New vinyl reissues: January 9, 2026
The onslaught of weekly new releases eased up a bit for the holidays, but now things are getting back to business as usual. It’s a Rhino-heavy week again, with 17 releases from their Start Your Ear Off Right series, but there’s plenty of other stuff to talk about as well. But first, two points of business.
- I (Ned) will be appearing on Steve Westman’s Live Audiophile Roundtable this Saturday, January 10, at 12 noon Eastern/9 am Pacific on YouTube. You can watch it live at this link, and you can also catch up with it there anytime after the livestream. If you read this newsletter, chances are good you're already familiar with Westman’s show, which talks about the vinyl renaissance, audiophile pressings, sound quality, and trends in the vinyl scene. Westman books great guests on the show and often gets breaking scoops from industry insiders; I’m honored to be invited to participate in this week’s discussion, which will be about essential audiophile albums that won’t break the bank. Tune in! And subscribe to his channel while you’re at it.
- We’re gearing up for our next monthly vinyl giveaway for paid subscribers. Details in full will come early next week, but the giveaway will be for a set of test pressings for the dynamite new R.E.M. one-step of Chronic Town and Murmur from Universal’s Definitive Sound Series. If you read Bob’s rave review for the set here, you’ll learn that these two discs are insanely great-sounding—but remember, you’ll need to be signed up in our paid tier to participate, so if that’s something you still need to do, you can do so right here:
That’s it for housekeeping. On with the new reissues!
Start Your Ear Off Right, Week 2
Rhino’s Start Your Ear Off Right (SYEOR) campaign is in full swing, with reissues and represses of discs from the vast Warner catalog making their way to independent brick-and-mortar stores. The most exciting component of this year’s batch are the titles that have been newly added to Rhino’s excellent Rhino Reserve series. These are top-quality pressings with new mastering from some of the best engineers in the biz (cut from analog tape where possible) and they’re at an affordable price point, topping out at around $32, which—and this is one of many unfortunate realities we’re living with in 2026—really ain’t too bad.
The new Rhino Reserves out this week include two stellar jazz titles: Roland Kirk’s 1968 album for Atlantic, The Inflated Tear, finds the maestro tootling on all manner of wind instruments, including manzello, flute, and cor anglais on a wide-ranging, whimsical set that finds common ground between Duke Ellington and the avantest of avant-garde. Meanwhile, the mono mix of Charles Mingus’s Blues & Roots is also getting the Reserve treatment. Released in 1960, the album incorporates Dixieland, blues, and gospel, indisputably affirming Mingus as a scholar of all schools of American music. The other two Reserve titles explore the softer side of folk-rock. If You Could Read My Mind is the renamed version of Gordon Lightfoot’s 1970 album Sit Down Young Stranger, titled after its big hit. This was Lightfoot’s first record for Reprise, where he branched out from the focused Canadian folk of his first efforts into a radio-friendly sound that signposted the hatching singer/songwriter movement. And the other disc is America’s 1972 self-titled debut, America, a record as banal as can be. Each of these was cut from analog master tape by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas, and was pressed at MoFi’s top-notch Fidelity Record Pressing in Oxnard, California.
The standard SYEOR reissues this week are a diverse bunch. The most noteworthy is Who in the Funk Do You Think You Are: Selections from the Warner Recordings, a one-disc anthology of some of Sly and the Family Stone’s lesser-known work, culled from the two albums Sly Stone made for Warner Bros.: 1979’s Back on the Right Track and 1982’s Ain’t But the One Way. A demo that first appeared on the 2001 Rhino Handmade CD Who in the Funk Do You Think You Are also appears on the LP. Additionally, two fantastic Faces records hit the racks: Long Player and A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse, both from 1971 and rumored to be new lacquers from analog tape. (Why aren’t these Rhino Reserves, then, you ask? You’d have to ask Monsieur Rhino himself.) We’re also getting a repress of the Ramones’ 20-track hits comp (aptly titled Greatest Hits, no clever tricks there) that was first released on CD in 2006 and on vinyl for RSD Black Friday in 2024, and a reissue of the Dust Brothers’ Fight Club soundtrack for all your manly secret-basement-gathering needs.
Lastly, Rhino is sending several titles from their premium Rhino High Fidelity series to stores for the first time. These editions were previously only available direct-to-consumer at Rhino’s website and its affiliates, but now unnumbered versions are hitting physical store shelves. (We’ve reviewed ’em all, by the way.) The RHFs we’re getting are Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (review here), the Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (review here), and breakouts of the six Coltrane LPs that just appeared in the sumptuous John Coltrane: 1960–1964 Mono box set (our review of the box is right here). Each of these features an all-analog cut by Kevin Gray and was pressed at Optimal Media in Germany. NL
Check out last week’s New Reissues newsletter for other titles in Rhino’s Start Your Ear Off Right campaign:
Ned Lannamann
Camouflage: Spice Crackers [Bureau B]
Camouflage closed out the first chapter of their history with Spice Crackers, a 1995 release that found the then-duo setting catchy synthpop tunes alongside rhythmic experiments that could be outtakes from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Already in stores in the band’s native Germany, the album is being released worldwide on vinyl for the first time this week. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to track down the 4-LP version that includes two discs of demos and outtakes from the album sessions. But as that is only available in a limited run of 500 copies, you’ll likely have to be okay with the double-LP edition on black wax. RH
Heatmiser: Cop and Speeder [Frontier]
Last year saw the re-release of Mic City Sons, the third and final album from Portland indie rock band Heatmiser, complete with a bonus disc of rarities. (You can read our review of that one here.) My hope was that would inspire Third Man or some other label to give a similar deluxe treatment to the band’s first two LPs. Alas, I’ll have to make do with this bare-bones repress of 1994’s Cop and Speeder. Heatmiser’s second full-length found the band ably balancing their punkier foundations and the darkly melodic pathways that singer/guitarist Elliott Smith would further explore in his solo work. The album has seen multiple vinyl editions over the past decade, most of them in short runs on colored wax. This fresh press follows suit with 500 copies available on sea green vinyl. RH
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians: Globe of Frogs (Remixed & Remastered) [Tiny Ghost]
Though much of Robyn Hitchcock’s recorded work from the ’80s has seen reissue, one era of the British artist’s career that has yet to be brought back into print is when he and his crackerjack backing band the Egyptians were signed to A&M Records. The four albums the trio produced during that stretch are some of their finest collective work, bringing an accessibility to their bandleader’s hyper-literate songwriting. It seems that Hitchcock is now getting control of those LPs and is beginning the year with a reissue of Globe of Frogs, the 1988 album he and the Egyptians made with producer Pat Collier that gave us college radio favorite “Balloon Man” and the psychedelic wonder of “Chinese Bones.” This new pressing has been remixed using the original analog tapes by Hitchcock and Brad Jones and remastered by John Baldwin at Nashville’s Infrasonic Sound. RH
PITA: Get Out [Editions Mego]
The second album that Austrian artist Peter Rehberg made under the name PITA, Get Out has been a lodestone for scores of noise and ambient artists since its release in 1999. Though the original CD edition of the record contained a dozen songs, the vinyl version shaved off three tunes to fit everything onto a single disc. Editions Mego’s new pressing finally includes all 12 tracks spread out over a double-LP set, with the fourth side taken up by a live performance that Rehberg gave in Detroit in the summer of 2000. Also included are liner notes by Jim O’Rourke and Chris Clepper. If you have even a passing interest in experimental electronic music, you’re going to want to act fast if you hope to snag this, as the label is only pressing up 500 copies. RH
Conrad Schnitzler: Convex; Control [Bureau B]
According to Bureau B’s website, one employee of the German label has dreams of re-releasing everything electronic musician Conrad Schnitzler released in his lifetime. That would be no small feat considering the dozens of albums and EPs the former member of Tangerine Dream issued, both on his own and through established imprints like Sky and Tonart. We’ll see whether or not Bureau B achieves this lofty goal as we enjoy the bits of Schnitzler’s back catalog that they do get back in print. This week sees reissues of Convex, a 1982 collection of untitled tracks made using a minimalist setup (synth, sequencer, and random waveform generator) and a free-jazz-like approach to rhythm and melody, and Control, a 1981 LP featuring whirling, bleeping, unsettling pieces perfect for a sci-fi soundtrack that was originally issued in a limited run by US label Dys. RH
Tanzmusik: Sinsekai [Sublime]
Originally released in 1994, Sinsekai, the debut album by Japanese electronic duo Tanzmusik, has long been out of print due to the financial failings of UK label Riding High. Although original copies of this fabulous collection of dubby techno are pretty easy to get a hold of on the secondary market, I’m still excited for the new remastered edition of the album out this week via Japanese imprint Sublime. RH
Steely Dan: Two Against Nature; Everything Must Go [Warner]
The music of Steely Dan remains as popular as ever these days due to its sonic connections to the kitschy genre known as yacht rock and its still-alluring air of New York cool. That said, most listeners sadly ignore the two albums that Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, and their many talented friends made after their 1993 reunion: 2000’s Two Against Nature and 2003’s Everything Must Go. Both are sleeker and bluesier affairs than their classic ’70s efforts, but still maintain a sharp edge through Fagen’s biting if occasionally sniffy lyrics and some solid gold guitar work by Becker. Both albums have been reissued in recent years, with both getting a 45 RPM double 12-inch release from Analogue Productions, and getting a limited-edition run for Record Store Day 2021. Finally getting a wider release thanks to Warner Records, the last recorded work by the group arrives this week on 180-gram clear vinyl. RH
Fanny: Mothers Pride [Real Gone]
One of the first all-female rock groups to achieve chart success, Fanny is rightfully beloved by the artists that came along in their wake, like the Go-Go’s, the Runaways, and Thundermother. The band has been given a welcome push back into the spotlight in recent years with the release of a comprehensive CD box set in 2002 and the documentary Fanny: The Right to Rock, which was released in 2021. Real Gone continues to beat the drum in support of this pioneering group this week with the first vinyl reissue of Mothers Pride, the quartet’s fourth and final LP from 1973. Look for our full report on this one in tomorrow’s newsletter. RH
Morton Feldman: Rothko Chapel and For Frank O’Hara [Real Gone]
I love Real Gone Music, the reissue label started by Gordon Anderson and Gabby Castellana in 2011, but they’ve never been easy to pin down. They will zig and zag from fascinating curios like soundtracks for Russ Meyer films and crucial titles from the Black Jazz label to head-scratching choices like albums by Canadian heavy metal outfit 3 Inches of Blood and Doris Day’s My Heart. And just when I think they couldn’t surprise me again, Real Gone throws me for a new loop with this week’s re-release of Rothko Chapel/For Frank O’Hara, a 1976 album featuring those titular stunning contemporary classical works composed by Morton Feldman. There is plenty more to say about these pieces and this reissue, but you’ll have to wait for my review that will be out in tomorrow’s newsletter. RH
Jazz Alley
Welcome back to Jazz Alley, where the cats are cool, the jackets are tip-on, and the cuts? All-analog, baby. This week sees the first two new Blue Note Tone Poets of the year: Hank Mobley’s Hank (in mono), a 1957 joint that saw the tenor saxophonist leading a sextet that included Donald Byrd and Philly Joe Jones; and Natural Essence, the 1967 debut of Tyrone Washington, the intrepid tenor saxophonist who came up through the ranks of Horace Silver and found a sweet spot that incorporated post-bop, soul jazz, and a touch of experimentalism. Kevin Gray cut both of these from tape, and the RTI-pressed vinyl comes inside tip-on gatefolds.
Meanwhile, Verve Vault adds two vocal jazz reissues to its budding lineup, including Blossom Dearie’s Give Him the Ooh-La-La from 1958, in which the idiosyncratic vocalist/pianist adds two of her compositions to a stack that includes Cole Porter, Noël Coward, and Rodgers & Hart; and Dinah Washington’s What a Diff’rence a Day Makes!, a somewhat drippy 1959 Mercury album with lavish arrangements by Belford Hendricks and a familiar selection from the book of standards, falling decidedly on the pop side of the jazz-pop spectrum. These were cut from analog by Ryan K. Smith at Nashville’s Sterling Sound, pressed at Optimal in Germany, and housed in tip-on gatefolds.
Lastly, Analogue Productions has repressed a trio of its past triumphs, including two from its Fantasy 45 series from the ’00s: Gene Ammons’ Blue Gene, originally released in 1958 on Prestige, and Chet Baker’s In New York, a 1958 release on Riverside Records. Both were cut from tape to 45 RPM across two LPs by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman and come in tip-ons, with vinyl pressed at Quality Record Pressings (QRP). And Analogue Productions is also reissuing its 5-LP set of the Miles Davis Quintet’s The Great Prestige Recordings, dating from 1951 to 1956 and including the albums Workin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’, Cookin’, and Miles. The box was originally released by Analogue Productions in 1996, and they pressed it to 45 RPM double discs in 2008; now it’s back to 33 RPM and features the Kevin Gray analog cuts that AP has used in several stand-alone versions of these legendary albums released over the years. Naturally, these come in tip-on jackets as well, with pressings from QRP. NL
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
Marc Almond with Starcluster: Silver City [Cherry Red]
Idil Biret; James Loughran & the Philharmonia Orchestra: Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4 [Naxos]
Either/Orchestra: Éthiopiques 32: Nalbandian the Ethiopian [Heavenly Sweetness]
Electric Light Orchestra: Face the Music 50th anniversary edition [Legacy]
Ace Frehley: Frehley’s Comet; Second Sighting; Live +1; Trouble Walkin’ [Friday]
Ill Bill: What’s Wrong with Bill? [Uncle Howie]
Maceo & All the Kings Men: Doing Their Own Thing [Charly] (repress)
Saxon: Into the Labyrinth [Music on Vinyl]
Starship: Greatest Hits Relaunched [Cleopatra]
Van Der Graaf Generator: Still Life [Eclectic] (repress)
Van Halen: Live at Wembley 1995 [Rhino] (wide release of RSD Black Friday version)
Washer: Here Comes Washer [Exploding in Sound]
Various: True Romance soundtrack [Real Gone] (repress)
