New vinyl reissues: April 17, 2026

Even though Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 18, there are still a ridiculous amount of reissues coming out this week—perhaps to capitalize on all the extra foot traffic that record stores will get this weekend. But maybe there are other motives at work. For example, Vinylphyle just this morning surprise-announced two new titles in their line of premium reissues—from Gang Starr and the Flying Burrito Brothers; more on those below—and they’re only available via Universal's website, not at record stores. The timing seems a little cruel to those who have been saving up their pennies for Record Store Day and to the record stores themselves.

At any rate, there’s lots to look at, so here’s a short reprieve from our (truly excellent and future-award-winning) Record Store Day coverage to look at all the other new records heading your way.

Paid subscribers get an exclusive playlist containing selections from all the records we’re talking about this week. That’s available at the very end of this newsletter, so paid subscribers, scroll on down and click play.

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​​The Zombies: Begin Here [Beechwood Park]

Last year we got the first fruits of the Zombies’ reacquisition of their back catalog in the form of a long-overdue vinyl reissue of their 1968 masterpiece Odessey & Oracle in mono. (Read our rave review here.) Now comes the second installment—of four—in the band’s definitive reissue series, with a mono release of their first full-length, 1965’s Begin Here. This includes their breakthrough debut single, “She’s Not There,” as well as other impossibly charming Zombies originals, like “The Way I Feel Inside” and “I Can’t Make Up My Mind.” There are also covers like Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me.” This reissue follows the 14-song British tracklist, with the three additional tracks that appeared on the US configuration appended to the end of each side. One of those is “Tell Her No,” the Zombies’ other big hit before Odessey. The disc is available in black and limited gold marble vinyl; tune in next week for our full-length review. NL

Antoine Dougbé et l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou: Antoine Dougbé et l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou [Analog Africa]

The presence of Benin’s l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou is probably enough to get diggers of African sounds on board with this fascinating new compilation from German label Analog Africa. But Antoine Dougbé might be a less familiar name. The son of a Vódun priest, Dougbé considered himself the devil’s prime minister, and he apparently struck terror in the hearts of the musicians he worked with. He developed a compositional style inspired by cavacha, a local style based on the rhythms of a train. Writing his songs by slapping them out on his knees and legs, he would hand them over to Mélomé Clement, the founder of l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, who’d arrange them for the band. (Apparently Dougbé wouldn’t cause the group too much grief because the bassist and drummer were fellow Vódun initiates.) These tracks date from 1977 to 1982 and come from the three LPs Dougbé recorded with the Orchestre. They’re infectious works cut through with Cuban influences and traditional Beninese elements, with the Orchestre at the peak of their considerable powers. NL

Bill Plummer and the Cosmic Brotherhood: Bill Plummer and the Cosmic Brotherhood [Jackpot]

This 1968 oddball could best be summed up as “sitar jazz,” but even that doesn’t encompass the globetrotting wonders within. California upright bassist Bill Plummer also dabbled in sitar, and he developed a confederate of bassist/sitarists that became known as the Cosmic Brotherhood, and their collective efforts—led by Plummer—led to this intriguing curio, released by Impulse! Records and produced by label head Bob Thiele. Portland label Jackpot has reissued it featuring a lacquer cut by Kevin Gray, and we’ve got a review of it for you here. NL

Gang Starr: Hard to Earn [Vinylphyle]

Here’s a welcome surprise: One of the latest entries into Universal’s sterling Vinylphyle series is 1994’s Hard to Earn, the fourth album by hip-hop duo Gang Starr. By this point in their career, the pair had little to prove. Guru was one of the smoothest MCs in the game, cutting down his rivals and pumping up his ego with a heavy-lidded delivery. And DJ Premier was making soulful, crackly beats that were the envy of the rest of the rap community. But they still managed to come out swinging on Hard to Earn, a record chockablock with instant classics like “DWYCK,” “Suckas Need Bodyguards, and “Speak Ya Clout,” a song that featured future legend Jeru the Damaja in a support role. Orders are now live for this fresh vinyl edition, which was cut from digital using a vinyl EQ production master by Joe Nino-Hernes, so there’s every reason to believe that this is going to be a fantastic listen. RH

The Flying Burrito Brothers: The Gilded Palace of Sin [Vinylphyle]

Albums simply don’t get better than the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin, their glorious 1969 debut that merged country, rock, and soul into a blend of melancholy beauty, a perfect document for the dying bonfire of the ’60s. Having splintered off from the Byrds, Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman serve up Louvin Brothers–style harmonies on these tracks, which were largely written by the pair but are augmented by a pair of tunes written by Memphis songwriting legends Chips Moman and Dan Penn: “Do Right Woman,” made famous by Aretha Franklin, and “The Dark End of the Street,” which was James Carr’s signature song. Universal’s premium Vinylphyle series has just announced an all-analog pressing, which comes from a 1996 half-inch safety copy tape, cut by Joe Nino-Hernes and pressed at RTI. Intervention Records released a phenomenal version of this album back in 2017, cut by Kevin Gray from this same safety copy, I believe, so the Vinylphyle crew has its competition cut out for them. But having this brilliant, defining album back in any form is cause for elation. [Note: The two VIP early access links we’ve included for the Vinylphyle titles may expire soon; once they do, you should be able to find them here.) NL

The Congos: Congo Ashanti [VP]

The vocal trio known as the Congos came out of Jamaica’s rocksteady scene in the late ’60s but established their roots reggae sound with the guidance of Lee “Scratch” Perry, the producer who helped make the group’s first singles and their 1977 masterwork Heart of the Congos. Emboldened that album’s success, the three men—Cedric Mayton, Roy Johnson, and Watty Burnett—struck out on their own, self-producing a pair of albums, Congo Ashanti and Image of Africa, both released in 1979. The two records are equally strong, but my heart tips toward Congo Ashanti. The record, which is getting a remastered RSD Essentials reissue this week, retains some of the experimentalism that Perry brought to the group’s material while pointing the way toward the smoother reggae that would dominate the ’80s. RH

Beastie Boys: To the 5 Boroughs [UMe]

The Beastie Boys’ 2004 album To the 5 Boroughs was the New York hip-hop trio’s first after a lengthy gestation period that followed years of touring for 1998’s Hello Nasty. As such, it was their first album after September 11, and it’s both a love letter to their city and a somewhat sober comedown after their ’90s heyday as the cleverest rappers south of Canal Street. Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA subtly but deliberately call back to hip-hop’s roots with a stripped-down sound that dispenses with the flirtations with punk rock from 1992’s Check Your Head, the forays into funk and jazz on 1994’s Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty’s electro-disco. It’s also light on something the Beastie Boys were the absolute best at—fun—but during the dark days of 2026, its themes of integration and unity make it seem like a record ripe for reappraisal. Here’s your chance, with the album reissued on two LPs and a third disc that contains the 11 bonus tracks from a 2019 deluxe version that was available digitally. It comes with a triple pop-up gatefold, an NYC subway map, and a slipcase—and an eye-watering price tag to go along with it. NL

Vernon Wray: Wasted [Survival Research]

Vernon Wray spent the better part of his life in service of what you might call a family business. His younger brother Fred, better known to the world as Link Wray, was an early rock ’n’ roll star, and Vernon was there to support him every step of the way. The elder Wray brother played rhythm guitar in the Ray Men, helped record some of the group’s early ’60s singles, and even started Vermillion Records, the label that released the 1962 album Great Guitar Hits by Link Wray and his Raymen. By the early ’70s, Vernon was worn down and opted to relocate to Arizona, where he set up a new studio and started recording some of his own tunes. Vernon’s music, as heard on his lone full-length 1972’s Wasted, sits in the same psych-country zone of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Kris Kristofferson, but with the added jolt of Link’s acid-rock guitar leads and a touch of swamp blues to keep things lively. The album, released on Vermillion, was pressed up in very limited numbers, which has pushed the cost of original copies into the hundreds. Wasted has been reissued a few times, including a 2011 vinyl pressing on the tiny indie Sebastian Speaks that is also commanding high prices. This week, Australian grey-market imprint Survival Research arrives with their own reissue that brings the cost down considerably and hopefully gives this cult favorite its sonic due. RH

Flipper: Generic Flipper [Superior Viaduct]

The collective worldview of San Francisco sludge-punk outfit Flipper could be summed up by “Ever,” the song that kicks off their 1982 album Generic Flipper. Over a churn of molten guitar riffs and bone-crunching drums, vocalist Bruce Loose spits out lyrics like, “Ever look at a flower and hate it/Ever see a couple kissing and get sickened by it.” It’s punk at its purest and most virulent, but free of the mosh-pit-riling speed. The whole album continues in that same mode, with the group settling into a slow, sickly groove while Loose and the group’s other vocalist Will Shatter (the two men would trade off playing bass and singing) venting their disgust at themselves and the world around them. Superior Viaduct is bringing Generic Flipper back into print this week with a translucent yellow pressing that includes liner notes from the great journalist and critic Simon Reynolds. RH

Etta James: Tell Mama & Chuck Berry: St. Louis to Liverpool [Chess/Acoustic Sounds]

Two new titles from Acoustic Sounds’ Chess Records series are now locked and loaded. Etta James’s 1968 album Tell Mama was recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals and remains a slice of ’60s soul heaven, with James—the greatest soul singer of all time, and I’ll stand on Aretha Franklin’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that—backed by the Swampers for an incredible roster of tunes, including the title track, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” “Steal Away,” and “Just a Little Bit.” I have to say, the idea of a Muscle Shoals record with James on the mic, freshly cut from analog tape, has me a little weak in the knees. The other new one is Chuck Berry’s St. Louis to Liverpool, a 1964 LP that includes classic after classic, like “You Never Can Tell,” “Little Marie,” and “No Particular Place to Go.” Apart from the instrumental “Liverpool Drive,” this has nothing to do with the British Invasion at all but was given a slightly misleading title to cash in on the craze. These were both cut from tape by Matthew Lutthans and pressed at QRP. It’s easy for the sheer number of reissues from Acoustic Sounds to become background noise, but these two are pretty special things indeed. NL

Chinas Comidas: Complete Studio Recordings ’77–’81 [Ghost Highway/Beat Generation]

The Seattle art-punk band Chinas Comidas were at the forefront of the international shift in culture in the late ’70s, bringing their own inventive twist to the burgeoning anything-goes movements in art and music. Their lyrics brought a feminist perspective from frontwoman Cynthia Genser and a uniquely poetic bent to their aggressive, melodic songs. Chinas Comidas—Spanish for “Chinese food”—moved to LA and were part of the formative scene there, rubbing shoulders with the Germs, Fear, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag, and they released two excellent EPs that pointed the way forward but failed to break through outside of the scene despite interest from Slash Records. The two EPs, plus a handful of extra tracks, make up this full-length disc, resurrecting a forgotten chapter in West Coast punk rock. NL

Tycho: Epoch [Ghostly International]

Tycho, the chillwave project led by Canadian artist Scott Hansen, trucks in the kind of music that works well both in the club and in a high-end spa. I don’t mean that as a knock on the group’s work, but rather as a compliment for how the trio has managed to develop a sound that is simultaneously uplifting and relaxing. There’s a quality to the synth and guitar tones that kneads at the skull like a temple massage, but the drums of Rory O’Connor give every song a zing to set the lower half of the body in motion. Tycho has also maintained a level of consistency that is downright Boards of Canadaesque. You know what you’re going to get with each album and it satisfies every time. 2016’s Epoch, the group’s fourth album, is one of the most satisfying. The warm modular synth textures and lightly funky guitars that have become their signatures are all over this album, but the trio dares to push the tempos just a touch faster on a few tracks to make sure that listeners don’t fall completely into a fugue state. Tycho’s longtime label Ghostly International is celebrating Epoch’s 10th anniversary this week with a new vinyl pressing on blue and black marbled wax. RH

Ry Cooder: Boomer’s Story [Speakers Corner]

Ry Cooder is the man of a thousand album credits—Discogs actually puts the number at 1147—but while his slide guitar has ornamented countless best-selling records, Cooder’s own albums are no slouches either. His third one, 1972’s Boomer’s Story, continues his obsession with American folk and blues roots, reaching back into the first half of the 20th century for takes on songs by Skip James and Lawrence Wilson and going back even further for the Civil War–era song “Rally ’Round the Flag,” a song written to glorify the Union but that became so popular that it jumped the Mason-Dixon line and was appropriated as a Confederate anthem too. The album is wondrously gorgeous, with Cooder’s warm guitar accompanied by guest musicians like Sleepy John Estes, Randy Newman, Jim Dickinson, Roger Hawkins, and Dan Penn. It’s been recut to vinyl from analog tape by Kevin Gray for German label Speakers Corner and pressed at Pallas. NL

Fever Ray: Fever Ray [Mute]

Karin Dreijer may have stepped away from the Knife, the electronic project she co-founded with her brother Olof, to start her solo career under the name Fever Ray, but sonically, she stayed pretty close to home. The 2009 self-titled record by this new project traded in some of the steely-eyed obfuscation for a warmer, more sensual sound, but the music tapped into an icy vein through her choice of synthesizers and the harmonizer effects she applied to her voice. In some circles, Fever Ray is best known for the song “If I Had a Heart,” which was used as the theme song for the History Channel series Vikings, but for electronic music fans whose tastes tip toward the darkwave, the album remains a vital text and a DJ crate staple. Fever Ray is getting a white vinyl repress this week in a limited run of 2,000 numbered copies. RH

Jericho Jones: Junkies, Monkeys and Donkeys & Jericho: Jericho [Guerssen]

Israeli psych-rock band Churchill’s (don’t knock the apostrophe; they use a different alphabet over there) came to England and renamed themselves Jericho Jones, releasing the prog-inflected Junkies, Monkeys and Donkeys on A&M Records in 1971. Recorded in a single 24-hour session, it’s eclectic in the way that certain late ’60s/early ’70s albums can be, with bracing hard rock and jasmine-scented mellowness all jumbled up together. Spanish reissue kings Guerssen are getting it back onto turntables this week, and they’re also doing the band’s follow-up: Jericho, which signaled the shortening of their name as well. The 1972 album was a heavier affair, with extended numbers that blew out the margins, destined to become a lost treasure in the prog-rock deluge of the early ’70s. NL

Bolt Thrower: …For Victory [Earache]

The fifth studio album by Bolt Thrower was the end of a particularly fruitful chapter for the British death metal band. …For Victory would be the last record to feature the drumming of founding member Andrew Whale and, after touring the album, Karl Willetts, the group’s longest tenured vocalist, would leave the fold for the first time. (Willetts would be back in time to record their next album Mercenary.) Before this shakeup, Bolt Thrower were on a precipitous rise through the metal ranks thanks to their association with Earache Records and the stamp of approval from tastemaking Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who invited the group to record three sessions for his show. Their creative peak up to that point was …For Victory, a brilliant collection of songs that rumbles and shifts with the weight and power of tectonic plates, punctuated with the screeching solos of guitarist Barry Thomson and Gavin Ward, and Willetts’ shredded vocalizing. This fresh reissue of the 1994 album is being released this week as part of the RSD Essentials series. RH

Tasavallan Presidentti: Tasavallan Presidentti (II) [Svart]

Finnish prog band Tasavallan Presidentti blended hard-hitting jazz rock with mellow flute-augmented folk rock, and occasionally their albums sound schizophrenic as a result, but more often than not those two disparate styles created a chemical reaction that resulted in something very interesting indeed. Their second album, 1971’s Tasavallan Presidentti—self-titled just like the first (but often referred to as II)—communicates with some of the trends going on in the UK at the time, bearing traces of Traffic, Jethro Tull, and Colosseum, but also locating its own particular Finnish identity as well as tapping into the earth-rock from their fellow Scandinavians in the Träd, Gräs & Stenar family tree. Svart Records has the re-up on this one, repressing their 2014 vinyl reissue on transparent green and violet/black smoke varieties. NL

My Morning Jacket: Z [Mobile Fidelity]

Z, the 2005 album from My Morning Jacket, marked a pivot for the Kentucky band. They toned down the Skynyrdisms and turned up the experimentation, delivering a set that incorporated synths and dabbled in dub. In retrospect, it still sounds like a pretty mainstream rock record, but it was a strong set from a songwriting perspective and remains the band’s critical high-water mark. Last year a 20th-anniversary edition was released with a slew of bonus tracks, but now Mobile Fidelity is releasing a high-end version that’s been treated to their UltraDisc one-step process and cut at 45 RPM to boot. It was mastered from a DSD digital transfer of the analog master and includes the B-side “Where to Begin.” NL

Cowboy Junkies: The Caution Horses [Sony Canada]

When Cowboy Junkies released their third studio album, 1990’s The Caution Horses, the critical consensus was that the Canadian country-folk band had lost the plot. The quartet had devastated listeners with the hushed, minimalist sound of their brilliant 1988 release The Trinity Session, an album recorded live around a single microphone in a Toronto church. But now the band was in a proper studio, still playing live to tape, but with a more crisp, almost radio-friendly sound (or as radio-friendly as this band could ever get). At the time, it may have felt like a step backwards, but in the context of their still-active career, it was really the next logical step for a band that drew inspiration from mercurial artists like Neil Young and Mary Margaret O’Hara, both of whom are covered on The Caution Horses. The album maintains an autumnal glow throughout that draws listeners in closer to catch every last nuance of their unhurried performances and singer Margo Timmins’s haunted voice. If you have any cash left over after your Record Store Day exploits this week, I suggest adding this stunning album, which is being reissued this week as a 2-LP set via Sony Canada, to your shopping basket. (Note: We don’t have a direct store link for this one, but there’s an entry in Discogs for it, and it’s also listed on a particular site named after a river in South America.) RH

Bibiotecha Hermetica: One [Black Editions/La Musica]

Black Editions once again mines the back catalog of La Musica, the microindie Japanese label run by musician Asahito Nanjo, with a truly out-there piece of wax. Next to nothing is known about Bibiotecha Hermetica, the group responsible for the 1996 album One. The original cassette release featured no details identifying the individual performers, and the music has no distinguishing sonic marks to connect it to the many psych-rock and noise artists associated with La Musica. What listeners got instead were two side-long pieces of experimental music that suggested the tonality of contemporary classical with the use of strings and woodwinds but were overtaken by the rumble of what sound like taiko drums and low drones made by either throat singing or a broken bassoon. As with the other entries in this La Musica reissue series, the music for this first-ever vinyl edition of One has been mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering and the lacquers were cut by Phil Rodriguez at Elysian Masters. RH

Jazz Alley

Let’s see who’s creepin’ down Jazz Alley this week. Why, it’s Oscar Peterson, with an archival release of a 1960 performance that hasn’t ever been issued before. The Oscar Peterson Trio at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge does what it says on the tin, capturing the legendary pianist at the Detroit jazz club with his lineup of the trio that included drummer Ed Thigpen and bassist Ray Brown. Peterson is quite vocal during the performance, and his groaning and muttering might have been the reason why Verve scotched the planned live album from this recording, but it’s now a welcome window into the past. It’s available as a single disc everywhere or a 3-LP set exclusively through Verve’s website.

Verve is also racking up two new ones in its Verve Vault series. Cannonball Adderley’s 1958 album for EmArcy, Cannonball’s Sharpshooters, is coming back around to stores, featuring the alto saxophonist’s first quintet that included his brother Nat on cornet. And Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ 1965 album for Limelight Records, ’S Make It, also gets a fresh remaster, with trumpeter Lee Morgan and trombonist Curtis Fuller joining the drummer. Both Verve Vault titles were cut from analog tape by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed at Optimal Media.

Lastly, Blue Note drops two more into the bottomless well that is their Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series. First, Stanley Turrentine’s 1968 joint Easy Walker features pianist McCoy Tyner alongside the saxophonist, flirting with the soul jazz that was all the rage but keeping things relatively traditional otherwise. And Blue Mitchell’s 1964 album The Thing to Do finds the trumpeter playing with Chick Corea on piano and Al Foster on drums. Both Blue Notes are cut from tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal. NL

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
Anderson .Paak: Malibu [OBe/Apeshit]
Baby Grandmothers: Baby Grandmothers [Subliminal Sounds]
Blue Öyster Cult: Don’t Fear the Reaper: The Best of Blue Öyster Cult [Music on Vinyl]
David Bowie/Trevor Jones: Labyrinth soundtrack [UMe]
Cannibal Corpse: Gallery of Suicide; Bloodthirst; Eaten Back to Life (picture discs) [Back on Black]
Carcass: Heartwork (RSD Essentials) [Earache]
Mariah Carey: Emotions; Music Box; Daydream; Butterfly [Sony]
Chrome: Return to Zanzibar [Cleopatra]
George Colligan: Activism [Steeplechase]
Combichrist: No Redemption [Out of Line]
Dimmu Borgir: Abrahadabra [Nuclear Blast]
Slim Dunlap: Every Little Word: The Best of the Bonus Tracks [Curation]
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs: Fabulosos Cavalera; La Marcha del Golazo Solitario [Sony Music Latin]
Boris Gardiner: Every Ni**** is a Star soundtrack [Solid Roots]
Israel Vibration: Vibes Alive! [Diggers Factory]
Karate: Pockets [Numero Group]
King’s X: Tape Head [Brutal Planet]
Kisschasy: The Terrors of Comfort [Unified Music Group]
Kraan: Aladdin Tapes [36Music]
Zara Larsson: So Good [Sony Legacy]
Nara Leao: Nara [Sowing]
Jennifer Lopez: J.Lo [Sony]
MC Thick: The Show Ain’t Over Till the Fatman Swings [Rarebreed]
Jackie Mittoo: In Cold Blood [17 North Parade]
Jackie Mittoo: The Money Makers [Solid Roots]
John Morris: High Anxiety soundtrack [Elektra]
Doug Raney Quartet: Never Say Yes - 1986 [Storyville]
Ras G: Blunts Rolled [Ghetto Sci-Fi Music]
Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah: Stretch Music [Ropeadope]
Slutet: Slutet; Jihad [Crypt of the Wizard]
The Stooges: Fun House (unnumbered retail edition) [Rhino High Fidelity]
Various Artists: Twilight Gods in the Twilight Zone: God, Drugs, War & Distant Dreams of Peace 1962–1979 [Iron Mountain Analog]
The Velvet Underground: Loaded (unnumbered retail edition) [Rhino High Fidelity]
Widespread Panic: Sunday Show: 3/24/19 The Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY [Widespread]
Warren Zevon: Epilogue: Live at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival (wide release after RSD BF 2026) [Omnivore]

Be sure to check out the playlist below for today’s new releases, available on Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal for our paid-tier subscribers.