New vinyl reissues: November 13, 2026

Hello, and welcome to the week in vinyl reissues. Up top, I want to tell you about a new project I’m working on with Steve Westman. It’s called The Vinyl Cut Weekly, and it’s a show that’s kind of like this weekly reissue roundup, but in video form—Steve and I will be doing a 25-minute, quick-and-dirty show every Thursday discussing the best and most interesting-sounding reissues of the week. It’s so much easier than reading.

Be sure to tune into our first episode, which goes live TODAY. You can watch it right here, starting at 12 noon Eastern time or 9 am Pacific. And be sure to subscribe to Westman’s YouTube channel so you can catch us every week.

Announcements and Preorders

It turned out to be a busy week for new announcements. The biggest one coincided with this week’s 40th anniversary of the first Beastie Boys album, Licensed to Ill, which was released on November 15, 1986. As it turns out, Vinylphyle will be releasing a premium vinyl version of that album—with your favorite bratty hits like “Paul Revere” and “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)”—on March 18, 2027, with the album cut to three sides of a double LP by Joe Nino-Hernes. Nino-Hernes is using a digital transfer that he prepared of the analog master tape because to the fragile state of the album master, due to its many splices and edits. You can read more of Nino-Hernes’s fascinating mastering notes and preorder the thing here.

Meanwhile, Mobile Fidelity announced that they have another Devo album in the works, hot on the heels of their release last week of the Akron, Ohio, band’s debut. The new announcement is for Devo’s 1980 album Freedom of Choice, one of their finest and most popular. Like Q: Are We Not Men? and MoFi’s forthcoming reissue of 1979’s Duty Now for the Future, this is cut at 45 RPM on two LPs from a DSD transfer. Release date is TBD and should follow that of the previously announced Duty Now; preorders here.

Fontana’s Thousand Club also announced two new ones: Thin Lizzy’s wonderful 1976 album Jailbreak and T2’s buried treasure It’ll All Work Out in Boomland, released in 1970 and something of a lost grail of heavy power-trio rock. Jailbreak features specially prepared alternate artwork and is signed by cover artist Jim Fitzpatrick. Both were cut from analog tape by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road and are in limited editions of 1000 due out January 15, although I suspect the Thin Lizzy will sell out well before then. Thousand Club has two slightly puzzling offerings this week (scroll down and see) but I think these two forthcoming selections are dynamite, the kind of rock albums that will benefit immeasurably from carefully done analog mastering. Looking forward to these.

German label Bureau B has announced a 50th anniversary edition of Cluster & Eno, the 1977 collaborative album by the German duo Cluster and the English musician/producer/oblique strategist Brian Eno. This is a textural work, with ambient pieces and soundscapes providing moments of brilliant beauty. The reissue comes out January 15, 2027. Also, Soul Jazz has announced a reissue of Jaime Alem and Nair De Cândia’s absolutely marvelous and mega-rare 1979 album Amanheceromos, a pure delight of Brazilian pop. Dig into this one and get excited for the release date on December 4.

Lastly, Blue Note’s Tone Poet series announced their full slate for 2027, with 24 releases coming—two per month—from Blue Note’s massive catalog alongside some albums that were originally released on United Artists, Pacific Jazz, Jazz Workshop, and Capitol. (Blue Note also has a subscription series, Tone Poet Society, that includes exclusive quarterly releases; they’ve announced next year’s Q1 release, Grant Green’s Am I Blue.) The first two titles for January are available for preorder now. Here’s the full Blue Note Tone Poet list for next year.

Weekly Playlist

Here’s this week’s playlist, with tracks from all of the albums discussed below and more. It’s exclusively for our paid-tier subscribers, so click here if you’d like to become one of those.

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And now let’s get into the week!

Talking Heads: Fear of Music [Rhino]

For their third album, Fear of Music, Talking Heads exploded their sound, creating a sort of global disco that was equal parts Afrobeat and New York City after-hours dance club. The quartet once again retained the services of producer Brian Eno, who augmented their jittery new wave with synth textures and unconventional approaches to studio recording. The 1979 album is now being reissued as a massive 6-LP box set, including alternate takes and two live shows from 1979. The series follows similar editions of Talking Heads’ first two albums, and the album itself is cut AAA by Joe Nino-Hernes of Sterling Sound, although the remaining discs are likely cut digitally. There’s also a 2-LP version that just includes the album on one disc and the studio outtakes on a single side of the other disc, with an etching on the flipside. From what I can tell, that side of outtakes is going to be awfully long, so I’m not sure why they couldn’t have put some of that music on the fourth side and rounded it out with, say, some live tracks. But I don’t make these decisions. Interestingly, the 6-LP set is no longer available on Rhino’s or Talking Heads’ sites, suggesting that it sold out in preorders. You should be able to get it at other retailers, though.

Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose [Third Man]

The 2004 “comeback” album from Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose, was produced by Jack White and, to be sure, it has the Detroit musician’s fingerprints all over it. At the time, White was riding high with the minimalist sound of the White Stripes, and the expansiveness of Van Lear Rose was a bit of a surprise to those used to the drums-and-guitar attack of his work with Meg White—not to mention that it was a much more rock-’n’-roll album than Lynn’s fanbase was likely used to. But while songs like the high-octane country-rock tune “Portland, Oregon” are unthinkable without White’s contributions, there are also moments that are purest Loretta, such as the acoustic “Miss Being Mrs.,” which is a tribute to her late husband. Indeed, Lynn wrote or co-wrote all the songs here, and her singing is exquisite throughout, marrying perfectly with the distorted-guitar-and-pedal-steel backdrop White and the musicians provide. I’m not sure when or how this excellent album fell out of print, but White’s Third Man Records is taking up the mantle and reissuing it, with a bonus track for good measure. My only hesitation is that my experience with Third Man pressings have not been great. So here’s hoping this one bucks the trend and has the great sound and vinyl quality that this fantastic album deserves.

Joni Mitchell: Night Ride Home [Geffen/Interscope]

As the long-overdue estimation of the work of Canadian-born songwriter Joni Mitchell continues to grow, her overlooked albums from the ’80s and ’90s are riper than ever for reappraisal. 1991’s Night Ride Home was considered one of her less approachable works at the time of its release, but like all of Mitchell’s oeuvre, its vibrancy and vitality has only become more apparent with age. The album is of its era, with sparkly, almost antiseptic production and a mixture of acoustic and digital timbres, but Mitchell’s songs are astonishingly affecting, such as “Cherokee Louise,” which details the abuse of a childhood friend, and “Come In from the Cold,” which charts the shift in sexual mores during the second half of the 20th century. For its 35th anniversary, Night Ride Home is being reissued on vinyl for the first time since its initial release. It’s been given an AAA cut by Chris Bellman, who used the original master tapes; the LP was pressed at RTI and looks to be on the level with other audiophile-level releases bearing similar pedigrees. I think this one’s getting lost in the shuffle; Mitchell has a comprehensive reissue campaign going over at Rhino under the Joni Mitchell Archives banner, and this particular reissue falls outside of that. But this is likely going to be a definitive edition of an affecting and exquisite-sounding album—well worth rediscovering.

This Heat: Deceit [Superior Viaduct/This Heat]

British experimental group This Heat remains uncategorizable (post-punk, avant-prog, free jazz, and industrial are some of the imprecise terms that get bandied about), but their second full-length, 1981’s Deceit, has some glimmers of what might be called “songs” thrown into the trio’s exciting, unpredictable stew. “S.P.Q.R.” turns the rock-music conventions of drums and guitars into phalanxes of sound that gallop over hills like the Roman army described in the lyrics. And “Sleep” is atypically pretty, a lullaby built on ominous sound loops and little sound shrapnels. The album contains jolt after jolt of sonic inventiveness, with harsh edges, impenetrable thickets of noise, and moments of deep, meditative beauty. Superior Viaduct is handling the North American reissue of this vital album, with This Heat themselves managing its re-release elsewhere.

The Doobie Brothers: Takin’ It to the Streets [Mobile Fidelity]

Mere weeks after Rhino Reserve took a crack at the Doobie Brothers’ 1976 album Takin’ It to the Streets—the band’s first with caramel-voiced crooner Michael McDonald—Mobile Fidelity is offering up their version, the latest in their series of Doobie Brothers 45 RPM 2-LP sets. The album marked a transition point for the Doobsters, marking the end of the California band’s stoned-hellraiser Southern-rock-indebted period and into a smoother, sleeker sound that was bedfellows with R&B and Steely Dan–style studio-rat rock. The title track is the big one here, and is the song that launched a thousand sitcom themes. Soon the Doobies would go on to become one of the flagship bands of the soft-rock trend (and later reappropriated as “yacht rock”), so Takin’ It to the Streets remains one of their more interesting efforts, occupying a middle ground that straddles both periods. Mobile Fidelity has mastered it from a digital transfer of the original master tape, cut at 45 RPM and pressed on two LPs.

Mickey Newbury: I Came to Hear the Music; Lovers [Fat Possum]

The canon of Houston-born country singer Mickey Newbury is one of a true Nashville outsider—all the more surprising since he made his bones as a successful and hugely admired songwriter, responsible for hits for the First Edition, Andy Williams, Solomon Burke, and others. Even John Prine said Newbury was “probably the greatest songwriter ever.” But Newbury’s own albums, shot through with expressionistic flourishes and a refusal to adhere to country-music dogma, remain wonderful obscurities, full of personality and beauty that feels untouched by trends and tradition. Mississippi label Fat Possum has reissued three of them already, and now they continue the series with 1974’s I Came to Hear the Music and 1975’s Lovers. I want to give these my full recommendation. However, Fat Possum pressings have often been less than perfect—they are part owners of Memphis Record Pressing—and the absurdly low price point on these ($16!) has me wondering if they cut corners. The mastering was done by Clay Jones from digital transfers; if Jones’s work and Memphis’s pressing are up to snuff, these could well be the bargains of the year.

The Flaming Lips: At War with the Mystics [Warner]

The Flaming Lips’ 2006 album At War with the Mystics was the conclusion of a commercial-friendly trilogy that found the Oklahoma City band transitioning from the fuzzy-alt rock of their ’90s albums to the phantasmagoric synth haze that saw them reaching their biggest audiences. As the follow-up to 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Mystics was packed with festival-ready hits like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and “It Overtakes Me,” as well as more exploratory passages like “Pompeii am Götterdämmerung.” For its 20th birthday, the album has been transmogrified into a giant 6-LP box, with the album on three LP sides and a bevy of demos and non-album tracks filling out the remaining nine sides. An even larger 6-CD box set includes two live concerts.

The Parlour Band: Is a Friend? & Level 42: Level 42 [Thousand Club/Fontana]

The two new ones from Fontana’s Thousand Club series are about as different as can be. The Parlour Band’s one and only album Is a Friend? was first released on Deram in 1972, and it’s an album that only could’ve existed in 1972, smushing prog-rock and harmony-laden folk-rock up against each other for a blend that’s alternately craggy and pastoral. The other choice is the self-titled debut of jazz-funkers Level 42, released on Polydor in 1981 and with a pasteurized funk sound that washes all of the stank and heat off the style. The Is a Friend? album is a rarity, to be sure, while Level 42 is not hard to come by, but both were cut from the analog master tapes and come in limited editions of 1000. The Level 42 LP is signed by bassist Mark King.

Aphex Twin: Drukqs [Warp]

Aphex Twin’s 2001 album Drukqs showcases competing styles of sonic alchemist Richard D. James, with glitchy electronic beats nestled alongside electroacoustic pieces played on piano and other non-virtual instruments. The double CD made for unsettling listening, and it was released at an unsettled time, in the very near aftermath of September 11, although the album contained works dating back several years prior and was fully sequenced and mastered before any of that day’s tragic events unfolded. The original vinyl release spread the album across four LPs, two cut at 33 RPM and two at 45 RPM, with a deluxe edition coming in an oversized 12-by-17-inch box. For Drukqs’s 25th anniversary, it’s back on vinyl for the first time in decades, using that same combo of 33 and 45 speeds, with both deluxe and regular editions available.

Jazz Alley

It’s another big week down Jazz Alley, so let’s jump in. I’ll start with the newest Blue Note Tone Poet, which isn’t really a Tone Poet in the usual sense but follows the pattern of the two terrific Frank Sinatra reissues the series did over the past year. This one’s for Nat King Cole’s 1957 album After Midnight, and this 2-LP reissue includes six additional tracks from the sessions that appeared on other reissues over the years. Like the Sinatra Tone Poets, it was sourced from Capitol Records’ phono reels—a separate archive of tapes that featured the individual songs spliced together on assorted reels. These phono reels saw far less wear and tear than the album masters, which were trotted out and used countless times over the decades, so the sound is near-pristine. Kevin Gray cut this double LP set from those phono reels—it’s in mono—and the pressing was done at RTI, with a tip-on gatefold and booklet. The album was recorded at the height of Nat King Cole’s fame as a singer, when many had forgotten he was also an excellent jazz pianist. After Midnight sits him down in front of the 88s with backing from his trio and some guest appearances.

Meanwhile, Craft Recordings is winding down the John Coltrane centennial year with The Savoy Recordings, a 3-LP set containing the work he did with trumpeter Wilbur Harden on the Savoy label in 1958. The albums are Mainstream 1958, Tanganyika Strut, and Jazz Way Out, and were cut from tape by Kevin Gray, pressed at RTI, and come in tip-on jackets inside a slipcase, with liner notes by Jazz and Coffee’s Syd Schwartz. On their Jazz Dispensary imprint, Craft is also reissuing a double live album from Gary Bartz NTU Troop, I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies, recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973 and originally released on Prestige. The album features saxophonist Bartz in command of a fun, adventurous set of spiritual and soul jazz. It was cut from tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at Fidelity, so it should sound killer.

Two new Verve Vaults also drop this week: Carmen McRae’s bird-themed concept album from 1958, Birds of a Feather, which is a traditional vocal jazz platter stocked with songs about birds (“When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along”—you get the idea). Billy Mitchell’s 1962 album This Is Billy Mitchell is a lot more interesting, an inventive hard-bop set that includes an early appearance by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Verve is also releasing a live set from Louis Armstrong, One Night in Highland Park, recorded at a 1957 fundraiser at Highland Park High School in Illinois. The concert was recorded by a student and sounds darn good considering, although this blue-vinyl release shouldn’t be mistaken for an audiophile recording.

Classical Cubbyhole

For whatever reason, the three big classical vinyl reissue series are all dropping things in the same week. Deutsche Grammophon’s Original Source Series has three on offer. First up is Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella, in a recording by Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. There’s also a collection of orchestral pieces by Tchaikovsky, including the condensed orchestral-suite version of The Nutcracker, an orchestral adaptation of the Andante Cantabile movement from his first string quartet, and his Capriccio Italien fantasia. These were conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich in front of the Berliner Philharmoniker; it’s a splendid recording and performance if all you require are highlights from The Nutcracker and not the full ballet. And lastly is Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Respighi’s three baroque-flavored Ancient Airs and Dances suites. All three of these albums were originally released in 1979—just as the classical music world was shifting to digital—but are sourced from the eight-track master tapes, newly mixed down to stereo, I believe, and cut from tape at Emil Berliner Studios.

Meanwhile, Universal’s sister series over at Decca—Decca Pure Analogue—is reissuing Christopher Hogwood’s noteworthy 1980 recording of Handel’s Messiah, performed by the Academy of Ancient Music, the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and assorted soloists. This recording capitalized on the movement of historically informed performances (HIP) of baroque and early classical work that had been building since the 1950s, bringing it to the center of the conversation with a performance that strove to emulate how Messiah would have sounded in Handel’s day. This meant smaller ensembles, differently constructed instruments, and brisker tempos (generally speaking). Hogwood’s Messiah was one of the first HIP recordings of an overtly familiar work in the classical repertoire, and its redefinition of the oratorio’s well-known sound added gasoline to the HIP movement, which flourished in its wake. Originally released on L’Oiseau Lyre, this is a delicately gorgeous recording, made in London’s St Jude-on-the-Hill parish church; this 3-LP reissue was cut from the analog master tapes at Emil Berliner.

Over at Analogue Productions, they’re continuing their series of 45 RPM 2-LP sets of classic recordings from the RCA Living Stereo era. The two new ones both come from recordings made by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Charles Munch conducting. Their 1954 recording of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was made when stereo technology was still in its experimental phase (and indeed the stereo version wouldn’t be released on disc until decades later), and this version was sourced from a mastering Bernie Grundman originally did for Classic Records many years back. Matthew Lutthans cut the lacquer from Grundman’s tape, with the five-movement symphony—a pioneering piece of program music that is more or less ground zero for the entire Romantic movement in music—spread across four sides. Some say Munch and Boston bettered their original recording with their 1962 remake, so perhaps one day we’ll get a reissue of that one too. The other Living Stereo disc is 1958’s Bolero, a collection of French orchestral pieces by Ravel and Debussy, which take advantage of both composers’ shrewd skill with orchestral coloration. This was cut by Lutthans from Ryan K. Smith’s prepared master tape, dating from Analogue Productions’ single-disc 33 RPM version from 2018. With one piece per side, this should sit a little better in the 45 RPM 2-LP format.

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

Asleep at the Wheel: Live from Austin, TX [New West]
Bad Company: Live in London [Bad Company]
Chet Baker: Chet; It Could Happen to You: Chet Baker Sings (colored vinyl) [Craft]
Big Brother and the Holding Company: Cheap Thrills [Sony]
Black Sheep: Non-Fiction [Music on Vinyl]
Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition [Warp]
James Brown: Excitement: Mr Dynamite [Honey Pie]
The Chemical Brothers: Born in the Echoes [Astralwerks]
The Chiffons: He’s So Fine [Honey Pie]
*The Clash: The World According to the Clash [Sony]
*The Clean: Great Sounds Great, Good Sounds Good, So-So Sounds So-So, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten!! 12-inch; Getting Older 7-inch [Merge]
Phil Collins: Face Value; …But Seriously; Both Sides; Testify; Going Back [Rhino]
Barry Michael Cooper: What Is This?: Visionary Harlem Hip-Hop & Electro 1980–1984 [Tuff City]
Giles Corey: Giles Corey Remastered [Flenser]
The Cramps: RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX [Vengance]
Def Leppard: Volume 4 (box set) [Mercury]
Descendents: Bonus Fat EP [Org Music]
*Digable Planets: Blowout Comb [Capitol Record Club]
Eagles of Death Metal: Peace Love Death Metal [Ipecac]
Bill Evans: Sunday at the Village Vanguard; Waltz for Debby (colored vinyl) [Craft]
The Fall: Fall Heads Roll [Cherry Red]
*The Fates: Furia [Extended Voices]
*Sky Ferreira: Night Time, My Time [Proper]
Sidney Gish: No Dogs Allowed [Many Hats]
Gojira: Magma [Atlantic]
Johnny Griffin: Live at Ronnie Scott’s 1964 [Gearbox]
Steve Hackett: Genesis Revisited II [InsideOut]
Hanoi Rocks: The Complete Collection 1981–1984 [Svart]
Larry Heard: Ice Castles [Alleviated]
James Horner: Aliens [Varèse Sarabande/Craft]
The Human League: Being Boiled 12” [Cherry Red]
Isolée: We Are Monster [Resort Island]
Keith Jarrett: Roma: Live [ECM]
Waylon Jennings: Diamonds [Son of Jessi]
Janis Joplin: Pearl [Sony]
Takashi Kokubo: Get at the Wave [Jazzybelle]
Joelle Leandre: Taxi [Cien Fuegos]
Charles Lloyd: Pathless Path [Ebalunga!!!]
Madlib: Beat Konducta [Stones Throw]
Madonna: Evita soundtrack [Rhino]
Javad Maroufi: Golden Memories and Other Romantic Melodies [Black Sweat]
Reba McEntire: For My Broken Heart [MCA]
Carsten Meinert: Carsten Meinert/C.M. MusicTrain [Formalibera]
Stephan Micus: The Garden of Mirrors [ECM]
Mindless Self Indulgence: How I Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love MSI [Music on Vinyl]
Misfits: American Psycho [Geffen]
Moodymann: Mahogany Brown [Peacefrog]
Mr. Epp: Ridiculing the Apocalypse [Bang]
Myron & E: Broadway [Stones Throw]
Neo Museum: 1983–1985 [Spittle Made in Japan]
Nico: Chelsea Girl (yellow vinyl) [Integral]
Obligaciones: Iwo-Jima Party [Bang]
Original Broadway Cast: Rent [Decca Broadway]
Pinegrove: Everything So Far [R&R Digital]
*The Radio Dept.: Pet Grief [Just So]
*Raffi: Singable Songs for the Very Young [Troubadour/Craft]
Rascal Flatts: Nothing Like This [Blue Highway]
*Really Red: Teaching You the Fear [Alternative Tentacles]
The Rifles: No Love Lost [Cooking Vinyl]
Chalino Sanchez y los Guamuchileños: Y Sigue la Balacera [Craft/Discos Musart]
Hiroshi Sato: Awakening [Great Tracks/Sony Japan]
Gil Scott-Heron & The Midnight Band: Live at Berkeley ’78 [Culture Factory]
*Nina Simone: It Is Finished (yellow vinyl) [Sony]
Solange: A Seat at the Table [Sony]
Esperanza Spalding: Esperanza [Concord]
Rick Springfield: Karma [Friday]
Sun Ra: A Fireside Chat with Lucifer [Modern Harmonic]
Tordenskjolds Soldater: More Peace [Formalibera]
David Tudor: Anima Pepsi [Blume]
Twisted Sister: Totally Twisted: The Studio Albums 1982–1987 [BMG]
Midge Ure: Chapters: The Best Of [Chrysalis]
Within Temptation: Black Symphony; An Acoustic Night at the Theatre [Music on Vinyl]
Dawit Yifru: Dawit Yifru [Muzikawi]
Hans Zimmer: The World of Hans Zimmer: Best Of [Sony Classics]
*Various Artists: Alegre Records: The Latin Sound of New York (1961–1975) [Craft]
Various Artists: Eccentric Folk Soul [Numero]
Various Artists: La Ola Nocturna: Experimental Songs & Deviant Pop from the Spanish 80’s [Bongo Joe]
Various Artists: Punk Que? Punk [Beat Generation]
Various Artists: Soul Revivers in the Vaults of Hit Sounds Vol. 1 [Acid Jazz]