New vinyl reissues: October 17, 2025
It’s another busy week in Recordland, with reissues and re-releases aplenty. Before we dive in, last week we received some criticism for our weekly new releases post, with some folks on Reddit complaining that it was too long and they didn’t feel like doing all that reading. Well, this is a newsletter. Reading is involved. If that’s not your speed, here’s a website we recommend.
Okay. Let’s dive in. It’s another long one. (Sorry, Reddit!)
NATIONAL ALBUM DAY
American readers might be scratching their heads right now. “National Album Day? What the heck is that?” It appears to be another manufactured retail holiday, this time confined to the climes of the UK. Now in its eighth year, National Album Day capitalizes on a series of vinyl and CD reissues—well, mostly reissues, but not entirely—that all come out on Saturday, October 18, each falling under this year’s theme: “rock.” (A bit of a broad one, this year.) The list is a truly varied list of classics and stuff that’s been reissued a billion times, and rather than rehash them for you here, we’ll point you to Super Deluxe Edition’s excellent rundown of the roster, written by John Earls. It’s worth a read, even if you’re not in the UK to pick any of these up. NL
TIME TRAVELER RECORDINGS/MUSE REISSUES
This week, we published a piece focused on producer Zev Feldman’s brand new reissue label Time Traveler Recordings. If that piqued your interest, you’ll be happy to know that the first three releases on this new imprint are out this week. Head to your local indie record shop and look for The Free Slave, an explosive live recording of drummer Roy Brooks and his ensemble originally released in 1972; Carlos Garnett’s spiritual big-band jazz opus Cosmos Nucleus from 1976, and Kenny Barron’s 1973 trippy journey through the post-bop wilderness Sunset To Dawn. The audio for all three discs was remastered by Matt Lutthans, who also cut the lacquers from analog, and they all sound phenomenal. RH
Robert Ham
RHINO ROCKTOBER
This Friday sees more than a dozen reissues from Warner Music Group hitting independent stores, courtesy of Rhino’s Rocktober series. We’ll have expanded coverage on that for you in tomorrow’s newsletter, including a list of all this week’s titles and even reviews of a few of them! There are a couple of excellent-sounding new entries into the Rhino Reserve series included in there, so don’t worry, it’s not all repackagings and colored vinyl variants. Stay tuned. NL
BLUE NOTE: GRANT GREEN & ELVIN JONES
The powers that be at Blue Note Records occasionally lost the plot during their ’60s heyday. Proof positive was the decision to allow guitarist Grant Green to record two fantastic sessions in 1964 with a sharp rhythm section (drummer Elvin Jones, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and pianist McCoy Tyner) and, on one studio date, saxophonists Joe Henderson and James Spaulding, and then shelve both sets of recordings. Both sessions were eventually issued, but listening to them now, I still bristle at the idea that these recordings didn't pass the label’s muster. Listen for yourself with a new pressing of Solid, the session Green undertook backed by the full quintet, and listen to the guitarist bounce gleefully alongside the equally sproingy alto work of Spaulding and Tyner’s nimble playing. This latest reissue, part of Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl Series, was cut from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal.
Also out this week from Blue Note is a fresh edition of Puttin’ It Together, a 1968 album credited to the New Elvin Jones Trio. The adjective in the ensemble’s name explains a lot. This was the first LP Jones made for the label as a bandleader, and it was a fresh undertaking for the drummer as he stripped everything back to the bare minimum, working with only a bassist (his fellow John Coltrane Quartet partner Jimmy Garrison) and saxophonist (Joe Farrell). Though already established as a musician with a fluid style and a preternatural rhythmic ability—he often seems to be playing around a beat rather than remaining safely in the pocket—Jones hits new heights here with multiple spotlight solos and playful compositions like the tribute to his then-wife “Keiko’s Birthday March.” As with the Grant Green reissue, Kevin Gray cut this release using the original analog tapes and the vinyl has been pressed up at Optimal. RH
CHESS RECORDS: MUDDY WATERS & HOWLIN’ WOLF
Yet another high-end, all-analog vinyl series launches this week, and of course Acoustic Sounds is involved. This one is for Chess Records, the legendary electric blues label out of Chicago, and the first two titles hit the ground this week. There’s The Best of Muddy Waters, a 1958 LP that collected 12 of the legendary Muddy Waters’s singles from 1948 to 1954, cut from analog tape by Matt Lutthans at Acoustic Sounds’ Mastering Lab facility in Salina, Kansas and pressed at QRP, also an Acoustic Sounds company. And there’s Howlin’ Wolf’s debut long-player, 1959’s Moanin’ in the Moonlight, which assembled singles from 1951 to 1959. It’s also cut from the analog masters by Lutthans and pressed at QRP. More titles in the series—by Chuck Berry, Etta James, Little Walter, and Sonny Boy Williamson—are scheduled to follow in 2026. NL
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Animal Collective, the indie ensemble that has influenced multiple generations of musical experimentalists and Beach Boys obsessives, are set to reissue their sixth album Feels to coincide with that record’s 20th birthday. The triple-LP set appends a bonus disc with B-sides from the era and four recently discovered demos to the original album, all pressed on “translucent grape biovinyl.” Look for our full review of this reissue next week. RH
BLUESVILLE: PINK ANDERSON & TERRY CALLIER
Craft Recording’s Bluesville reissue series, made in partnership with Analogue Productions/Acoustic Sounds, continues with two new titles: Carolina Blues Man is the 1961 record from South Carolinian bluesman Pink Anderson, one of the foremost postwar practitioners of East Coast Piedmont blues (and also one-half of Syd Barrett’s inspiration for the name Pink Floyd, the other half being Floyd Council). Carolina Blues Man is the first of three albums Anderson recorded for Bluesville, which was an imprint of the Prestige label, and this reissue is an all-analog cut by Matt Lutthans at Acoustic Sounds’ Mastering Lab facility in Salina, Kansas. This one hasn’t been pressed on vinyl since it was part of the Original Blues Classics series in 1984. The other Bluesville title was originally released on Prestige proper; it’s the debut album from cult fave Terry Callier, whose moody soul records from the ’70s have become prized booty among crate diggers. The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier was recorded in 1964 but not released until some years later (Discogs says ’66, Wikipedia says ’68). It finds Callier and his acoustic guitar taking on selections from the traditional folk songbook, augmented by two self-written compositions credited to nom de plume Rent Foreman and wielding a heavy vocal influence from Nina Simone. Craft reissued this in a 2-LP set featuring a Kevin Gray cut back in 2018 (a non-Gray cut was also issued in Europe), and the Electric Company did a high-end mono rendition in 2023. This one also features a new all-analog cut by Lutthans from the original tape, done at the Mastering Lab. NL
THE DREAM SYNDICATE
Serious fans of The Dream Syndicate are going to head straight for the deluxe re-release of the Paisley Underground band’s second album Medicine Show that Fire Records is issuing this week. That 4-CD set goes widescreen with a remastered version of the 1984 full-length and a wealth of bonus material, including a ton of fiery live sets by the group and rehearsal tapes featuring original bassist Kendra Smith. Newbies may want to head for the stand-alone vinyl reissue, also dropping this week. Or dig into the bargain bin at your favorite indie shop, where you're certain to turn up a used copy for $5 or less. The band’s new benefactors at the time, A&M Records, flooded the zone with copies of Medicine in hopes of getting a return on their sizable investment in the group due to months of protracted recording sessions and dealing with the nervous breakdown of bandleader Steve Wynn. The label got its money’s worth with a molten-hot psych rock record but watched as the band stalled out commercially despite plum gigs opening for R.E.M. and U2. RH
THE STOOGES ON MOFI
It’s confusing to be a Stooges fan these days. Their classic 1969 debut album has now gotten not one but two premium vinyl reissues. Following last year’s Kevin Gray cut for Rhino High Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has just gotten in on the action, with a 45 RPM version on two LPs, cut from a DSD digital file rendered from the analog master. Did you ever need to hear the repeated one-note piano part of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” rendered in such exhaustive fidelity? Did the disintegrated guitar-and-handclaps motif of “No Fun” need the black-silent backgrounds and high-end extension that this supremely expensive piece of wax provides? No matter, for MoFi have announced that their version of The Stooges is shipping direct now and should start to appear in stores in the coming weeks. NL
DANZIG, AT LAST
With virtually no fanfare, Universal quietly added represses of the first four Danzig albums to their website at the end of last week, meaning that you can just go onto the internet, enter your credit card info, and vinyl copies of 1988’s Danzig, 1990’s Danzig II: Lucifuge, 1992’s Danzig III: How the Gods Kill, and 1994’s Danzig 4 will soon arrive at your house, just as if you ordered toilet paper from Amazon. What a world. This is bad news for the countless number of counterfeiters who have been pressing illegal vinyl copies of these albums for years now—and very, very good news indeed for Danzig fans, who have been waiting for these to receive official represses since their initial runs. Well, let’s hope it continues to be good news. All but Danzig 4 are currently marked as out of stock on the uDiscover site, but hopefully that’s temporary and these reissues stay in print for a good long while. In the meantime, check with your local retailer. NL
APHEX TWIN
It seems as though everyone is getting into the business of reissuing classic Aphex Twin material these days. On the heels of Warp’s repress of Selected Ambient Works Vol. II in 2024 and last month’s expanded re-release of Polygon Window’s Surfing on Sine Waves, Belgian label R&S gets in on the game this week with a new pressing of Classics, a collection of EPs that the producer recorded for that imprint in the early ’90s. At the time, the artist, born Richard D. James, was still establishing himself within the strictures of techno and acid house but would soon burst free from those frameworks and create some synapse-restructuring electronic music. Still, flickers of his future groundbreaking work appear throughout head-nodding jams like “Polynomial-C” and the glittery expanse of “Analogue Bubblebath.” RH
ALBERTO BALDAN BEMBO
The wonderful Italian archival label Sonor Music Editions—which specializes in soundtrack and library music—has just reissued Io E Mara, the 1969 instrumental concept album by composer Alberto Baldan Bembo, who would go on to score several Italian films throughout the 1970s. Incorporating jazz, bossa nova, lounge music, and audio verité, it tells the musical story of two lovers during a romantic weekend, which I take to mean that at least one of the album’s untitled songs musically depicts them having sex. With wispy, breathy scat singing from an unnamed female and expert musicianship from an Italian studio wrecking crew, this is a tantalizing and trippy delight. NL
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
There's no unreleased material, demos, or other bonus material appended to the 20th anniversary reissue of the Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree, out this week via 4AD. The only changes to be had to the original LP are updated artwork and remastered audio undertaken earlier this year at Abbey Road Studios. That could be seen as a missed opportunity by the label and the creative force behind the project, John Darnielle, but I say you don't need any of the usual reissue trappings for a record as perfect as this. Equal parts tender and furious, the album explores Darnielle’s experience as a teen suffering under the stern hands of an abusive, alcoholic stepfather, written in the wake of that man’s death. That the brilliant artist could wring so much empathy for the man who terrified him for years is truly remarkable and a testament to his continued genius as a songwriter. RH
BORIS
Prolific Japanese noise-drone-metal band Boris had their commercial breakthrough with 2005’s Pink, a still-gorgeous and captivating album that was one of the first widely heard albums to fuse ambient ideas with metal heaviness, although it carried on traditions long held by bands as disparate as Sleep, Les Rallizes Dénudés, and countless others. Relapse has reissued Pink along with Boris’s other 2005 album, the experimental double album Dronevil, in which both discs were meant to be played at the same time, Zaireeka-style. The new version, titled Dronevil -Example-, offers a mix of both discs together, so you won’t need to have the weird neighbor from across the street bring his Crosley over. Pink, meanwhile, follows the CD track order and splits the music across three sides, which suggests this edition features the shorter CD track edit rather than the longer ones that appeared on the original double LP release. Preorders for a 6-LP mega deluxe edition with all kinds of rare and unreleased tracks have already sold out on the Relapse website. NL
KREIDLER
While we wait patiently for a new album by this German post-rock ensemble, the members of Kreidler are offering up a stopgap measure in the form of Early Recordings 1994–95, a compilation of material committed to tape when the group was just getting started. Included on this set are Sport, a seven-song EP issued in 1995 on Cologne label Finlayson, and the bulk of the material from Riva, a long-out-of-print cassette release from a year earlier. Both offer up a glimpse at a band that had a clear musical vision from the start that they’ve held true to: a perfect blend of electronic and acoustic elements that call to mind the earliest days of Kraftwerk and Cluster’s work with Brian Eno. RH
SIMPLE MINDS
Coming directly after their number-one hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Simple Minds’ 1985 album Once Upon a Time positioned the Scottish band directly in the center of the mainstream, with big, brash production, arena-ready anthems, guest vocals from Robin Clark, and a sound designed to dominate European and American radio. These guys were superstars in Britain—less so in the US—and for its 40th anniversary, Once Upon a Time has fittingly received a 5-CD deluxe box set that exhaustively plumbs the era. And there’s a vinyl component, a single ruby-red LP that, for the first time, includes “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” as part of the album, tacked onto the end of Side One. NL
CLARENCE CARTER
One of the relatively unheralded geniuses of R&B, Clarence Carter may be best known for “Strokin’,” but his ’60s recordings from Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, are some of the very finest examples of Southern soul music committed to tape. The German analog champs at Speakers Corner are taking his 1968 solo debut album for Atlantic, This Is Clarence Carter, very seriously indeed, treating it to an all-analog cut from Kevin Gray and a premium pressing at Pallas. Boasting magical tracks like “Slip Away” and “Looking for a Fox” and Carter’s famous laugh, this is a very fitting return to vinyl for a bona fide soul gem, which—barring a pressing on Scorpio in 2018, likely from digital—has not been pressed on vinyl since the early ’70s. NL
SEEFEEL
While it shares the name of a 1993 EP, Pure, Impure is a bit of a different creature from the dreamy electronic ensemble Seefeel. This expanded edition wraps in More Like Space, the debut release from the group (also out in ’93) that introduced them as true heirs to the skin-tingling shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine and ambient pioneers Harold Budd and Steve Roach, as well as a rare demo version of “Moodswing” that even in its nascent form has that cotton-candy blend of gauzy and sticky within its hiccuping beats and guitar shimmers. It’s worth the price of admission just to have the two remixes of “Time to Find Me” that were undertaken by Aphex Twin, both of which take that song into spikier sonic territory. RH
DUNCAN BROWNE
Somewhat shockingly, until now, no one has taken up the mantle and reissued Duncan Browne’s impossibly lovely 1968 debut, Give Me Take You, on vinyl. The album, a British psych-folk jewel released on Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label, flopped upon release and instantly fell into obscurity, only to be rediscovered in later years, and in fact, apart from a 1973 release on Canadian label Daffodil, it hasn’t appeared on vinyl since its initial UK and US releases. This is likely due to the mess that was left when Immediate dissolved into insolvency in the late ’60s, leaving debts galore and the state of its master tapes in serious jeopardy. And it appears that Give Me Take You was one of the casualties, with its masters having vanished entirely, although a CD release sourced from (very good) needledrops did appear in 1991 and another, perhaps sourced from tapes, came out on Castle in 2000. And here it is, on vinyl again at long last—and on the Immediate imprint, no less, although that trademark is now owned by Charly. We don’t know the source of this master, as we’re a bit skeptical that the masters were ever recovered, but here’s hoping it sounds good enough to do justice to Browne’s songs and their exquisite, baroque-flavored beauty. NL
RUMAH SAKIT
Existing in the same musical timeline as other instrumental explorers like Don Caballero, Tortoise, and Mogwai, Rumah Sakit didn’t achieve the same kind of acclaim or success as many of their peers, despite matching them blow for blow in terms of songwriting complexity and pure chops. (It didn’t help matters much that the group split in 2002.) This reissue, dubbed Rumah Sakit 25, from the group’s longtime label Temporary Residence could be a crucial corrective to the historical record. The double-LP set brings together the quartet’s self-titled debut from 2000 and the contribution they made to their label’s “Travels In Constant” series, the latter of which is being issued on vinyl for the first time. All of the audio was remastered by Bob Weston, the gent who recorded all of the band’s work back in the day, and it’s all packaged with new artwork from friends of the group Jeremy Maddock and Marty Anderson. RH
TORD GUSTAVSEN
Considering ECM’s longstanding devotion to capturing a studio or live performance with as much clarity as possible, it should come as little surprise that the label started an audiophile vinyl series called Luminessence back in 2023. Since then, they’ve released a handful of key titles from their voluminous back catalog each year, such as Keith Jarrett’s breathtaking Solo-Concerts Bremen/Lausanne and Bennie Maupin’s 1974 mind-blower The Jewel in the Lotus, on high-quality vinyl with remastered audio and, glory be, copious liner notes. Before the year is out, ECM will have a few more Luminessence titles on record-store shelves like the one out this week, a repress of Tord Gustavsen Trio’s 2003 album Changing Places. Only ever available before on CD, the LP is gentle and measured and works as both a balm to the soul and a generous showcase for Gustavsen’s graceful, flowing piano playing. RH
GUERSSEN
If all the reissue labels in the world were on board an ocean liner that hit an iceberg, Guerssen would be among the very first we’d stick in the lifeboat. Tortured metaphor, you say? Well, take a look at what the Spanish label has in store this week—not one but six fascinating titles on its assorted family of sublabels: 1) A reissue of Reaction, a 1972 slab of hard boogie rock from a German power trio, on the Yunque imprint with an eight-page booklet. 2) Wide Open, the 1971 album from Australia’s Kahvas Jute, a heavy prog-psych outfit with duelling lead guitars, on the Out-Sider Music imprint, with liner notes. 3) Marie Celeste’s And Then Perhaps, an unfathomably rare 1971 private-press record from a Wolverhampton, UK, folk ensemble guided by group harmonies and amateur enthusiasm, with liner notes on the Sommor imprint. 4) Musica Urbana, the first LP by the Barcelona fusion group of the same name, featuring adventurous amalgams of genres including jazz, prog, and Catalan folk, with liner notes on the Sommor imprint. 5) What NGC-4594 Really Means, the collected recordings of Connecticut psych band NGC-4594, who were better at playing acid psych than they were at naming bands, with a bonus 7-inch and liner notes on the Guerssen label proper (a repress of their ultra-limited 2011 edition). 6) Represses of three out of four discs of the Honeybus Vinyl Series from 2018, which surveyed the recorded output of British psych-pop band Honeybus; this week’s reissues include their 1970 album Story and a double LP that collects the unreleased 1973 album Recital and an odds-and-ends collection called For Where Have You Been: The Lost Tracks, all on the Hanky Panky/Mapache imprint—and you’d better believe there are liner notes, written for each by Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh. Whew. See? If ever a label deserved the iceberg/lifeboat metaphor, it’s these guys. NL
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
All Saints: Saints and Sinners 25th anniversary edition [Sony UK]
Anna and Elizabeth: self-titled, 10th anniversary edition [Free Dirt]
Roy Ayers Ubiquity: Change Up the Groove [Vampisoul]
Jackey Beavers: Someday We’ll Be Together [Charly]
Ken Boothe & Lloyd Charmers: Boothe Unlimited [Lantern]
Solomon Burke: I Wish I Knew [Music on Vinyl]
Ceu: Ceu; Vagarosa [Jazzybelle]
Chrysalis: Definition [Cosmic Rock]
Citizen: Everybody Is Going to Heaven 10th anniversary edition [Run for Cover]
The Drags: Dragsploitation…Now! [Total Punk]
The Dubrovniks: Dubrovnik Blues [Bang!]
Johnny Dyani: Witchdoctor's Son [Steeplechase]
Fall Out Boy: Under the Cork Tree 20th anniversary edition [Universal]
Felt 2: A Tribute to Lisa Bonet [Rhymesayers]
Doug Firebaugh: Performance One [Numero]
Connie Francis: Christmas in My Heart [Universal]
Ghost: Meliora 10th anniversary edition [Loma Vista]
Gomez: Bring It On; Liquid Skin; In Our Gun; Split the Difference [Integral]
Grass: self-titled [Spiritual Pajamas]
Françoise Hardy: L’amitié; La Maison Où J’ai Grandi [Omnivore]
Hawkwind: PXR 5 [Atomhenge/Cherry Red]
Fred Hersch: The Fred Hersch Trio Plays [Chesky]
ICE aka Lafayette Afro Rock Band: Disco Frankenstein [Strut]
Chris Isaak: Forever Blue [Chris Isaak]
Elmo James: The Sky Is Crying [Charly]
Carly Rae Jepsen: E•mo•tion 10th anniversary 2-LP [Universal]
Freddie King: Freddie King Is a Blues Master [Music on Vinyl]
Mephistofeles: Whore; I’m Heroin; Satan Sex Ceremonies [Heavy Psych Sounds]
The Meters: Live at the American Music Hall (first released on Record Store Day) [Sing]
Randy Newman: Trouble in Paradise [Rhino Reserve]
The Oh Hellos: Dear Wormwood [No Coincidence]
The Alan Parsons Project: I, Robot super deluxe box & half-speed 1-LP [Cooking Vinyl]
Lee Scratch Perry: Revolution Dub [Music on Vinyl]
Raffi: Baby Beluga [Rounder]
R.E.M.: Radio Free Europe 10” [Craft]
Scorpions: From the First Sting [BMG]
Shiloh: self-titled [Cosmic Rock]
Trio Mocato: Muita Zorra! [Vampisoul]
Troubled Hubble: Making Beds in a Burning House 20th anniversary edition [Foreign Leisure]
UFO: Phenomenon [Chrysalis]
John Williams: Jaws soundtrack [Mondo]
