New vinyl reissues: March 27, 2026

We’re marching closer to Record Store Day but that doesn’t mean the blizzard of new reissues is letting up. There’s a lot of great stuff to talk about today, including a new Sinatra Tone Poet, some half-speed Alan Parsons, a Queen remix, and an overlooked British jazz gem officially back on vinyl for the first time in decades.

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Enough shame-faced flattery. Let’s look at the week.

Neil Ardley, Ian Carr, Don Rendell: Greek Variations and Other Aegean Exercises [Decca]

This 1970 slice of British jazz brilliance is actually three works, with each of the bandleaders taking the helm for their own portion. Ardley’s “Greek Variations” is the showstopper, a side-long piece with a 14-piece chamber orchestra that incorporates Greek folk melodies into a remarkable suite that marries jazz traditions, classical elements, and pan-European music into a completely unique whole. It’s like the soundtrack to the greatest ’70s Eurothriller of all time—one where Greek gods get involved. The Carr piece has more rock and fusion elements, and functions essentially as a dry run for his band Nucleus, the rotating ensemble that kept reinventing itself over subsequent decades. And Rendell’s suite is based on the Odyssey, using small-ensemble elements to convey mythic proportions. This is Greek Variations and Other Aegean Exercises’ first official reissue barring a 1972 Japanese pressing, and it will feature some of the most intriguing and exciting music you’ll hear this week, month, and possibly year. NL

Digital Underground: Sex Packets [Tommy Boy]

The actual 35th anniversary of the release of 1990’s Sex Packets, the debut by Bay Area hip-hop collective Digital Underground, was technically last year, but rather than split hairs, let’s instead celebrate that this record is back in print on vinyl. This is, after all, the album that introduced the world to Humpty Hump, the alter ego of rapper/producer Shock G who had an oversized nose and an oversized ego, and the album that beat Dr. Dre to the G-funk sound by about three years. This new 2-LP edition comes on clear vinyl with a blue and black splatter pattern, adds on a few bonus tracks, and features a pretty amazing bit of pop-up art inside the gatefold. We’ll have a full report on this reissue very soon. RH

Queen: Queen II [Hollywood]

Queen’s second album—the cleverly titled Queen II—is considered by some to be their best; it’s certainly considered to be their heaviest. But heavy with Queen is like heavy cream; it’s still pretty rich, sweet, high in fatty content, and easily whippable into something gooey and indulgent. Recorded with producer Roy Thomas Baker over many months, the 1974 album finds the band going bananas with the overdubs, with vocalist Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor cramming every last corner of the mix with shrieking falsettos and guitarist Brian May layering his parts into megaliths of shred. It doesn’t contain any of Queen’s huge hits—the single was “Seven Seas of Rhye”—but it’s essentially a dry run for “Bohemian Rhapsody” across an entire LP. A giant CD/LP box set comes out today with the album newly remixed by Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae, and Kris Fredriksson. It also includes four extra CDs of sessions, backing tracks, BBC performances, and live stuff, plus the remixed album pressed onto two single-sided pieces of vinyl, each bearing an etching on the other side. For those less inclined to such creamy extravagances, there’s also a stand-alone pressing of the new Queen II remix, and a picture disc as well. NL

Connie Converse: How Sad, How Lovely [Third Man]

The music of singer/songwriter Connie Converse wasn’t entirely without precedent. Her delicate yet earthy music was undoubtedly inspired by artists like Woody Guthrie, the Carter Family, and the folks whose work was compiled on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. But she had also tapped into some strange frequency that looked ahead to the psych-folk movement that was 10 to 15 years into the future from where she sat in 1954, recording a set of songs in the kitchen of her friend, cartoonist Eugene Deitch. Those tapes lay dormant for five decades before Deitch played a track on a radio show and set the wheels in motion for the release of How Sad, How Lovely, a collection of Converse’s music issued by Lau Derette Recordings in 2009. Perhaps in part due to Converse’s mysterious disappearance in 1974, the compilation was an instant cult sensation, leading to a 2017 tribute album that included Laurie Anderson, Faith No More’s Mike Patton, and Jeff Tweedy, among others, interpreting some of Converse’s songs. How Sad, How Lovely was eventually released on vinyl in 2015, but that edition quickly went out of print. Lucky for us, Third Man Records, the label started by Jack White, has taken the baton and is reissuing it on wax this week, adding a 7-inch single that features an unreleased song and, for some reason, a remixed track. RH

Braen & Raskovich: Alle Sorgenti Delle Civiltà Vol. 3: Africa, Australia, Nuova Zelanda [Musica Per Immagini]

It might be easy to mistake Alle Sorgenti Delle Civiltà Vol. 3: Africa, Australia, Nuova Zelanda for a collection of ethnomusicological field recordings. The album, first released in 1971 on the Folkmusic label in Italy, is in fact a disc of library music recorded by “Braen & Raskovich,” pseudonyms for the prolific Italian composers Alessandro Alessandroni and Giuliano Sorgini, both legends of the library-music world. It finds the duo playing a bunch of instruments sourced from around the globe, which means there’s a lot of tribal thumping on exotic-sounding drums. It’s the kind of thing you’d use in a cheesy exploitation movie when the cannibals are carting our heroes on a spit over to the firepit. A limited reissue of 400 copies—half of them on black vinyl and half on blue—comes via the Italian soundtrack reissue label Musica Per Immagini. NL

Marnie Weber: Returning Home: The Music of Marnie Weber [Phantom Limb]

The music of multidisciplinary artist Marnie Weber is abstruse post-punk that resides in the New York interzone of the assaultive racket of Swans, the art-disco of Arthur Russell, and the street poetics of Lydia Lunch. The three albums that she released in the late ’80s and early ’90s—the last of which, 1996’s Cry for Happy, was issued on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label—are covered in the grit and soot of downtown Manhattan and cut through with Weber’s wry, knowing, lyrical voice. UK label Phantom Limb is hoping to introduce the artist to a new generation of listeners through Returning Home, a compilation that cherry-picks the choicest cuts from Weber’s three full-lengths, including my personal favorite, “In the Meadow.” Interested listeners have two options with this vinyl release: a standard single LP with traditional album art, or the very limited “Artist’s Edition,” which packages the disc in a hand-cut sleeve featuring a collage created by Weber. Fair warning, though: The latter version will set you back around $350. RH

Madonna: Confessions on a Dance Floor [Rhino]

All of the songs on Madonna’s 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor were meant to be crossfaded together, as if a DJ were beat-matching them in real time. For some reason, that conceit wasn’t carried over to the album’s original vinyl release, so now it’s being reissued with the nonstop flow reinstated. The album is perhaps the most club-centric LP Madonna’s ever released, emphasizing disco, electropop, and EDM elements; it also found her employing deliberately recognizable samples for the first time (the lead hit, “Hung Up,” is like 80 percent ABBA, and “Future Lovers” makes liberal use of the sequenced hook from Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”). The album holds up well 20 years later, although it relies heavily on the faders-down, faders-up mixing trick that makes the music sound as if you’re underwater and then emerging out of the pool at the climactic moment. It comes on silver vinyl with an 11x22-inch poster. NL

Variant: The Setting Sun [Field]

Dutch label Field Records has been responsible for some of the best reissues of modern electronic music for nearly two decades now. This week, the imprint has outdone itself with the first-ever vinyl pressing of 2009’s The Setting Sun, a beautiful, haunting work of ambient dub created by Detroit musician Stephen Hitchell under the moniker Variant. The six extended tracks process field recordings of rainstorms and trains through a variety of outboard synths. The resulting music is a warm bath of sound that would work well blended in a DJ set alongside artists like Grouper and Strategy. RH

The Alan Parsons Project: The Turn of a Friendly Card; Eye in the Sky; Ammonia Avenue [Cooking Vinyl]

In addition to his work behind the boards as an engineer for artists like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Roy Wood, Alan Parsons has maintained a long, lucrative career as the namesake and co-creative force behind the prog group the Alan Parsons Project. Leading this ever-evolving outfit with pianist and songwriter Eric Woolfson, Parsons has produced 11 albums of artful rock with most centered on a theme like Edgar Allen Poe or the effects of fame. This week, Cooking Vinyl brings the world half-speed-mastered pressings of three of the more popular Alan Parsons Project albums: 1980’s The Turn of a Friendly Card, which takes a musical look at gambling and gamblers; 1982’s Eye in the Sky, the record that gave us both the hit title track and “Sirius,” the grandiose instrumental that was once used to kick off Chicago Bulls games during their unstoppable run in the ’90s; and 1984’s Ammonia Avenue, an LP about the troubled relationship between humanity and science. With the audio cut from high-resolution digital transfers by Abbey Road’s Miles Showell, each album comes in a variety of forms: a 2-LP 45 RPM version, or a 1-LP 33 RPM version on your choice of clear, black, or colored vinyl. RH

Mickey and the Soul Generation: Give Everybody Some [Numero]

San Antonio funk band Mickey and the Soul Generation released several 7-inches over their lifespan from 1969 to 1977. The best known of these is “Iron Leg,” a blown-out, stank-face swaggerer that rides chicken-scratch guitar, fuzz bass and fuzz guitar, organ vamping, and righteous horns. The rest of their output is rare-groove instrumental funk good for strutting, sauntering, and low-riding. The always resourceful Numero Group collects 12 of their recordings on this new disc, but completists should be aware of a 3-LP set that’s also for sale on the Numero site for only a few dollars more. NL

Geinoh Yamashirogumi: Ecophony Rinne [Time Capsule]

Japanese composer Tsutomu Ōhashi’s huge ensemble Geinoh Yamashirogumi is best known around the globe for the score they recorded for the 1988 cyberpunk anime film Akira. But just a few years earlier, the 200-person group made Ecophony Rinne, a wildly ambitious and dizzying concept album about the relationship humans have with the natural world, blending traditional instrumentation and musical disciplines along with then-modern technology. Crucially, the finished recordings were subject to what Ōhashi dubbed the Hypersonic Effect, which used frequencies that sit outside what the human ear can perceive but can supposedly still affect the listener’s perceptions. Miles Showell at Abbey Road apparently took that into account when cutting the half-speed master for a new pressing, out this week on UK label Time Capsule. RH

The Charlatans UK: Some Friendly [Beggars Banquet]

The Charlatans (known as the Charlatans UK in the US) arrived amid the rise of the Madchester scene and the other so-called baggy bands that blended the sounds of ’60s psychedelia and ’80s acid house to delirious effect. What the Charlatans had above most of them were the prodigious skills of keyboardist Rob Collins and an excellent frontman in Tim Burgess. All of that is on brilliant display on the group’s 1990 debut album Some Friendly, a pleasantly trippy journey with the top-notch singles “The Only One I Know” and “Then.” Beggars Banquet have given the album a 2-LP deluxe reissue, with the original album tracks remastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road, joined by a second disc of non-album singles and B-sides. RH

Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary [Sub Pop]

With “I’ll Believe in Anything” becoming a viral hit after its inclusion in the gay hockey TV romance Heated Rivalry, Sub Pop have wisely decided to put Wolf Parade’s 2005 debut album Apologies to the Queen Mary back in stores (on pink wax, in this case). The Montreal band was at the forefront of the Canadian indie-rock movement of the ’00s, a hugely fertile scene that also gave us Broken Social Scene, the New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, the Constantines, and literally hundreds of other bands and all their offshoots and side projects. Apologies for the Queen Mary was a near-perfect debut for Wolf Parade, which united the songwriting of keyboardist Spencer Krug and guitarist Dan Boeckner, resulting in a clattering, quirky sound that was quickly uploaded to a thousand blogs in those heady MP3 days. Previous pressings have always been a bit dodgy-sounding, so let’s hope this new pink pressing treats this album with the proper care. NL

Various Artists: Wednesday Morning 6am: Radio Hits from the Small Hours 1970–1983 [Ace]

The curiosity of Bob Stanley knows no bounds. For around two decades, the music writer and former member of Saint Etienne has been putting together compilations of pop and rock tunes, each focused on a particular theme, be it the English baroque pop sounds of the ’60s and ’70s or chill, downtempo electronic music from the early ’90s. For his latest collection, Stanley evokes an early-morning vibe, choosing a batch of easygoing songs that date from 1970 to 1983 that sound best when sipping that first cup of coffee. The mix is as eclectic as you might expect, moving with smooth, frictionless ease from Lou Rawls’s lightly funky “Lady Love” to the country pop of Crystal Gayle’s “Why Have You Left the One You Left Me For” and Anne Murray’s “Danny’s Song” to the Alan Parsons Project ballad “Old and Wise” (sung by the Zombies’ Colin Blunstone). RH

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus [Masterworks]

Having received a cancer diagnosis in 2021, composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto faced the last years of his life with a quiet dignity that was truly remarkable. And as part of his extended, graceful farewell, he staged a solo piano performance that was filmed by his son Neo Sora for the devastatingly beautiful concert documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus. The setlist pulled from every part of Sakamoto’s long career: solo material, songs he wrote for his pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, themes he composed for film scores, and unreleased tributes to some of his favorite artists. The audio of this concert has already seen release in physical form in Sakamoto’s native Japan, but it is finally being made available here in the US via Sony as both a 2-CD set and a gorgeous looking 4-LP 45 RPM box set. RH

Vampisoul and Munster

The excellent, intertwined Spanish labels Munster and Vampisoul are at it again with another batch of superb reissues. First up are a pair of absolutely essential Brazilian albums that have been reissued many times before but now have homes on the ever-reliable Vampisoul. Jorge Ben’s self-titled 1969 album—his sixth album overall—is a tremendous slice of vintage tropicália, with dazzling arrangements, intoxicating rhythms, and Ben’s excellent songwriting. And Tim Maia’s self-titled album from 1973—his fourth of many, many self-titled albums—is a marvelous blend of MPB and American soul and pop. Both of these have high likelihoods of becoming your new favorite album, so don’t sleep.

Meanwhile, Munster has compiled the work of Bolivian garage-rock band Loving Darks, first released on three EPs and now collected on an LP called Los Amantes Obscuros. These recordings from 1968 and 1969 included Spanish-language covers of psych and proto-punk covers of songs by the Rolling Stones, Cream, and more, and the album is released in conjunction with Peruvian label Rey Records. Speaking of Peru, Sabor a Felcas is a Vampisoul anthology from Lima cumbia band Los Felcas, who recorded from the 1970s to the 1990s and incorporated many styles into their work, from guaracha to chicha to acid rock.

Last but not least is the 1970 album of Houston, Texas, spiritual jazz ensemble the Lightmen, led by soul session drummer Bubbha Thomas. The fearlessly exploratory Free as You Wanna Be is being reissued in conjunction with the Now-Again label, who released a 2-LP version in 2017 that contained mono and stereo mixes; this Vampisoul edition just contains the stereo. NL

Jazz Alley

The marquee name above Jazz Alley this week is Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. Following up the ragingly successful Tone Poet edition of In the Wee Small Hours (read our review here), Blue Note is reissuing another of Frank Sinatra’s Capitol LPs, this time 1956’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! This is a much more upbeat album than the melancholy Wee Small Hours, with renditions of standards like “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “Pennies from Heaven,” and “Makin’ Whoopee.” Kevin Gray cut this one from the analog tape and the vinyl was pressed at RTI; let’s hope it’s the match of its excellent predecessor.

Elsewhere, Acoustic Sounds’ Verve series also drops three new reissues this week. (Check out our thoughts on some recent entries in the series here.) Astrud Gilberto’s 1965 album The Shadow of Your Smile is a delectable collection of bossa nova pop, with arrangements by João Donato, Don Sebesky, and Claus Ogerman. If that’s not enough bossa nova, Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa’s 1963 album Jazz Samba Encore! predates the breakthrough Getz/Gilberto by a year (coincidentally also Astrud Gilberto’s big break), and it’s a languid, dreamy set with Getz occasionally breaking the spell with some over-energetic playing. Lastly, the title of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Song Book explains it all, with the First Lady of Song tackling the lyrics written by the guy Ethan Hawke portrayed in the film Blue Moon by standing on his knees, Dorf-style. These were all cut by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab and pressed at QRP.

Lastly, we wanted to drop a quick mention of two Black Jazz reissues coming out on the UK’s Soul Jazz label. The Black Jazz label, based in Oakland, California, released 20 albums between 1971 and 1975, and they were all reissued in recent years in splendid fashion by Real Gone Music. However, those are already on their way to becoming sold out entirely, so Soul Jazz is helpfully releasing a pair of anthologies for those who may have missed out: The Best of Black Jazz, a 13-track comp of various artists, and The Best of Doug Carn, which collects tracks from the keyboardist’s four albums for the esteemed label. NL

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
Jon Anderson: Survival and Other Stories; Earth Mother Earth [Frontiers]
Avenged Sevenfold: Nightmare [Hopeless]
Backyard Babies: Stockholm Syndrome [Music on Vinyl]
Blue Öyster Cult: Don’t Fear the Reaper: The Best of Blue Öyster Cult [Music on Vinyl]
James Brown: The Payback [UMe]
The Budos Band: The Budos Band [Daptone]
Philip Catherine: Concert in Capbreton [LMLR]
The Cramps: Bad Music for Bad People [Capitol]
Robert Cray: Twenty [Music on Vinyl]
Dead or Alive: Youthquake [Music on Vinyl]
Dio: A Decade of Dio: 1983–1993 [Rhino]
Dog Faced Hermans: Everyday Timebomb [Megaphone/Knock ’Em Dead]
Thomas Dolby: Aliens Ate My Buick [Music on Vinyl]
Don Caballero: American Don [Touch and Go]
Dream Theater: Black Clouds and Silver Linings; A Dramatic Turn of Events; Dream Theater; The Astonishing [Rhino/Atlantic]
Eightball & MG: In Our Lifetime [Get on Down]
The Fall: Fall Heads Roll [Cherry Red]
Juan Gabriel: Abrazame Muy Fuerte [Sony]
Marvin Gaye: Let’s Get It On [UMe]
Grand Theft: Grand Theft [Ancient Grease]
The Grateful Dead: Fillmore East 2-11-69 [Friday Music]
Gruppo Sportivo: Vinylly! [Music on Vinyl]
Kevin Hays Trio: Ugly Beauty [Steeplechase]
Heaven & Hell: Breaking Out of Heaven 2007–2009 [Rhino]
Gerhard Heinz: Bloody Moon soundtrack [Mystic Vault]
Hey Mercedes: Hey Mercedes; Everynight Fire Works; Loose Control [Polyvinyl]
Alan Howarth: Retribution soundtrack [Mystic Vault]
Jefferson Airplane: Volunteers [Music on Vinyl]
David Lang: Youth soundtrack [Music on Vinyl]
Less Than Jake: Losing Streak [Capitol]
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories: Tails [Interscope Vinyl Collective subscriber exclusive]
G. Love and Special Sauce: Lemonade [Glove]
The Love Unlimited Orchestra: Rhapsody in White [Elemental]
Lubricated Goat: Paddock of Love [Sorcerer]
Bob & Doug McKenzie: Great White North & Strange Brew 44 3/4 Anniversary [Down the Road]
Don McLean: American Pie [UMe]
Mono: Under the Pipal Tree [Temporary Residence]
New York Dolls: New York Dolls [UMe]
Laura Nyro: Live in San Francisco, 28th April 1994 [Madfish]
Opeth: Blackwater Park [Music for Nations]
Tommy Peltier: Echo Park: The ’70s Sessions [Drag City]
Robert Rodriguez, John Debney & Graeme Revell: Sin City soundtrack [Varèse Sarabande]
Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow; Descended Like Vultures [Sub Pop]
Sandra: Long Play [Universal]
Satellite Lovers: Sons of 1973; Sons of 1997 [Sony Japan]
Savvas: Studio/Live [Golden Debris]
Scan 7: Resurfaced [Tresor]
Shelter: Mantra [Smartpunk]
Sweet: Platinum Rare 1 [Metalville]
Thirty Seconds to Mars: A Beautiful Lie [Virgin]
Van Halen: 5150 expanded edition [Rhino]
Andrew Lloyd Webber: Cats original cast recording [The Other Songs]
Bill Withers: Still Bill [Music on Vinyl]
Ruby Winters: Diamonds [Charly]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Show Your Bones [Interscope]
Yellow Magic Orchestra: YMO Trans Atlantic Tour London 10/24/1979 [Great Tracks/Sony Japan]
Young Charlatans: 1978 [Eminent Vinyl]
Various Artists: Fight the Fire: Digital Reggae, Conscious Roots and Dub in Nigeria 1986–91 [Soundway]
Various: Jon Savage’s SF Sike 1966–72 [Caroline True]