the coming months. Expect delays, to say the least. And without any more ado, let's look at what old music is now back on new wax, from US labels and those abroad.
ANALOGUE PRODUCTIONS
Three more titles from Analogue Productions' Atlantic 75 series are now available to order from Acoustic Sounds. Like the other vinyl titles in the series, these are double LPs pressed at 45 RPM, stretching the original albums over four sides for increased fidelity, with an all-analog chain wherever possible. The three latest include two bonafide classics: Aretha Franklin's Atlantic debut, 1967's I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, simply one of the greatest soul albums ever recorded. Then there's Les McCann and Eddie Harris's soul-jazz bestseller Swiss Movement, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival and containing their immortal take on "Compared to What." The third is Bad Company's fifth album, 1979's Desolation Angels, whose inclusion in the Atlantic 75 series is awfully generous to the legacy of Bad Company, to say the least. For those keeping track at home, Desolation Angels isn't the one that has "Can't Get Enough" and it isn't the one that has "Shooting Star"—rather, it's the one that has "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy," so, y'know, go nuts. ACOUSTIC SOUNDS has 'em for order now, and they should trickle their way to other retailers pretty soon. The Franklin title is reputedly cut directly from the Atlantic master tape by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, but the pedigree of the other two titles has not been revealed; all three were cut at 45 RPM at Quality Record Pressing.
WARNER
Joni Mitchell has put together the career-spanning Joni’s Jazz, an eight-LP collection (it's also available on four CDs) that “reflect jazz’s profound influence on her music.” That's a broad net, and the tracklist is a bit of a hodgepodge, with unreleased stuff, familiar album tracks, live performances, and a heavy leaning on the latter half of her career, when her jazz influences nudged out the folk ones. RHINO.
On another end of the musical spectrum, classical violinist Itzhak Perlman sees a handful of his performances reissued in a box whose title says it all: 5 Legendary Recordings. You could look at this as a vinyl cherry-pick from the massive 78-CD box of Perlman’s recordings that was just released last week, covering his entire recorded works for the EMI, Teldec, and Erato labels. This abridged LP box includes: the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Giulini and the Philarmonia Orchestra (1980); Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, and the Berliner Philharmoniker (1995); the Brahms Violin Concerto with Giulini and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1976); Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Ormandy and Philadelphia (1978); and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, recorded with the London Phil (1976). WARNER CLASSICS.
UNIVERSAL
Two new installments from Blue Note’s gorgeous Tone Poet series hit racks this week: Chico Hamilton Quintet Featuring Buddy Collette was actually originally released not on Blue Note but on the Pacific Jazz label back in 1956. (Blue Note has since acquired the catalog.) With Fred Katz on cello and Collette’s flute, it occasionally has a more classical feel than much of the bebop of the day, but side two captures a sparky live set. BLUE NOTE (mono, AAA, cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent, pressed at RTI).
Don Cherry’s Complete Communion also gets the Tone Poet treatment. A further development on Cherry’s free-jazz breakthroughs, the 1966 LP also features Gato Barbieri, Henry Grimes, and Ed Blackwell. The album features two side-long multipart suites and despite its avant-garde tendencies is a surprisingly legible, inviting listen. BLUE NOTE (AAA, cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent, pressed at RTI).
(NB: If you’re already completely in the bag with the Tone Poet series and want to buy all of them regardless, Blue Note is offering a subscription service for the truly devoted.)
Universal also seems to be reissuing Devo’s EZ Listening Muzak, a compilation of the two cassettes Devo released in the early ’80s via their fan club that featured, you guessed it, easy-listening, lounge, and exotica re-workings of Devo hits and album tracks. The comp was last released on various shades of vinyl back in 2016, but otherwise I couldn’t find much info about this black vinyl re-release. UNIVERSAL UK/FUTURISMO (no direct link for this one, but it is available at various online retailers).
MOBILE FIDELITY
A numbered 33 RPM edition of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s 1970 self-titled album is here via MoFi, with all the hoopla and skepticism that entails. Without having heard it, we imagine it’s probably an impressively smooth-sounding, precise presentation of the prog-rock lodestone, with MoFI’s DSD step providing high-quality digital audio (an SACD version is also available). Per the label, the chain is “1/4-inch / 15 IPS analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe”—my guess would be that the tape is Atlantic Records’ copy of the original Island UK master that was used to prepare the initial US release on the Cotillion imprint, but I could not say for certain, and MoFi does not say what generation the copy tape is. Still, Emerson, Lake & Palmer—for my money, the supergroup’s best album overall—was last released on vinyl way back in 2016, so a new wax version is good news, even if it has the defaced cover art common to all MoFi releases. And with MoFi announcing that new vinyl and SACD versions of Tarkus are on the way (they put out CD and vinyl versions back in 1994), could a full MoFi reissue campaign of ELP’s ’70s catalog be in the works? MOBILE FIDELITY (mastered at MoFi, pressed at Fidelity, DSD digital step).
MUSIC ON VINYL
Prolific Dutch label Music on Vinyl [MoV] has some good ones in store this week. The real highlight is Brazilian guitarist Rosinha de Valença’s gorgeous 1971 album Um Violão Em Primeiro Plano. It’s a stylistic tour de force, delving into the innumerable musical ingredients that made up 1970s MPB, with de Valença’s expert guitar uniting them all. Music on Vinyl first reissued this last year on green vinyl; this week’s release is a black vinyl pressing with presumably identical mastering. While Music on Vinyl always presses from digital, their product is typically reliable, and this record is good and scarce enough to warrant a recommendation. MUSIC ON VINYL (due to rights issues, this is not available for direct purchase from MoV outside of Europe, but it is available as an import from other online retailers).
MoV is also releasing a grip of Pharoah Sanders stuff, including his 1995 album Message from Home, a hip-hop inflected set that has never seen vinyl release before (it’s also unavailable directly from MoV for those outside of Europe, but can be found at other online retailers). They’ve also got a red-vinyl repress of his 1990 album Moon Child and a 2-LP reissue of the 1991 compilation Welcome to Love. MUSIC ON VINYL.
ELEMENTAL
Speaking of the Pharoah, Elemental is releasing Sanders’ Love Is Here: The Complete Parks 1975 ORTF Recordings, an expansion of a 2020 archival set that collects some radio recordings Sanders did for Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française in 1975. During this period, Sanders was metamorphosing from the free-jazz style of his familiar Impulse years into a more spiritual realm. The set music was “transferred from the original stereo tape reels at the French INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel),” with “LP mastering by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab.” It’s unclear to me if that involves a digital step or not. ELEMENTAL (bizarrely not on their site, for some reason!—but readily available at online retailers).
SUPERIOR VIADUCT
San Francisco imprint Superior Viaduct is gifting the world a reissue of the 1976 self-titled debut of Chickasha, Oklahoma, proto-punk band Debris’ (the apostrophe in the band name is deliberate). Sometimes called Static Disposal due to the name of the label, Debris’ is a skronky, enervated descent into the great howl, with sax and analog synth in the art-damaged stew. It’s astonishing to think this music was made outside of a major scene like New York or Canterbury or Berlin, but indeed it was—a one-of-a-kind transmission. SUPERIOR VIADUCT.
JACKPOT RECORDS
Portland label (and fine retail store) Jackpot Records is revisiting two of the Meters classics they’ve already reissued on color vinyl, this time in “premium” black vinyl: 1969’s self-titled The Meters and the follow-up, Look-a Py Py, from the same year. Without the item in hand, there’s no way for me to assert that these are in any way superior to the colored vinyl versions or whether “premium” is merely a perceived selling point for those allergic to colored. While I myself prefer black vinyl whenever possible, those colored Meters reissues were basically perfect—AAA cuts by Kevin Gray and sounding fuller and clearer than ever before. This New Orleans funk is a pillar of American music, all simplicity and groove—some of the most important and enjoyable music ever made. If you missed out on these, it’s a good time to get into it. Let’s hope Jackpot also does a black-vinyl version of Struttin’ to complete the trilogy. It's AAA and cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent; previous colored versions were pressed at Memphis Record Pressing, so presumably these are, too? JACKPOT.
DE WOLFE
Library music fans can scoop up de Wolfe's reissue of British composer/arranger/bandleader Reg Tilsley's Tilsley Orchestral No. 10, a 1972 collection of sample-ready pop instrumentals scored for big studio bands in the mold of Quincy Jones and Burt Bacharach. There's wah-wah guitar to be heard, some funky bass, and plenty of strings and brass. There's some easy-listening schlock, too, but the soulful, jazzy sounds of tracks like "Stax," "Strike Rich," and "Hold the Road" more than make up for it; de Wolfe, of course, is the legendary British library music service with a formidable catalog of all kinds of film and television music. DE WOLFE (not available for purchase directly from the site but available at other online retailers).
NOT DARK YET
Newly defunct label Not Dark Yet—their Soundcloud bio says, "Failed Record Company, releasing the last of the paid-for licenses before closing"—appear to be behind this new reissue of Bahamian singer Jay Mitchell's charming 1975 album Impartiality, although some sources say the Strawberry Rain label is releasing it, so I'm not entirely sure. (More on Strawberry Rain in a sec.) At any rate, this is a terrific Caribbean soul/funk album, a little to the left of reggae, a little north of calypso, a little south of gospel, and entirely full of warmth, grace, and groove. You can definitely get it at LIGHT IN THE ATTIC (and RIP Not Dark Yet, we guess—this one most likely isn't getting a repress).
STRAWBERRY RAIN
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Canadian label Strawberry Rain is definitely responsible for a new reissue of the four-song EP by Zambian trio Larry Gersh & Mike. Everyman contains everything the threesome recorded back in 1980 or thereabouts, including the "Dance"/"Kili" single. It's a Zambian take on proto-disco, with heavy funk undertones and a hint of Zamrock. LIGHT IN THE ATTIC has that one, too.
Strawberry Rain is also giving a repress to the Tinkles' Chalo Kuwama, which was the first LP released on the legendary Zambia Music Parlour label back in 1974. If Zamrock fans missed Strawberry Rain's initial 2021 repress, they won't want to sleep on this one. LIGHT IN THE ATTIC.
NUMERO GROUP
The experienced curators at Numero Group are dropping another comp of rare sides for their Eccentric Soul series with Eccentric Spiritual Soul, collecting 10 obscure tracks that touch upon the vibes of the spiritual jazz movement that was flourishing in the early '70s. Numero says this one "digs deep into the private annals of the Black music diaspora," which suggests some or all of the tracks come from private pressings. Without knowing anything more about the specific contents, most prospective buyers know that these Eccentric Soul comps are self-recommending and are likely already on board. NUMERO GROUP.
BUREAU B
A pair of August releases come Stateside via Hamburg label Bureau B. The first is Silberland Vol. 3: The Ambient Side of Kosmische Musik 1972–1986, continuing their superlative Silberland compilation series with what they describe as music "coasting far beyond the familiar rhythmic terrain to explore crystal caverns and emerald pastures, immersing listeners in the ambient side of this alternative Allemagne." Contributors include celebrated names like Cluster & Eno, Faust, and Thomas Dinger alongside less familiar artists. BUREAU B/TAPETE (the store is not currently shipping to the US due to the aforementioned idiotic tariff situation, but hopes to resume soon—the title may be currently available via other importers).
Bureau B has also just given the first vinyl release to the 2012 project Radium Girls, a collaboration by Japanese musician Phew, Japanese artist Erika Kobayashi, and German musician Dieter Moebius. The album came together in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, but the work is focused on the plight of the Radium Girls, factory workers who suffered radiation poisoning while making glow-in-the-dark pieces at a New Jersey watch factory in the 1910s. BUREAU B/TAPETE (see note above about US orders).
MUNSTER
The Monks' lone album Black Monk Time has gone in and out of print over the years since its release in 1966, and Spanish label Munster is now the latest to bring it back to record store shelves. The American band, made up of GIs stationed in Germany, continue to grow in influence over the years, with their distinctive arty shriek-rock—an outgrowth of '60s garage rock—being recognized as an antecedent of the punk movement to come. In any case, Black Monk Time is a sui generis document, and one that needs to be heard by any serious fan of avant-garde rock. MUNSTER/VAMPISOUL.
MOVED BY SOUND
English folksinger Shirley Collins's 1958 debut album Sweet England is back in print, thanks to UK label Moved in Sound. Other than a 1987 pressing on See for Miles, this important album has not circulated on vinyl since its initial release, and in some ways it is ground zero for the British folk-rock movement that was to blossom in the late '60s. It looks as though Moved in Sound initially had this for sale earlier this year, but it hits US distribution this week. It won't last long. MOVED BY SOUND.
STRUT
Strut Records is resurrecting Mal Waldron's Candy Girl, a 1975 set released only in France. The jazz keyboardist jammed with American funkers Lafayette Afro Rock Band in a small Paris studio, coming up with a ripe, short set of synth-augmented funk-jazz that never deserved to languish in obscurity. Thanks to Strut, now more ears can hear it. STRUT (their webstore says they have paused all US orders—once again, we can thank our tariff-genius-in-chief for that one).
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
Quicksilver Messenger Service: Hawaii 1970 [Gonzo]
Various Artists: Chiswick Records 1975-1982: Seven Years At 45RPM [Chiswick]
Evie Sands: I Can’t Let Go [Ace]
The Seeds: Raw & Alive [GNP Crescendo]
Henry Manfredi: Friday the 13th Part II, Part III Original Soundtracks [Waxwork]
Big Boys: Where’s My Towel/Industry Standard; Lullabies Help the Brain Grow; No Matter How Long The Line Is at the Cafeteria, There’s Always a Seat [Touch & Go]
The Fall: Seminal Live [Beggars Arkive]
Camper Van Beethoven: Telephone Free Landslide Victory [Cooking Vinyl]
Capricorni Pneumatici: Uber Artaud [Vassopressin]
Duke Ellington: Masterpieces [Pure Pleasure]
Archie Shepp & Mal Waldron: Left Alone Revisited [Pure Pleasure]
Archie Shepp & Richard Davis: Body & Soul [Pure Pleasure]
Ural Thomas: Nat - Ural [Mississippi Records]
Michael Hurley: Bad Mr. Mike; Parsnip Snips [Mississippi Records]
Various Artists: African Slide Guitar [Mississippi Records]
Various Artists: Conscience Let Me Be [Pyramid]
Various Artists: 2015–2025: Les Disques Bongo Joe - 10 Years of Sonic Explorations [Bongo Joe]
Yoshiko Sai: Chou No Sumu Heya; Taklamakan [P-Vine]
Kashmere Stage Band: Out of Gas But Still Burning [P-Vine]
Weldon Irvine: The Sisters [P-Vine]
Rick Asikpo & Afro Fusion: Got to Be Me [Soundway]
Sister Nancy: One Two [VP]
Soft Works (members of Soft Machine): Abracadabra [Moonjune]
The Stone Roses: Turns Into Stone [Silvertone/Sony UK]
Susumu Yokota: Skintone Edition Vol. 1 [Lo Recordings]
Susumu Yokota: Magic Thread [Lo Recordings]
The Georgia Prophets: Fever [Charly]
The Sultans: Shipwrecked [Swami]
