New vinyl reissues: May 29, 2026
Lots of new vinyl reissues to get into this week, but I’ll start today’s newsletter with some interesting announcements for reissues coming later this summer.
First up: Fontana Records, the British label that was reborn in 2025 after having originally been a sublabel of the Dutch giant Philips, has launched something they’re calling the Thousand Club. It’s a reissue series of limited editions of 1000 each—hence the name—and the first two entries into the series are pretty exciting as far as I’m concerned. They’re reissuing Camel’s 1975 instrumental masterpiece The Snow Goose and the relatively obscure second album by British heavy rockers Leaf Hound, 1971’s Growers of Mushrooms, which has become a cult favorite over the years, leading to original pressings becoming absurdly expensive. What’s really intriguing is that Fontana is touting all-analog pressings cut by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road. This is a welcome change from the usual British M.O. of offering digital half-master cuts. Could this be the start of an AAA wave in Britain? I can only hope so. Both of these are due out July 31.
Also, Rhino Records have listed a new series at their online store: The Spirit of ’76, a collection of 50th-anniversary reissues of 1976 albums, all making their way to us in July. Some are in the Rhino Reserve line while others are not; some will be analog cuts and some will be digital. Here’s the rundown:
7/17
Bad Company: Run with the Pack
Black Sabbath: Technical Ecstasy
Bootsy Collins: Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band [Rhino Reserve]
Commander Cody: We’ve Got a Live One Here!
Faces: Snakes and Ladders: The Best of Faces [Rhino Reserve]
Flamin’ Groovies: Shake Some Action
Al Stewart: Year of the Cat [Rhino Reserve]
7/24
Chicago: Chicago X
The J. Geils Band: Live: Blow Your Face Out
Gordon Lightfoot: Summertime Dream [Rhino Reserve]
The Grateful Dead: Steal Your Face
The Monkees: Greatest Hits
Linda Ronstadt: Hasten Down the Wind
Todd Rundgren: Faithful [Rhino Reserve]
Rod Stewart: A Night on the Town [Rhino Reserve]
Bobby Weir: Kingfish
7/31
Jethro Tull: M.U. - The Best of Jethro Tull [half-speed master]
John Prine: Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine [Rhino Reserve]
Ramones: Live at the Roxy 8/12/76
War: Greatest Hits
ZZ Top: World Wide Texas Tour
Of particular interest is the Rhino Reserve pressing of Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat, which will be turning 50 later this year. The exceptionally well-produced album features an analog cut by Matthew Lutthans and should be an absolute treat to hear. All of these are currently available for preorder at Rhino’s webstore and will surely be at your local record store in July.
Also, here is this week’s playlist—available to our paid subscribers only—on Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify. These playlists, lovingly crafted by yours truly, provide audio samples of this week’s reissues so you know exactly what you’re in for before you drop by the record store. Want in on the action? Just upgrade right here:
One last thing before I get to this week’s reissues: Be sure to enter this month’s vinyl giveaway! One lucky paid subscriber will win a copy of the Cecil Taylor Unit’s Record Store Day release, Fragments. Here’s the complete scoop:
Ned Lannamann
Smashing Pumpkins: Gish [Virgin]
As the alternative music of the 1990s grows ever more precious to newer adoptees of vinyl, it stands to reason that labels should ensure that more of those canonical albums—commonplace on CD but vanishingly rare on vinyl—are always available at your local record store. Gish has had two vinyl reissues over the past decade and a half but hasn’t consistently remained in print, so here’s a 35th-anniversary pressing that should at least temporarily get it back onto turntables. The 1991 debut album of Chicago’s Smashing Pumpkins, it was the bellwether of a strain of alt-rock that ran parallel to the Seattle grunge movement (such as it was). Embracing glam, shoegaze, power pop, goth, and metal, the group conveyed a sense of delicacy even within their most thunderously shreddy riffs. It went on to be one of the biggest sounds of the ’90s—1993’s Siamese Dream and 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness would be two of the era’s defining rock records—but it was all present on Gish, a lovely, loud, feedback-strewn missive that, no exaggeration, very likely changed to course of music. Having a copy on vinyl just seems like the natural move.
The Rats: The Rats [Mississippi/Little Axe]
Charting the various bands Portland garage-rock guru Fred Cole fronted over the decades of his life one of the pleasures of exploring Pacific Northwest rock ’n’ roll. After the Weeds, the Lollipop Shoppe, and the tremendous Zipper, Cole could see which way the wind was blowing and teamed up with his wife Toody to form a punk band called the Rats. Their 1980 self-titled debut is a nervy, noisy, raucous bit of fuzz ’n’ shriek, but Cole’s expert songwriting chops are still on full display, with each murky track suggesting eons more complexity than the low fidelity and crude musicianship would suggest. Fred and Toody would of course go on to form the legendary Dead Moon and its offshoot, Pierced Arrows, and they’d eventually get their due as Pacific Northwest rock royalty, but at the time of The Rats, theirs was the sound of a hungry, lean band playing for little more than the love of music. Mississippi Records in partnership with another Portland record store, Little Axe, has reissued the album previously, but it’s been out of print for a while, so here comes a fresh pressing.
Camper Van Beethoven: II & III [Cooking Vinyl]
The early Camper Van Beethoven albums are wild rides that slap the listener back and forth between jokiness and genius, and their second album, 1986’s II & III is a perfect case in point. (Even the title is both brilliant and annoyingly stupid.) There’s a cornpone twang throughout, often with the band’s collective tongues in their cheeks, but there are also moments of sincerity and pathos. The eclecticism is the point, of course, and over the LP’s duration, Camper Van Beethoven reveal themselves to be diverse musicians whose sense of fun and adventure wins out over their compulsion to needle their listeners. This reissue marks the first time II & III has been on vinyl since 1987—cause for jubilation all around. Also: CVB’s first album, Telephone Free Landslide Delivery from 1985, is getting repressed by Cooking Vinyl after being reissued as part of Record Store Day 2025.
Grannie: Grannie [Seelie Court]
British reissue label Seelie Court has been resurrected by the Nashville-based Good Time Records, and while their web presence is still a bit baffling (there’s a Bandcamp page, Facebook and Instagram profiles, but no real organized storefront) it appears that after refurbishing the label’s digital catalog, the new owners are now repressing many of the label’s past reissues on vinyl as well. The latest is the self-titled effort from Grannie, a heavy bit of prog-psych that was originally a private pressing released in 1971. The new reissue comes on colored vinyl with liner notes and an obi strip, although the mastering is likely the same as Seelie Court’s previous versions from a few years back. We’ll try to keep track of what the reborn Seelie Court has in store vinyl-wise, but in the meantime, it may also be worth tracking down their Record Store Day releases: Colonel Bagshot’s Oh! What a Lovely War was a late-period psych record from 1971, recorded by a Liverpudlian band and released in the US on Cadet Concept. And Bob Hughes’s My Old Man was a privately pressed folk album of charming, honest songwriting from 1976. Both are catnip for collectors of rare British psych and folk.
Electric Light Orchestra: Out of the Blue; Discovery [Legacy]
By the late ’70s, Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra had entered a Mines of Moria situation: They had delved too greedily into the vast mines of perfect pop, and too deep. Having begun their run of LPs with inventive prog-tinged, classically informed rock, they achieved a wonderful equilibrium of pop and rock with 1975’s Face the Music and 1976’s A New World Record—perhaps their pinnacle—but by the time of 1977’s double album Out of the Blue, some saccharin had entered the recipe, resulting in sticky-sweet confections that went down easily but didn’t offer a whole lot of lasting value. Nevertheless, that album and its follow-up, 1979’s Discovery, were among the band’s biggest commercial triumphs, and their hook-laden pop offered plenty to enjoy on the surface, even if there wasn’t much underneath. Out of the Blue has been in and out of print on vinyl over the past couple of decades, but apart from a single pressing in 2016, Discovery hasn’t been seen on vinyl since the ’80s. These look to be barebones reissues from Sony, with no mention of the mastering pedigree or any indication that extra attention has been paid to making them sound great. Maybe these will sound great, but a catalog as evergreen as ELO’s—and with a complex, highly produced sound that’s difficult to get just right on wax—deserves a carefully appointed reissue campaign.
Herbie & The Royalists: Soul of the Matter [Morgan Blue Town]
The best word to describe the charms of Herbie and the Royalists’ 1968 album Soul of the Matter is “modest.” This slight soul-pop record is being touted as a lost gem, and it is something of a nifty period curio, inhabiting a peculiar area shared by soul, baroque pop, and spooky organ-drenched psychedelia, with the occasional Caribbean influence in the singing style of Herbie Hunte, who hailed from Barbados. But of the tracks available for preview on YouTube, none indicate that this is a slab of hidden treasure, although it was released on the low-budget Saga label, stiffed initially, and was destined to become manna for crate-diggers. Galactic Ramble, that massive tome that contains mini-reviews of nearly every album released in the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s describes it as “just about worth the pound it tends to go for.” Considering our ever-depreciating dollar and the sui generis quality of the music, I’d say it’s worth a bit more than that, but not much. It’s being reissued on the Morgan Blue Town imprint of Secret Records.
Allen Toussaint: Songbook [Craft]
New Orleans maestro Allen Toussaint recorded and filmed two shows at Joe’s Pub in 2009 that surveyed his entire career as producer, songwriter, arranger, and chief architect for New Orleans’s R&B sound of the 1960s and 1970s. Songbook, the 2013 live album on Rounder Records that resulted from those shows, is being issued on vinyl for the first time by Craft Recordings. Toussaint had become a regular at Joe’s Pub since relocating to New York City after being forced to leave his hometown in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and at the intimate East Village venue, the seasoned veteran played solo shows on the piano for the first time in his career. Songbook includes tunes like “Southern Nights” and “Get Out of My Life Woman,” but its real value is in unveiling another side of this multifaceted musical genius, stripping Toussaint’s work down to the studs for this solo showcase.
Megadeth: Countdown to Extinction; Youthanasia [Capitol]
The most recent vinyl reissues of Megadeth’s 1992 album Countdown to Extinction and 1994’s Youthnasia have been on picture disc, featuring the 2004 remixes of the audio. These new reissues reinstate the original album mixes and spread the music across two pieces of black vinyl. With Countdown to Extinction at 47 minutes and Youthnasia at nearly 50 minutes, this is probably the right move, although there was room to either cut at 45 RPM or include bonus material. Megadeth were always seen as the commercially inclined kid brother among the big four American thrash metal bands, but as the years go by, their esteem grows—their self-titled album from earlier this year gave the LA band the first number-one album of their career. Interestingly, the Discogs entry for this new US pressing of Youthnasia shows that Joe Nino-Hernes (the mastering engineer responsible for the excellent Vinylphyle reissues) cut the lacquer, but his initials are not in the deadwax of the European pressing. (There isn’t an entry for Countdown just yet.) The notion of a Nino-Hernes cut of a CD-era album in its original mix should be big news for Megadeth vinyl listeners.
The Monkees: Good Times! [Rhino Reserve]
When the Monkees reunited for their 50th-anniversary album, 2016’s Good Times!, they were down one member: Davy Jones, who passed away in 2012. Ten years later, we’re down two more, with Micky Dolenz the only surviving Monkee following the deaths of Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith in 2019 and 2021, respectively. Good Times! was produced by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger—who also sadly passed in 2020—and featured contributions from classic Monkees songwriters like Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Neil Diamond, and Jeff Barry, as well as more contemporary tunesmiths like Ben Gibbard, Andy Partridge, Noel Gallagher, and Paul Weller. The result was a convincing simulacrum of the Monkees’ beloved ’60s albums and even included an old Jones outtake for good measure. Rhino has decided to reissue it as one of their Rhino Reserve titles, a slightly peculiar choice for the more vintage-minded series, but it should sound at its best with a digital master cut to lacquer by Matthew Lutthans.
Jazz Alley
The jazz reissues just keep a-comin’. This week we’ll get a top-drawer reissue of the Visitors’ 1975 album Motherland, featuring brothers Earl and Carl Grubbs on dueling saxes. Although it was originally released on Muse, interestingly this is not part of the Time Traveler reissue series of Muse releases; rather, this one is coming from Craft’s Jazz Dispensary imprint, boasting an analog cut by Kevin Gray and a pressing from Fidelity. It should be a phenomenal piece of wax. Meanwhile, French label Sam Records has prepped a pair of 10-inches: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded the soundtrack for 1959’s Des Femmes Disparaissent (The Road to Shame) for Fontana Records, reworking snippets from their repertoire into brief snatches of incidental music. And Thelonious Monk’s 1954 release for Vogue/Swing, Piano Solo, was recorded for a French radio session with—as you can guess—Monk alone at the piano. Both 10-inches were cut by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal; the language on Sam’s site says “remastered from the original mono master tapes” but does not explicitly say that Gray cut from those tapes.
Analogue Productions have also pressed Miles Davis’s Birth of the Blue to 2-LP 45 RPM, following their standard 33 RPM release from 2024. This collection of Kind of Blue outtakes was first compiled as the 1978 Japanese album 1958 Miles. The 33 was cut by Matthew Lutthans from a newly assembled stereo reel made from the three-track masters; the 45 does not indicate the same provenance but it would be odd if Analogue Productions used a different source and mastering engineer. There’s also a limited blue vinyl version, if that does it for ya. Also: Strata-East’s reissue of the Descendants of Mike and Phoebe’s A Spirit Speaks—with the ensemble led by Bill Lee—gets a wide release following its sterling Record Store Day Black Friday drop from last year.
Meanwhile, Soul Jazz are reissuing their very first compilation, 1993’s London Jazz Classics. The title was meant to be tongue in cheek, as none of the music came from London, and the dance-ready soul-jazz, funk, and Latin music played loose with notions of conventional jazz at the time. It’ll be a treat and a bit of a time capsule to have this one back on wax. Lastly, the insanely expensive reissue label Electric Recording Co. is dropping their reissue of the Bill Evans Trio’s 1962 classic Waltz for Debby; the limited edition of 345 is already sold out, as Electric’s releases are wont to do.
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)
Alexisonfire: Live: House of Strombo, Toronto 2019 [Dine Aline]
*Alice in Chains: Facelift; Dirt [Sony]
Amber: This Is Your Night [Tommy Boy]
Amon Düül: Experimente [Life Goes On]
Aura Noir: Black Thrash Attack [Peaceville]
Backyard Babies: Making Enemies Is Good [Music on Vinyl]
Richard Band & Joel Goldsmith: Laserblast soundtrack [Mystic Vault]
Amiri Baraka: Black & Beautiful/Soul & Madness [Moved-by-Sound]
Bas: Too High to Riot [Dreambille/Interscope]
Blue October: Foiled [Republic/UMe]
Brand Nubian: One for All (7-inch box set) [Tommy Boy]
Dennis Brown: Just Friends [LMLR]
*James Brown: In the Jungle Groove [Universal]
*A Certain Frank: Nothing [Bureau B]
Coil: The Unreleased Themes for Hellraiser (Expanded Ritual) [Musique Pour la Danse]
Sheryl Crow: Live at the Capitol Theatres: 2017 Be Myself Tour [Cleopatra]
Cyanide Pills: Singled Out [Damaged Goods]
Danzig: Danzig; Danzig II: Lucifuge [American Recordings]
Demigod: Slumber of Sullen Eyes [Svart]
Ted Dicks: Sex Clinic soundtrack [Trunk]
DJ Shadow: The Mo’ Wax Singles 1993–1997 [PIAS]
*Fidlar: Fidlar [Mom & Pop]
Floating Points: Elaenia [Luaka Bop]
Charly Garcia: Parte de la Religion [Music on Vinyl]
Philip Glass: Music with Changing Parts [Superior Viaduct]
Glenn Hughes: Building the Machine [Reissued Sounds]
Gregory Alan Isakov: That Sea, the Gambler; This Empty Northern Hemisphere; The Weatherman; With the Colorado Symphony [Suitcase Town]
Israel Vibration: Unconquered People [Culture Factory]
Michael Gregory Jackson: Clarity [Moved-by-Sound]
*Millie Jackson: A Moment’s Pleasure [Ace/Southbound]
*The Kinks: One for the Road zoetrope [Sanctuary]
*Loveliescrushing: Xuvetyn [Numero Group]
Billie Marten: Writing of Blues and Yellows [Music on Vinyl]
Blind Willie McTell: The Best of Blind Willie McTell [Yazoo]
Metal Molly: Surgery for Zebra [Music on Vinyl]
*Mobb Deep: Murda Muzik; Infamy [Sony]
Mortis: The Smell of Rain [Earache]
*Mister Rogers: It’s Such a Good Feeling: The Best of Mister Rogers [Omnivore]
Nashville Pussy: High as Hell [Svart]
*Nina Nastasia: On Leaving; You Follow Me; Outlaster [Temporary Residence]
Non-Fiction: Non Fiction Box [Golden Core]
Oathbreaker: Rheia (Redux) [Deathwish Inc.]
*Om: Variations on a Theme; Conference of the Birds [Drag City]
Pentagram: High Voltage: Live at Spotsylvania ’78 [Riding Easy]
Poison: Open Up and Say… Ahh! [Universal]
Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia: Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves [Forever]
Ruben Rada: Adar Nebur [Little Butterfly]
Kit Ream: All That I Am [Cosmic Rock]
Roots Radics Band: Scientist and Jammy Strike Back! [LMLR]
Rovi (aka Piero Umiliani): Drammi e Speranze [Holy Basil]
RuPaul: Foxy Lady [Tommy Boy]
Leon Russell: Best of Hank Wilson [Dark Horse] (wide after RSD UK)
Sham 69: Tell Us the Truth; That’s Life; United: The Punk Anthems Recorded Live 1978 & 1979 [Music on Vinyl]
Soda Stereo: Signos; Comfort y Musica [Sony]
Rod Stewart: Vagabond Heart [Friday]
Suede: Sci-Fi Lullabies Volume 2 [Demon]
Mark Templeton: Standing on a Hummingbird [Keplar]
Pinky Tex: The Singing Angel from Devil Rock Canyon EP [Mississippi]
*Ali Farka Touré: Savane [World Circuit]
Bonnie Tyler: Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire [Music on Vinyl]
Piero Umiliani: Psichedelica; Il Corpo; La Ragazza Fuoristrada; La Ragazza Dalla Pelle di Luna; To-day’s Sound [Schema]
The Upsetters: A Fistful of Dub [LMLR]
White Heaven: Next to Nothing [Black Editions]
*Don Williams: Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes [Craft]
Hannah Williams & The Affirmations: Late Nights & Heartbreak [Record Kicks]
Wooden Shjips: Dos [Holy Mountain]
Various Artists: Angriff auf Schlaraffenland: Ein Deutschpunk-Mixtape [Tapete]
Various Artists: Dance the Ska (Prince Buster, Jimmy Cliff, and Others) [Kids of Yesterday]
Various Artists: Funk the Reggae Beat [Trojan]
Various Artists: Promise Me Delight: Italo Disco and European Pop from the Golden Age [Ace]
Various Artists: Kaiso Power: Sound Revolution in Trinidad [Soundway]
Various Artists: Trespass soundtrack [Get On Down]
Various Artists: Up in My Mind: 15 Fuzzed Out Acid Tabs from the Lysergic Sixties [Roadburn]
Various Artists: You Gotta Have a Ducktail! Nau-Voo Rockers from West Portsmouth, OH [Bear Family]
