New vinyl reissues: January 16, 2026

There are lots of new records to talk about today, but first, two bits of news on the vinyl reissue scene:

First, Universal’s Vinylphyle has announced the next title in their series. As you may remember, they launched the series at the end of last year with a quartet of interesting, diverse titles. (Read our reviews here and here.) The newly announced Vinylphyle is a double LP—actually, a double live LP, and it’s sort of the prototypical ’70s double live LP. Yes, friends, it’s Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive, and the Vinylphyle version is “sourced from the original 1975 Doug Sax 1/4” production master,” with Joe Nino-Hernes cutting the lacquer. I figure it’s all-analog? Right? That word “sourced” is furrowing my forehead a little bit. I’ll assume it’s cut from the tape unless we hear anything otherwise. This may seem a bit of a softball down the middle for Vinylphyle, but keep in mind that it’s Frampton Comes Alive’s 50th anniversary this year, so a nicely done repress seems appropriate.

Second, Analogue Productions/Acoustic Sounds have finally followed up on the leaky pseudo-announcement from November of last year that they were embarking on a series of Rhino reissues, all rendered on double-LP in the 45 RPM format. A few changes: The series is now called the Acoustic Sounds 40 Series (AS40 for short), and will be making use of the Rhino/Warner catalog but has been retitled to emphasize Acoustic Sounds’ 40th anniversary. The series will have 40 titles in it when all is said and done, with some of the releases also appearing on SACD. Here’s a list of what Acoustic Sounds has announced thus far. Release dates are TBD, except for the first two titles, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Moondance, both of which—somewhat surprisingly—are sourced from digital, as apparently the analog master tapes are falling apart. Those come out January 30.

[UPDATE: Some additional dates have been announced. They are:
March 6
Gordon Lightfoot: Sundown
George Benson: Breezin’
April 3
Little Feat: Sailin’ Shoes; Dixie Chicken
May 1
Montrose: Montrose
America: America]

Some of the other titles originally leaked do not seem to be part of this initial announcement, including several Jethro Tull albums and Genesis’s Duke, so let’s hope those are on the way. (Speaking of Genesis—which I am always happy to do—their 1976 album Wind & Wuthering IS part of this lineup, but it’s spread out to three discs instead of two, partly because Side 1 contains the 10-minute “One for the Vine,” which would need to be broken in half across two sides in order to keep it to two LPs and preserve the running order. Bizarrely, the listing has the “Unquiet Slumbers/In That Quiet Earth” suite—which is very much a single piece of music—split across two sides, negating the whole purpose of going to three discs in the first place. Let’s hope that is a mistake that gets corrected before the discs are cut. As it is, we’re looking at some six-minute-long sides, which are a waste of everyone’s time.)

Last thing! Our January vinyl giveaway, for ultra-collectible test pressings of the Definitive Sound Series one-steps of R.E.M.’s Chronic Town and Murmur, will go live this Saturday. Newsletter subscribers will get the announcement email in their inbox, and paid-tier subscribers will be able to enter to win. (Not a paid member yet? Click below!)

And that’s enough banter and gossip for now. Let’s get into this week’s new reissues.

Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscope of Rainbows [Analogue October]

Late English jazz composer Neil Ardley has been seeing a revival of his groundbreaking work in a spate of recent vinyl reissues, not the least of which is this reissue of his 1976 album Kaleidoscope of Rainbows, released at the end of 2025 but now making its way to US distributors and retailers. Kaleidoscope of Rainbows was based on a work commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain and honed live over the previous year; it’s a sort of indescribable composed jazz suite, with classical elements and some modal improv—the closest comparison is the work of Duke Ellington, shot through with the developments of midcentury jazz and the electric inventiveness of the fusion movement. The work uses a wide palette of rock and jazz tones with sprinklings of synth, and its near-hourlong running time is split over two discs on this Analogue October reissue. The original tapes were converted to digital for a half-speed master by Miles Showell at Abbey Road that was pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands, and the package includes high-quality artwork and a 12-page booklet. We have yet to hear it, but all accounts suggest that this is the definitive pressing of an unconventional work that breaks down genre barriers while remaining its own thing of unique beauty. NL

The Wild Swans: Space Flower [Music on Vinyl]

I’m never going to be the biggest fan of Music on Vinyl, as they only use digital files for their reissues, even when the original master tapes are readily available. But I am always going to be a fan of the Wild Swans, the Liverpudlian guitar-pop group led by former Teardrop Explodes member Paul Simpson. Begun in 1980, the band went through as many lineup changes as they did shifts in their sound. Early tracks like “Revolutionary Spirit” were melodic post-punk while the late ’80s saw a shift into more dreampop territory. Great as all that was, the Wild Swans truly blossomed in 1990 with Space Flower. Simpson paired up with Lightning Seeds leader Ian Broudie for a sugary, gently funky neo-psychedelic approach that was of a piece with the far more crowed-about sounds coming from nearby Manchester. This new pressing comes on purple vinyl and in very limited numbers—only 750 copies. Out today in Europe, it’s sold out at the source, but hopefully some copies will be arriving in stores via Stateside distributors soon. RH

Warning: Watching from a Distance [Relapse]

As work gets underway on the first new Warning album in two decades, the British doom-metal band’s new label Relapse is whetting our appetites this week with a fresh repress of the group’s 2006 opus Watching from a Distance. The album is still a bracing shock to the system, with the Essex-born trio building upon the foundation of groups like Black Sabbath and Sleep with each lavalike composition, all slowly oozing rhythms and blistering-hot, trudging guitar. Warning stood well apart from their contemporaries with the work of guitarist/vocalist Patrick Walker, whose lyrics boldly lay out his deep feelings of grief and loss without vocal effects or a whiff of insincerity. This new edition of Watching comes as a 2-LP set or a 4-LP box set that includes a full live performance of the album from the 2017 Roadburn festival. RH

Decca Pure Analogue [Decca]

Another high-end vinyl series gets underway this week, this time under the banner of Decca, the UK label that was a classical powerhouse in the 20th century and now is one of many brands beneath the vast Universal umbrella. The new Decca Pure Analogue line very much follows Deutsche Grammophon’s Original Source Series, using analog master tapes for high-end pressings cut at Emil Berliner Studios and wielding a premium price tag. The differences here are that the Decca and Philips catalogs are being plundered and the vinyl is pressed at Pallas as opposed to Optimal. The trio of releases inaugurating the series are George Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 1974 recording of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (cut at 45 RPM on a single disc); Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1975 recordings of Sibelius’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 and Tapiola (cut in stereo from the quadraphonic master tape); and the 1979 New Year’s Day concert from the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Willi Boskovsky and including works by the Strauss family (cut from previously unused analog tapes; the original release was from digital). The prices on this series are distressingly high on Decca’s site (another thing this series has in common with DG’s Original Source Series), so I would strongly encourage you to look at other vinyl retailers, where the prices seem much more reasonable. NL

Spider Taylor: Surge Studio Music [Dark Entries]

The late James Allan Taylor, dubbed “Spider” by his dad for his apparently unstoppable energy, was a naturally gifted musician who spent much of the ’70s trying on different stylistic hats, from post-punk to country, but found his niche in the ’80s when he began working with Al Parker, the co-owner of Surge Studios, a production company that specialized in gay porn. Taylor created the soundtracks for a handful of Surge films, writing and performing music that, even with its era-appropriate trappings of early drum machines and whirling analog synths, bristled with energy and sensuality. Dark Entries is releasing Surge Studio Music, an LP that collects choice bits of Taylor’s soundtrack work, all of it mastered by Frédéric Alstadt of Angstrom Mastering in Brussels. RH

The Space Lady: The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits [Night School]

This week, Scottish label Night School is issuing a fresh white vinyl repress of The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, a collection of lo-fi covers of pop hits from the ’50s to the ’70s by Susan Dietrich, the legendary outsider artist known better as the Space Lady. As the story goes, Dietrich began performing on the streets of Boston with an accordion and a plastic helmet with white wings, gaining a cult following for her haunted takes on radio hits. In the early ’80s, she upgraded her setup to a Casiotone MT-40 keyboard and moved to San Francisco, where she began selling homemade cassettes of her performances. After a long hiatus and relocation to Colorado, Dietrich returned to the scene with support from Night School, who initially issued Greatest Hits, a compilation culled from her self-released work, in 2013. RH

Mercury Rev: All Is Dream [Cherry Red]

When psych-rock outfit Mercury Rev set about making their fifth album, 2001’s All Is Dream, the wind was very much in their sails. Their previous record, 1998’s Deserter’s Songs, had earned them all manner of critical praise and some surprising chart success in the UK. It afforded them to swing a little more freely on the follow-up, with bolder arrangements and a little help from new friends like Tony Visconti, who arranged the strings for the brilliant “Chains” and contributed some instrumentation elsewhere. For the 25th birthday of All Is Dream, Cherry Red has a new pressing out this week that replicates the vinyl editions they’ve issued in 2020, 2022, and 2024, with a second LP of bonus material and outtakes. RH

Etta James and Chuck Berry [Chess/Acoustic Sounds]

Acoustic Sounds’ series of Chess releases pumps out two new discs this week. Etta James’s 1960 album At Last was the singer’s first full-length, released on the Chess subsidiary Argo (not to be confused with the Decca subsidiary of the same name). Containing the legendary title track, it also features James in a more orchestral, contemporary-pop and -jazz setting, although there’s still plenty of the blues and R&B that she sang so well, including “Tough Mary,” one of James’s own compositions. Chuck Berry’s 1959 LP, Berry Is on Top, was his third for Chess and collected a bunch of singles Berry had released from 1955 to 1959; therefore, its tracklist reads like a greatest hits: “Maybelline,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Carol,” “Little Queenie,” “Around and Around,” and on and on. It’s essential rock ’n’ roll, to say the least. Both discs were cut from tape by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab (stereo in the case of Etta James, and mono for Chuck Berry) and were pressed at Quality Record Pressings. NL

Stevie Nicks: Rock a Little [Mobile Fidelity]

Just announced, this Mobile Fidelity pressing of Stevie Nicks’s 1985 solo album is a numbered 45 RPM pressing on two LPs. The album is very much a creature of the ’80s, with glossy production full of rigid drum programming, synth stabs, and lots and lots of overdubs. But Nicks was no stranger to excess, and the album stands as a time capsule of mid-’80s state-of-the-art mainstream rock/pop, recorded as expensively as possible. The album is mostly made up of Nicks compositions, although apparently Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and Heart’s “These Dreams” were originally intended for conclusion, having both been written specifically for Nicks. The audio chain uses MoFi’s patented digital step and is as follows: “1/4” / 15 IPS Dolby A analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe.” NL

Shye Ben-Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express: Junun [World Circuit]

Israeli composer Shye Ben-Tzur teamed up with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood for Junun, which was recorded at the historic Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan, India, with local Indian musicians. The music is an arresting blend of various traditions, including Qawwali, Muslim Romani, and Indian brass-band wedding music. Paul Thomas Anderson shot a documentary about the making of the project, which was originally released in 2015 on Nonesuch Records. Now a yellow-vinyl reissue is making its way to record buyers via World Circuit Records—a welcome development, as original pressings have reached triple digits on Discogs. NL

William Basinski: The Disintegration Loops [Temporary Residence Ltd.]

As the story goes, William Basinski was transferring some of the music he recorded on magnetic tape to a digital archive. But as they played, he noticed that the tape was slowly falling apart as it passed through the machine, changing the sound of the loops as they continued to play. With the addition of some reverb and processing, the music became a beautiful, haunting expression of impermanence and entropy. Released initially on a series of CDs, the whole collection, dubbed The Disintegration Loops, was issued in one massive 8-LP box in 2012 that has blessedly gotten a repress, which is out this week after being pushed back from November. The audio for this so-called “Arcadia Archive Edition” features a remaster of the original recordings by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering and a booklet containing an essay from the great Laurie Anderson. RH

East River Pipe: Mel [Merge/Secretly Society Record Club]

Cult favorite singer/songwriter East River Pipe (known to friends and family as F.M. Cornog) was, in his earliest days, a master of home recording, building up symphonies of melodic pop music using only a Tascam 388, a surprisingly portable and sturdy eight-track recording system. He reached his zenith with Mel, a gorgeous collection of fine-tuned material that, in terms of sonic ambition and emotional depth, was the equal of anything his labelmates Neutral Milk Hotel were up to. A 30th-anniversary reissue of this fantastic album is out this week, but is only available with a membership to the Secretly Society Record Club, a monthly subscription service run by Secretly Distribution. (The limited run offered via Merge Records’ website sold out fast.) The new edition comes on white vinyl and includes two songs previously only available on the original CD release. RH

The Celibate Rifles: Blind Ear [Bang]

Unlike their contemporaries in the Saints and Hoodoo Gurus, Aussie rockers the Celibate Rifles never stirred up even the slightest commercial fire here in the US, despite the best efforts of the band and labels like Rough Trade and What Goes On. Those unfortunate circumstances meant that the Rifles’ strongest album, 1989’s Blind Ear, was never released outside of the group’s home country and Germany. What we missed out on was a blistering set of tunes that expanded on the band’s hard-nosed pub-rock assault with psychedelia and the bluesy swagger of bands like Rose Tattoo. Spanish label Bang Records is giving you a golden opportunity to get caught up with this band and their creative peak with a widely available remastered vinyl reissue of Blind Ear arriving in stores this week. RH

Piero Piccioni: Amore Mio Aiutami [Sonor Music Editions]

The Italian reissue label Sonor Music Editions specializes in Italian library and soundtrack music, and this week they’ve got a new reissue of Piero Piccioni’s soundtrack to the 1969 comedy Amore Mio Aiutami, which starred Monica Vitti. The music is a whirling blend of orchestral lounge and lightly jazzy and bossa-nova-tinged instrumentals, with a few vocal turns from Nora Orlandi. The remastering is by Jonathan Dakers, with a lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting, and the vinyl comes in a tip-on sleeve with two bonus tracks. NL

Anestesia: Erantzun [Elkar]

Thirty years ago, Basque thrashcore band Anestesia was undergoing a small period of upheaval, leading to rumors that the band was splitting up. Instead, they returned with a new bass player and their most potent statement yet, 1996’s Erantzun, a caustic mix of shredded vocals, searing guitar work, and political messages delivered like a blunt instrument to the skull. Fans of Venom and Converge should take this opportunity to add the remastered reissue of this album, out this week, to their collection. RH

Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy: African Skies [Listening Position]

This came out in November but is also turning up at some distributors for the first time this week, so since we neglected to mention it then, why not mention it now? It’s African Skies, a stunning cosmic work from Kelan Phil Cohran, who was a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra; this piece was commissioned for Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and is a meditative journey scored with voice, harps, string bass, winds, horns, and other instruments, including Cohran’s patented Frankiphone, a sort of electrified kalimba. The piece evokes the composer's fascination with archeo-astronomy and provides a snapshot of the multi-faceted jazz scene happening in the South Side of Chicago at the time. Recorded in 1993 but not released until 2010, this version is a loving remaster taken from the original DAT; it appears on the brand-new Stones Throw imprint Listening Position with a lacquer cut by Josh Bonati and pressing done Fidelity Record Pressing, all inside a Stoughton tip-on jacket. NL

Woo: Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong [Independent Project Records]

Starting in the ’70s, brothers Clive and Mark Ives spent years cobbling together music in their South London home with one simple goal: to make sounds that they weren’t hearing anywhere else. They spent years filling tapes with instrumentals that smoothly blended acoustic and electronic instrumentation that, when heard today, presaged the work of modern groups like Tuung, Mice Parade, and the High Llamas. Though they won some favor with the UK press once they finally let the world hear some of their songs on the self-released 1980 LP Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, they remained a cult favorite for years, until Drag City and Independent Project issued their music more widely. The latter label has a fresh reissue of Woo’s debut out this week, complete with a bonus 12-inch of rare tunes and gorgeous new packaging. I’ll have much more to say about this here at The Vinyl Cut very soon. RH

Cub: Come Out Come Out [Mint]

If the band Cub is mentioned at all these days, it's as a footnote to the career of alt-country siren Neko Case, who once played drums for the Vancouver, BC, jangle-pop group. By the time the band released their 1995 album Come Out Come Out, they had settled into a secure lineup and a twee sound informed by the discography of Scottish label Sarah Records and bands like Beat Happening. This record, Cub’s second, is getting a lovely colored vinyl reissue this week through Canadian imprint Mint Records with bonus tracks and some new artwork. Look for our full report on this release next week. RH

Guerssen & Vampisoul

Those devils at Spanish label Guerssen have done it again, releasing a quartet of reissues this week that will set any prog-lover’s heart aflutter. First up are the pair of discs from Patto, the UK group that evolved out of the psychedelic band Timebox, featuring singer Mike Patto as well as genius guitarist/vibraphonist Ollie Halsall and drummer John Halsey, who both went on to contribute to the Rutles. 1970’s Patto is a killer slab of prog-adjacent rock, with elements of jazz in the mix, while 1971’s Hold Your Fire leans more into Free-style blues boogie. These both feature mastering from Prof. Stoned (in the case of Patto, the good professor is also credited with “stereo mixes,” suggesting it may be a remix?) and the LPs include liner notes, with Hold Your Fire recreating Roger Dean’s gimmick sleeve. Those both come courtesy of Guerssen’s Sommor imprint. Guerssen have also whipped up a vinyl pressing of Jade Warrior’s Eclipse from 1973, which was meant to be their fourth album for Vertigo but was shelved before being released. One of the more unconventional British prog acts of the early ’70s, Jade Warrior fused a blend of Eastern and Western influences as well as acoustic and electric passages, presaging the coming “world music” movement by several years. Lastly, Guerssen are treating us to a collection from the Mexican proto-doom-metal band Medusa, collecting several of their righteously heavy slabs recorded during the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Patto and Jade Warrior come courtesy of Guerssen’s Sommor imprint, while Medusa appears on their Out-Sider sublabel.

Not to be outdone, the folks at our other favorite Spanish reissue label, Vampisoul, have three killer platters making their way Stateside (via their US distributor Forced Exposure). Toni Tornado’s 1972 self-titled album is an exuberant blend of funk, soul, and Brazilian pop, recorded after Tornado’s time in New York City where he was a drug dealer and pimp. This lends a darker undercurrent to Toni Tornado, which cribs from the funk and Latin styles that were running through the American underground. La Cucaracha Brass collects the work of songwriter/producer Bobby Marín, who was steeped in the Latin music scene in 1960s New York. This LP collects many of the tracks from the Ralphie Martínez album Cool Man as well as songs from other sources, resulting in an aural delight of descargas, guaguancós, guarachas, and boogaloos—all right before the salsa explosion was about to take over the Latin music scene. And lastly, Cumbia Cumbia Cumbia!!! Vol. 4 is a 28-song double-LP comp of—you guessed it—cumbia tracks recorded in Colombia between 1960 and 1984. NL

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
G.G. Allin: Early Crimes: The First 5 7”s [Vomitose]
Los Amigos Invisibles: The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera [Luaka Bop]
The Beatles: Live From Canada 1964: Montreal September 8th [1960’s]
Blossom Toes: Live on Radio & TV [1960’s]
Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy: African Skies [Listening Position]
Colosseum: Valentyne Suite [Music on Vinyl]
Confessor: Unraveled [Svart]
The Cramps: Back to the Bone [ILP]
The Cramps: How Far Can Too Far Go?!!! [Rockin’ Gyros]
The Cramps: Fiends of Dope Island [Planet]
Downtown Struts: Sail the Seas Dry; Victoria! [Pirates Press]
Paquito D’Rivera: Portraits of Cuba [Chesky]
Eclection: BBC Top Gear Sessions [1960’s]
Electric Orange: Cyberdelic [Cargo]
Ludwig Forssell: Death Stranding score [Music on Vinyl]
Fotheringay: Two Sessions for the BBC [1960’s]
Fourplay: Elixir [Evosound]
Curtis Fuller: New Trombone [Sowing]
Goat: World Music [Rocket Recordings]
Marta Gómez: Cantos de Agua Dulce [Chesky]
Health: Death Magic 10th anniversary edition [Loma Vista]
Stan Hubbs: Crystal [Numero Group]
Leela James: A Change Is Gonna Come [Get on Down]
Albert King: New Orleans Heat [Charly]
Kris Kristofferson: Kristofferson [Music on Vinyl]
Corb Lund: Horse Shoulder; Cabin Fever [New West]
Buddy Miles: Them Changes [Elemental]
Charles Munch & the Boston Symphony Orchestra: Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe 2-LP 45 RPM [Analogue Productions RCA Living Stereo Series]
William Onyeabor: Atomic Bomb [Luaka Bop] (orange repress)
OSI: Fire Make Thunder [Svart]
Rossa Passos & Ron Carter: Entre Amigos [Chesky]
Gary Peacock & Ralph Towner: Oracle [ECM Luminessence]
Itzhak Perlman & John Williams: Cinema Serenade [Music on Vinyl]
Elvis Presley: Back in Memphis; On Stage, February, 1970; Good Times [Music on Vinyl]
Ran: Out of Chaos; Beautiful Songs for Ugly Children [Boss Tuneage]
Kenny Rankin: Because of You [Chesky]
Fritz Reiner & the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra 2-LP 45 RPM [Analogue Productions RCA Living Stereo Series]
Refused: Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent [Startracks]
Scandinavian Art Ensemble with Tomasz Stańko: The Copenhagen Session Vol. 2 [April]
Sixpence None the Richer: The Fatherless and the Widow [Friday]
Isao Suzuki & New Family: Mongolian Chant [Jazz Room]
Sweet: Platinum Rare 1 [Metalville]
Paul Wall: The Peoples Champ [Get on Down]
Jimmy Witherspoon & Robben Ford: Jump Blues Live 1972 [Liberation Hall]
Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds: Recorded Live at the Craw-Daddy Club, Richmond (London) [Charly]
Shoji Yamashiro: Akira soundtrack [Victory]
Various Artists: Mambo Calypso [Grosso! Recordings]
Various Artists: Return to the Mothers’ Garden: More Funky Sounds of Female Africa 1971–1982 [Africa Seven]
Various Artists: Roots of Salsa Vol. 4: Classic Latin Tunes Become Salsa Hits [Grosso! Recordings]