New vinyl reissues: May 15, 2026

We have another stuffed week of vinyl to sink our proverbial fangs into, and I don’t have much of a preamble today other than to draw attention to today’s remarkable playlist, which features a track from (almost) every album I’ve written about today, plus some extra tracks just for fun. It’s one thing to read about all of the fine new reissues coming out this week, but it’s another to be able to preview them via the magic of digital technology. Although it will never sound as good as vinyl, this one playlist is a pretty fascinating listen, and it’s only available to subscribers on our paid tier, so join up while the joining’s good.

The only other tidbit I have is that three new Rhino High Fidelities will be announced tomorrow (Friday) morning. It’s always fun to guess what these are gonna be, and sometimes it’s more predictable than others, but this time I am absolutely certain that they’ll include the album that everyone has been desperate for since the series launched. Rhino? Stop toying with our hearts. It’s time.

Let’s jump awkwardly into the week!

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds 60th anniversary [Capitol/Universal]

The Beach Boys’ legendary Pet Sounds was released on May 16, 1966, and ended up being the defining masterpiece by the group’s songwriter/bassist/producer Brian Wilson, even though it was not a big success upon its initial release or even very well liked by the other Beach Boys at the time. Now regarded as one of the finest pop albums ever made, Pet Sounds is getting the royal treatment for its 60th birthday, and even though this album has gotten no shortage of reissue love over the years, there’s a lot of new stuff coming out for a vinyl collector to keep track of. First off, there’s the new one-step pressing in Interscope-Capitol’s Definitive Sound Series, cut by Chris Bellman from the analog mono master that was used to make the version that came as an extra disc to the Beach Boys’ 1972 album Carl and the Passions - “So Tough”. That version is widely considered to be better than the relatively crummy original mono pressing (I have both, and I agree) and is eons better than the dreadful duophonic mess that passed as the stereo version at the time. Meanwhile, Universal’s Vinylphyle series is simultaneously releasing a double-LP set that contains a different analog mono cut from engineer Joe Nino-Hernes as well as his cut of the (digital) stereo remix that was made in the 1990s. Plus, there’s a zoetrope picture disc that features unknown mastering (most likely Capitol’s run-of-the-mill digital mastering of the stereo remix, I reckon) as well as a 2-LP set of outtakes called Pet Sounds Sessions Highlights, available on both white/green splatter and standard black vinyl. Whew, I think I’ve got all that covered. We’ll have lots more to say about the Definitive Sound Series and Vinylphyle pressings in the coming days. In any case, this is looking like the vinyl reissue event of the year. Stay tuned.

Dr K. Gyasi & His Noble Kings: Sikyi Highlife [Strut]

Dr. Kwame Gyasi was a Ghanaian pioneer who merged the country’s long-established sikyi dance rhythms with the more contemporary, guitar-driven sounds of highlife. Fittingly, the 1974 album by Gyasi and His Noble Kings is titled Sikyi Highlife, which could not be a more perfect encapsulation of the music contained therein. It’s built around two side-long medleys that are essentially nonstop dance grooves that augment the established sounds of highlife with organ and horns, a unique development at that time. Strut Records is reissuing Sikyi Highlife on vinyl for the first time since its initial pressings in ’70s on the Ghanaian label Essiebons. The new edition features a remaster and liner notes by John Collins.

Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity [Parlophone] 

1975’s Radio-Activity (titled Radio-Aktivität in Kraftwerk’s native Germany) was the electronic band’s follow-up to their breakthrough Autobahn album from 1974. It was also the group’s first album to be made entirely with electronic instruments, but it pivots away from the hypnotic and at times euphoric repetition of the epic “Autobahn” in favor of darker, more discrete pieces, such as the squelching-synth imperium of “Antenna” or the ghostly communion of “Radioactivity,” in which a processed Vako Orchestron choir provides a bed beneath a Minimoog rhythmic pattern, a tinkling synth melody, and occasional interruptions of Morse code. For its slightly belated 50th anniversary, Radio-Activity has gotten a Dolby Atmos mix on Blu-ray as well as this picture disc, which boasts new artwork and is based on the 2009 digital remaster. We’ll have more to say about the picture disc in a forthcoming review.

Slayer: Hell Awaits [Metal Blade]

Slayer’s second album, 1985’s Hell Awaits, finds them building the scaffolding that would lead to their masterpiece, 1986’s Reign in Blood. But Hell Awaits is a fascinating record in its own right, with the South Central Los Angeles thrash band adding complexity to the construction and arrangements of their songs, heavily influenced by Venom and Mercyful Fate. The finished product is a murky stew of serrated riffs and blast beats, with some of the heavy impact of the band’s playing sacrificed for a more iniquitous and vaporous sound. For its 40th anniversary, Hell Awaits is getting a 3-LP deluxe box set that includes a 1985 live show from Bochum, West Germany, on the two additional discs. The album itself comes on “fire splatter” vinyl and is designated as a “1985 Master/Restored from the Original Tapes,” which is kind of confusing, although it’s unlikely whatever new version this is will clarify the muddiness of the album—that’s just how this thing sounds. To sweeten the pot, the box also includes a 60-page book with photos and liner notes, a slipmat, two posters, two flyers, and a bunch of other ephemera. Also, there’s a “blood”-filled liquid vinyl version that has already sold out its limited run of 666 copies. Take that, Red Cross! NL

Samuel D. Rich: Theme of Discontent [Eminent]

For starters, Samuel D. Rich is a band, not a person; secondly, they only existed for a brief 18 months in 1973 and 1974. The band was based in Canberra, Australia, and swallowed up a huge array of influences, including Santana, Jethro Tull, and Grand Funk as well as the prog bands in their home country such as Mackenzie Theory and Spectrum. Their sound was a sweaty, meaty, occasionally funky groove with humming guitars and ambitious vocal harmonies that they didn’t always quite manage to pull off. Nevertheless, the first-ever release of any material by the band—taken from unreleased 1974 studio sessions—is a huge coup for fans of Oz rock and a much-needed reinstatement of a missing page in the history books, as Samuel D. Rich went on to be a formative influence on Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett. Full marks to the Australian label Eminent for excavating these choice recordings; extra credit for including a four-page insert detailing their history. Readers of Ugly Things and Shindig! are correct to already be salivating at the description of this one.

The Byrds: Fifth Dimension [Music on Vinyl]

While the Byrds’ third album, 1966’s Fifth Dimension, isn’t regarded as the generational masterwork that Pet Sounds is, it’s also celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, although the fanfare around it is slightly more muted. For their part, the Sony-affiliated Dutch reissue label Music on Vinyl is marking the event by pressing up an orange version of the album in its stereo mix, likely using the same digital master they used for their 2012 edition. The album is generally flat-out phenomenal with a couple of duds; “5D,” “Mr. Spaceman,” “Eight Miles High,” and “Wild Mountain Thyme” are among the best tracks of the entire decade, finding the joint where folk-rock—scarcely a year old at this point—transmogrified into psychedelia. The Coltranesque sheets of sound on “Eight Miles High” were groundbreaking in their own right, but “5D” remains one of Roger McGuinn’s most perfect songs, a gorgeous melody buttressing some wonderfully optimistic starry-eyed lyrics over a prowling bass from Chris Hillman. The duds are David Crosby’s “What’s Happening?”—a song as inchoate as its title—and the meandering instrumental “Captain Soul.” Everything else here is worthy of celebration, on its 60th year or any other. Since we’re not getting any sort of deluxe treatment to mark the occasion, this Music on Vinyl pressing will have to do.

Aaliyah: Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number [Sony]

Aaliyah’s 1994 debut album has been in and out of print on vinyl, but when even the most recent pressing from 2017 commands high prices from Discogs, this new pressing is worth an easy mention. What’s less easy to talk about is the album’s complicated legacy, the thorniness of which is by no means Aaliyah’s fault and which she can’t address herself due to her tragic early death. To put it quite frankly: This album, whose very title gives me the willies, is the product of not just the conspicuously talented ingénue but also the loathsome songwriter/producer R. Kelly, the now-convicted sex offender who illegally married Aaliyah when she was 15. Aaliyah was able to move on from her artistic and personal relationship with Kelly and had a remarkable career in both music and film before it was cut short at age 22 by a plane crash. That leaves this debut album—a watershed moment in ’90s R&B—as a particularly difficult thing to reckon with. While charting the rise of a phenomenal talent, it is also a document of abuse. The somewhat silver lining is that R. Kelly’s royalties reportedly now go to his victims, so Sony keeping this album in print may be a net good.

Jethro Tull: Under Wraps & Ian Anderson: Walk into Light [Rhino]

Here’s one for the revisionist history books: Jethro Tull’s maligned 1984 album Under Wraps is next in line for a deluxe box set, which it is receiving: a 5-CD/1-Blu-ray affair that also encompasses singer Ian Anderson’s 1983 solo album Walk into Light. Both of those albums used drum machines instead of live drums, so in addition to including the original album mixes, the box set includes newly remixed versions with more realistic drum samples replacing the early-’80s vintage sounds. And the remixes are also getting separate vinyl releases, should that be your Tull-injection method of choice. This is a really weird prospect—sure, the drum machines sound dated, but using the original programmed triggers with updated drum samples is no replacement for a live drummer; the preview track, “Lap of Luxury,” sounds weirdly phony, like an early ’90s recording, so we’re just replacing one kind of dated sound with another. Nevertheless, most of us should be safe from these bizarre updates, as the box set and separate vinyl discs are squarely aimed at Jethro Tull obsessives—these are pretty uninteresting and inconsequential albums, even overlooking all of the production issues. NL

Alexander “Skip” Spence: Oar [Music on Vinyl]

A repress of Skip Spence’s Oar on the prolific Dutch label Music on Vinyl doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy—until you look at how infrequently this beautifully damaged 1969 masterpiece has been available on vinyl. Per Discogs, the last pressing was in 2011 (also on Music on Vinyl), with some Sundazed pressings predating that. Of course, originals now go for hundreds of dollars, making the prospect of a new fresh pressing a bit more enticing. This clear vinyl version is cut from digital but should provide a revealing window into Spence’s skewed, brilliant song-world, where the former member of three legendary San Francisco bands—Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, and Moby Grape—deals with the aftermath of a stay in Bellevue Hospital following a psychotic break brought about by drugs. Recorded in Nashville, Oar approaches the familiar shapes of psych-folk from surprising angles, with Spence sounding both otherworldly and enduringly human. It’s a gorgeous album shot through with the tragedy of Spence’s life, and while it apparently was the lowest-selling album in Columbia Records history at the time, it’s been reclaimed as a lost masterwork, and one that should never be absent from record-store shelves. Music on Vinyl is manufacturing it for European markets but it will eventually make its way to the States as an expensive import. I guess it’s the best we can hope for.

Faces: Ooh La La [Rhino]

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one. Rhino reissued excellent all-analog versions of two other Faces albums—Long Player and A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse, both from 1971—earlier this year as part of their Start Your Ear Off Right Campaign. (Read our review of both discs here; they feature terrific new cuts from the US master tapes by Chris Bellman.) It stands to reason that they’d eventually complete the series by reissuing the other two studio Faces albums, so it’s not a huge surprise to see Ooh La La on the release schedule. But Rhino already has a premium Kevin Gray analog edition of the 1973 album in print as part of their Rhino High Fidelity series, which leads to questions. Is this the same as that, or a different (new) cut by Chris Bellman? Or did they go back to Gray’s earlier cut from the 2015 box set You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (which also received a stand-alone release on red vinyl in 2017)? I’m guessing it’s the last of those options, but a new Bellman cut would be pretty cool, as his versions of Long Player and A Nod are absolutely killer. All will be revealed when someone pops open the shrink of this new version hitting stores. One last question: Will we see a wider release of Bellman’s cut of First Step, which apparently was reissued back in January but the existence of which I have not found any evidence of outside of this Discogs entry?

Steve Miller Band: Fly Like an Eagle [UMe]

I have probably listened to 1000 hours’ worth of Steve Miller Band music in my lifetime, almost none of it consciously or willingly. Miller’s big hits have simply been omnipresent since their creation in the 1970s—perhaps never more so than during the classic-rock-radio heyday of the 1990s—and their very lack of personality makes them nestle perfectly within a drive-time playlist or the background ambience at Any Bar, USA. In fact, I’m trying very hard to describe Miller’s music, and it’s virtually impossible: ’70s pop-rock, with almost as generic a flavor as can be imagined. Is it the platonic ideal of the genre? It may well be—so much so that it becomes the very embodiment of the word “rock,” much in the way that it’s difficult to define the words “blue” or “pain” in useful terms. Miller’s best album, 1976’s Fly Like an Eagle (whose title track, I will admit, is a funky, synth-laden jam) is getting a 50th-anniversary picture disc, which seems like a bit of a letdown for such a big-selling album but might actually be perfectly in keeping with its bizarrely anonymous identity. No bonus material, no liner notes, just the music that you’ve heard a hundred times or more, delivered in a format that allows all involved parties to take the money and run.

Various Artists: Rebel Island Soul: Under the Influence: Reggae, Funk & Soul in Jamaica in the 1970s [Soul Jazz]

A new compilation album from London’s Soul Jazz is always a reason to perk up and pay attention, and this one puts an interesting spin on their many excellent reggae comps thus far. Rebel Island Soul collects Jamaican artists’ covers of American soul and R&B of the 1970s, meaning we get island-flavored takes on Isaac Hayes’s “Shaft,” the Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion,” Edwin Starr’s “War,” Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and 12 others. There’s nothing as revelatory as Tony Tribe’s version of “Red Red Wine” (later pilfered wholesale by UB40) or Toots and the Maytals’ take on “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” but these tracks are all fascinating and tough to find on their own; they contain the ingredients for what eventually became the English-born phenomenon of lovers rock.

Guerssen & Sommor

Spanish sister labels Guerssen and Sommor can always be trusted to liven up the reissue docket, and this week is no exception. On Sommor comes the never-before-released album from Italian band Moby Dick, a bunch of Zeppelin worshippers from Naples, Italy. They came to London and recorded an album that remained unreleased—not for lack of quality, as it’s a rip-roarin’ steamroller with tasty riffs and impressive playing, iterating on Zeppelin’s blend of mystic blues-folk and barbaric heavy rock, with a certain essence of Italian prog to kick it up to the next level. Guerssen’s also got a repress of the 1972 self-titled album by Quebec stompers Ellison, a heavy slab of crude-oil rock ’n’ roll that Guerssen first reissued in 2016. Now it’s back in print with an improved audio source. Sadly, a planned reissue of the 1968 San Francisco compilation album Fifth Pipe Dream Vol. 1 appears to have disappeared from their preorder list. The album, released by Matthew Katz on his San Francisco Sound label, featured songs by Tripsichord Music Box, West Coast Natural Gas, Black Swan, and It’s a Beautiful Day, fully encapsulating the psychedelic spirit of the city at that time; hopefully Guerssen will be able to reinstate it to their release schedule in the near future.

The Style Council: Café Bleu super deluxe [Polydor]

You might remember that an expanded 3-LP edition of the Style Council’s 1984 album Café Blue was originally supposed to come out on January 30. (Read our original preview here.) But apparently they used some of the wrong versions of certain tracks and had to recall the entire run. Anyway, the fixed version is out now, in case you haven’t lost interest, although the sales page on uDiscoverMusic already shows it as sold out.

Jazz Alley

Lots to talk about this week in Jazz Alley. Blue Note has two more in their Classic Vinyl Series: Trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s 1961 album Whistle Stop is a hard-bop set featuring a murderer’s row of musicians, like Hank Mobley on sax, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, and Kenny Drew on piano. And Donald Byrd’s The Cat Walk from 1962 is a more laidback, jaunty set that features the trumpeter alongside Pepper Adams on baritone, Duke Pearson on piano, and, once again, Philly Joe Jones on drums. Both discs were cut from analog tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal.

The excellent and excellently priced Verve Vault series continues with Marcos Valle’s Samba ’68, which features English-translated versions of Valle’s Brazilian hits arranged by Eumir Deodato and produced by Creed Taylor; it was cut from tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed at Optimal. And German label ECM’s audiophile reissue series, Luminessence, carries on with a new pressing of Balladyna, a 1976 set from trumpeter Tomasz Stanko with saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Edward Vesala. Another German label, Speakers Corner, has a new Kevin Gray analog cut of Roland Kirk’s 1968 gem The Inflated Tear, although this was recently cut from tape by Matthew Lutthans as part of the Rhino Reserve line (our review’s here), making this double-dip a bit less urgent.

Meanwhile, CAM Sugar is reissuing the soundtrack to the 1962 Italian film Smog, which was shot in Los Angeles by director Franco Rossi and an Italian crew. The soundtrack features music by Piero Umiliani with Chet Baker on trumpet, and the 2-LP set features alternate versions of tracks that are previously unreleased. The film itself was given a 4K restoration and selectively screened in 2022 and 2024, although no wide release followed and it remains unavailable on physical media or anywhere on streaming. It’s a remarkable-looking piece of work, so let’s hope that it sees the light of day soon.

Rounding out the week are a pair of reissues from Elemental: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ 1966 album Buttercorn Lady was recorded live in Hermosa Beach, California, not long after pianist Keith Jarrett joined the outfit. And Marion Brown’s Three for Shepp, first released on Impulse! in 1967, finds the saxophonist venturing into experimental territory while remaining grounded in the jazz fundamentals. Last but not least is Sony’s straightforward mono repress of Miles & Monk at Newport, the 1964 live album that was split between a 1963 performance by Thelonious Monk’s ensemble and a 1958 Newport appearance from the Kind of Blue–era Miles Davis sextet, featuring John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb.

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)

Automatic Lovers: Automatic Lovers [Wap Shoo Wap]
Tony Bennett: Stranger in Paradise: The Early Hits 1951–62 [Acrobat]
Idil Beret: Chopin Recital, Schwetzingen Festival 1999 [Naxos]
Big Pun: Capital Punishment [Sony]
The Blasters: Rare Blasts: Studio Outtakes and Movie Music 1979–1985 [Liberation Hall]
Bo Roc: My Music, My Soul [P-Vine]
Sam Cooke: The Best of Sam Cooke [Sony]
Corrosion of Conformity: America’s Volume Dealer [Music on Vinyl]
The Cramps: Stay Sick; Big Beat from Badsville [Vengeance]
*Curved Air: Phantasmagoria [Reissued Sounds]
Dead Meadow: Three Kings [Heavy Psych Sounds]
Deep Purple: The Infinite B-Sides and Bonus Songs [Ear Music]
Desperate Measures: Broken Bottles [Radiation Reissues]
Died Pretty: Doughboy Hollow [Eminent]
DOA: Take On the Tyrants: The Very Best of Punk Rock’s Most Enduring Band [Sudden Death]
*Earth: Pentastar: In the Style of Demons [Sub Pop]
Eskaton: Ardeur [Soleil Zeuhl]
Força Macabra: 1997 [Svart]
Galactic: Ruckus [Music on Vinyl]
Carlo Maria Giulini: Mozart - Requiem [Warner Classics]
*Cathy Hamer: Lady Full of Dreams [Numero Group]
Roy Hamilton: Don’t Let Go: The Chart Singles 1954–1962 [Acrobat]
The Head Cat: Plays Buddy Holly [Cleopatra]
Billie Holiday: God Bless Lady Day: The Best of 1936–1942 [Acrobat]
*The Hydromatics: The Earth Is Shaking [Bang!]
Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra: Concert a Prades-le-lez Vols. 1 & 2 [Souffle Continu]
Fumio Itabashi: Nature [Nippon Columbia]
*Antonio Carlos Jobim: Sinfonia do Rio de Janeiro [Sowing]
Joeystarr: Egomaniac [Music on Vinyl]
Yoko Kawanami: Mr. Ajikko Manpuku Teishoku soundtrack [King]
Kyoko Koizumi: Bambinater [Lawson Ent]
Dylan LeBlanc: Cautionary Tale [Single Lock]
*The Lemon Dips: Who’s Gonna Buy? [We Are Busy Bodies]
Marc Mac Presents Visioneers: Dirty Old Hip Hop [Omniverse]
Ricky Martin: A Quien Quiera Escuchar [Sony]
Mel & Kim: F.L.M. [Reissued Sounds]
Mari Mizuno: Mariage [Jet Set]
Takeo Moriyama: Yama [Tokuma]
Seiichi Nakamura: Wolf’s Theme [Teichiku]
*Neighb’rhood Childr’n: Neighb’rhood Childr’n [Sundazed]
Nessbeal: Sélection Naturelle [Music on Vinyl]
Old Crow Medicine Show: Big Iron World [Acony]
Paradise Lost: Gothic [Peaceville]
Gregory Porter: Take Me to the Alley [Fontana France]
*Quicksilver Messenger Service: Live at the Fillmore June 7, 1968 [Cleopatra]
*Ranking Dread: Girls Fiesta [Burning Sounds]
Rattus: Uskonto on Vaara [Svart]
The Residents: Randy, Chuck & Bob in the Studio [Cryptic Corporation]
Max Romeo & The Upsetters: War Ina Babylon [Proper]
Rüfüs du Sol: Atlas [Sweat It Out!]
Schizoid: Total Mayhem [Tee Pee]
*The Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols [Rhino High Fidelity] (retail version)
Spin Doctors: Pocket Full of Kryptonite [Music on Vinyl]
Sultans: Ghost Ship [Swami]
Suprême NTM: Live [Music on Vinyl]
John Surman: At the BBC 1967–68 [1960s]
Taco: The Alternative Counter Organization [Spittle Made]
Igor Tamerlan: Bali Valilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island 1987–1991 [Elevation]
Keith Tippett: At the BBC 1969–70 [1960s]
Jannick Top: Utopic Sporadic Orchestra [Soleil Zeuhl]
Touche Amore: Stage Four [Epitaph]
Uncle Slam: Will Work for Food [Music on Vinyl]
*Xclusiv: Fools Are Friendly 12-inch [Phantasy Sound]
Susumo Yokota: Will; The Boy and the Tree [Lo Recordings]
Various Artists: Brown Acid: The Twenty-Second Trip [RidingEasy]
Various Artists: Danza Secreta: Lost and Hidden Grooves from Argentina 1970–1980 [BBE]
Various Artists: Dawn of the Dead soundtrack [Waxwork]
Various Artists: Far East: New Rock Invention [180g]
Various Artists: State of the Art: Punk and New Wave from the United States (1979–1983) [Shout It Out Loud]
Various Artists: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 & 2 soundtrack [Atlantic]