New vinyl reissues: September 25, 2026
Welcome back to another week in reissued vinyl. As usual, we’ll kick things off with the latest announcements before getting into what’s landing this Friday.
It’s a relatively quiet week for preorders, which is perhaps a welcome respite after all the activity last week. Today Rhino/Parlophone announced a trio of reissues of George Martin’s orchestral albums of ’60s pop songs: 1964’s Off the Beatle Track, 1965’s Help!, and 1966’s And I Love Her. The first two are entirely Beatles covers, while the third features Beatle tunes alongside other hits of the day. They’ve been remastered by George’s son Giles Martin; it doesn’t look like it’s been added to Rhino’s webstore just yet. The only preorder link I can find for the vinyl directs you to Amazon and, well… you know how to get there your own bad self. All three LPs come out November 6.
The other item of note is that beloved ’90s cult band Morphine will have an archival release out on December 6 on Partisan Records. Cocoon contains eight 1998 recordings that Morphine made in preparation for their final album, The Night, which came out in 2000, a few months after frontman Mark Sandman died onstage of a heart attack at age 46 on July 3, 1999, during a dangerously hot club show in Palestrina, Italy. The one-of-a-kind band, wielding a unique, smoky-cool sound fashioned around Sandman’s bass and Dana Colley’s baritone sax, has a pretty slender recorded legacy, so the news that some more drops are being added to that bucket is good news indeed. More info and preordering deets are at Partisan Records.
Here’s the new weekly playlist, visible to our paid subscribers and invisible to the rest of you. It contains choice cuts from this edition’s batch of new vinyl reissues and is a sonic adventure each and every week—exclusively for our paid subscribers. And hey, a paid subscription also gets you full access to the site’s complete archives, plus commenting privileges, as well as eligibility in our monthly vinyl giveaway (in some cases, the vinyl is worth more than the fee for a year’s subscription!). If you’d like to upgrade, click the button above... and please do consider it. This newsletter is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoy The Vinyl Cut and want to help support a tiny independent music publication making its way in this crazy world, it’s easy to do so. Thank you, genuinely.
Let’s get into the week.
The Go-Betweens: Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express; Tallulah; Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club); 16 Lovers Lane [Beggars Banquet]
Aussie band the Go-Betweens moved to London full-time in preparation for their fourth album, 1986’s Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express. They stuck around the UK for two more albums, 1987’s Tallulah and 1988’s 16 Lovers Lane before breaking up in 1989. The trio of London albums cemented the Go-Betweens’ legacy as perfect pop practitioners, with smart, insanely catchy songs coming from guitarist/vocalists Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. Those three LPs are among the finest and most cherished albums of the 1980s and have not been available on vinyl individually since their original release, having only been available in a Domino Records box set released in 2019 (now long out of print and prohibitively expensive). At long last, Beggars Banquet is putting these beloved works back in record stores and on vinyl collectors’ turntables. The three albums are joined by Fountains of Youth, a live album recorded at the Town and Country Club in 1987 that was first released in that Domino box; it receives a stand-alone vinyl release as well, making this Friday a real coup for longtime Go-Betweens fanatics.
The Mothers of Invention: Freak Out! [Verve/UMe]
The world was introduced to Frank Zappa’s warped, wild worldview with the release of the first Mothers of Invention album, Freak Out!, in June 1966, the second double album released by a pop act following Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, which came out one week prior. The album lifts up a rock and spotlights all the critters crawling in the Los Angeles underground, where freaks, groupies, and assorted unsavories were brought to life by Zappa’s compositional ambitions. The 60th anniversary box set is a 5-CD/1-Blu-ray affair with stereo and mono mixes plus a “pre-master” mix that was an early version of the album without all the final effects and overdubs, plus two CDs of live tracks, demos, and outtakes, and a Blu-ray with the album remixed for stereo and Dolby Atmos. The 5-LP box is a much slimmer affair, with the “pre-master” and original mono mixes taking up the first four discs and a selection of the live tracks and demos making up the fifth. The tape for the mono mix is long lost, so be aware that this new mono pressing was sourced from a needledrop, with the exception of a couple of tracks that they still had the tapes for.
Crowded House: Crowded House [Capitol Record Club]
Assembled from the remnants of New Zealand band Split Enz by songwriter Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester, Crowded House was a more international affair, forming in Melbourne, recording their 1986 debut LP in Los Angeles, and achieving unexpected worldwide success with the hits “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” Crowded House carries on the Split Enz tradition of savvy songcraft, which stuck out in the highly processed pop environment of the era. For its third entry (following albums by Sparklehorse and Butthole Surfers), Capitol Record Club is reissuing Crowded House on “raincloud and red” vinyl in a 40th anniversary deluxe edition with a second disc of extra tracks and a poster, in a numbered edition of 2000.
Alice in Chains: MTV Unplugged [Columbia]
Seattle grunge band Alice in Chains’ 1996 MTV Unplugged set only received a cursory vinyl release in Europe when it first came out, so, aside from a Music on Vinyl reissue in 2010, its presence on wax has been scarce to say the least. AIC’s catalog overall has been in much demand on vinyl, making this reissue of MTV Unplugged one of the more anticipated releases of the season. The whole Unplugged phenomenon in the ’90s was an unusual one, especially when bands used to playing overdriven electric instruments did straight transpositions of their material without putting much thought into rearranging them. More often than not, sloppy fingerwork would lead to buzzing notes on unforgiving acoustic guitars, not to mention some really horrid sounds coming out of those acoustic basses. Nevertheless, people seem to love ’em. To Alice in Chains’s credit, singer Layne Staley possessed a haunting howl that was more than well-suited to the stripped-down format, and without effects or double-tracking, he proves himself as one of the ’90s more distinctive and compelling vocalists. This 2-LP reissue comes in black and canary yellow variants.
The Bluegrass Album Band: The Bluegrass Album [Craft]
1981’s The Bluegrass Album assembled a bluegrass supergroup of J.D. Crowe (banjo/vocals), Tony Rice (guitar), Bobby Hicks (fiddle), Doyle Lawson (mandolin), and Todd Phillips (upright bass) to perform bluegrass classics by the likes of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. The collective became known as the Bluegrass Album Band and, with a few swap-outs of band members along the way, recorded a total of six albums together. This first album first—a reassertion of bluegrass tradition amid the trend of jazz-inflected “newgrass” playing—is getting an analog pressing from Craft Recordings, with a lacquer cut from tape by Kevin Gray and the pressing done at the sterling Fidelity Record Pressing.
A Perfect Circle: Thirteenth Step [Definitive Sound Series]
Interscope-Capitol’s Definitive Sound Series kicked off with a one-step pressing of A Perfect Circle’s debut album, Mer de Noms. Now they continue with the group’s second, 2003’s Thirteenth Step, which saw the team of Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel writing material that was purpose-built for the collaboration, which now also included drummer Josh Freese and bassist Jeordie White. The mastering pedigree is a little convoluted: The analog flat masters were transferred to 24/96 files (except for two tracks, which were sourced from 24/44.1 files) and then mastered by Levi Seitz at Black Belt Mastering, with pressing done on Neotech vinyl at RTI. The double LP set comes in a tip-on gatefold inside a slipcase—and, like the other Definitive Sound Series one-steps thus far, has a sound to be reckoned with.
Guerssen Records
The wonderful Spanish reissue house Guerssen has their monthly drop ready with four reissues of breathtakingly rare stuff on their assorted labels. First is an album by Massachusetts power trio Pugsley Munion, whose Just Like You was recorded at the new eight-track studio at Bell Sound in New York and released in 1970 on the J&S label without the band’s approval—they only had time to put down the initial backing tracks at Bell and were hoping to flesh out the recordings via overdubs and mixing before J&S jumped the gun. Guerssen’s Out-Sider sublabel first reissued it in 2013 and now it’s been re-pressed and made available again. At the other end of the country, Stone Garden operated out of Idaho, gaining a live reputation around the Pacific Northwest as a heavy psych force amid the countless garage-rock acts on the circuit. Their lone released single is augmented here by other tracks recorded between 1969 and 1971; again, this is a repress of Out-Sider’s 2013 release. French band Instant made dizzyingly exploratory symphonic prog in the vein of Magma and King Crimson; their 1978 album was pressed for release in 1981 but a turn of events led to it staying unreleased and almost all of the copies were destroyed after the band moved out of their shared space. It now gets its first official vinyl release via Guerssen’s Sommor label. Lastly, provocative Spanish cabaret/erotic artist Susana Estrada receives a repress of Espacial Discos’ 2017 compilation of her early ’80s disco tracks. It’s all happening over at Guerssen.
Jazz Alley
Blue Note’s got a new Tone Poet this week: Sonny Clark’s double LP The Art of the Trio is a compilation of his 1958 album Sonny Clark Trio, recorded with bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones, plus additional recordings the trio made in 1958 that were released in Japan as Blues in the Night and The Art of the Trio. They’re now all put together on a double LP cut from tape by Kevin Gray, with an essay by Syd Schwartz. Speaking of Blue Note, they haven’t gotten around to doing a good reissue of Marlena Shaw’s fabulous 1974 live album Live at Montreux (Blue Note offered a 2004 reissue that was pressed at the much-loathed Rainbo, but it has been otherwise untouched on vinyl since the ’70s). So Spanish label Elemental Music is stepping up to the plate, offering this dynamite set that has Shaw moving effortlessly between soul, blues, pop, and jazz in front of a receptive Swiss crowd.
The other jazz releases of note come from Verve’s Acoustic Sounds series, both coming from jazz-guitar giants of the 1960s. Grant Green’s His Majesty King Funk from 1965 was released when funk had a slightly different connotation than it did in the ’70s; this is a lounge-adjacent soul-jazz record with notes of R&B and hard bop, characterized by Green’s compelling playing and ample organ from Larry Young. And Wes Montgomery’s California Dreaming from 1967 finds the guitarist reworking pop hits with his smooth, octave-spanning guitar atop easy-does-it backing arrangements. Both were cut from tape by Matthew Lutthans and pressed at QRP. Lastly, Blue Note is releasing five cheapo titles in their new Blue Note Essentials line. Cut from digital and priced to combat gray-market European releases, this batch includes genuine Blue Note classics—Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else, Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue, Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch, Grant Green’s Idle Moments, and Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil—that are also currently available in superior analog pressings from Blue Note.
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)
Ak’chamel, the Giver of Illness: Collected Tape Worlds ’08–’17 [Akuphone]
*The Amazing Snakeheads: 2 Meter Sessions [Charly]
Brian Auger & The Trinity: Befour [Strut]
Andrea Bocelli: Romanza [Sugar/UMe]
Duncan Browne: Jigsaw [Lansdowne]
Brutal Truth: Kill Tren Suicide; Sounds of the Animal Kingdom [Relapse]
Bush: The Sea of Memories [Earmusic]
Daniel Caesar: Freudian; Case Study 01; Pilgrim’s Paradise [Secondtrack]
Cornell Campbell: Sweet Baby [Burning Sounds]
*Can: Live in Arles 1975 [Mute]
*The Catburgers: Galashiels [Slumberland]
Sheila Chandra: Echo [Real World]
Chocolate Milk: Action Speaks Louder Than Words [Music on Vinyl]
Chthonic: Battlefields of Asura [Svart]
*Willie Colón with Héctor Lavoe: Cosa Nuestra [Craft/Fania]
John Debney: Elf soundtrack (picture disc) [Varése Sarabande/Craft]
The Decemberists: Live Home Library Vol. 2: April 2017, Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY [Youth and Beauty Brigade]
Sasha and John Digweed: Northern Exposure Redux; North; Northern Exposure Redux: South [Night Time Stories]
Dropkick Murphys: The Meanest of Times; Going Out in Style; Signed and Sealed in Blood; 11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory [BMG]
Earthquake Studio: Dub Harder Than Steel [Real Rock]
Justin Furstendfeld: Songs from an Open Book [Up Down]
*High Rise: My Baby’s Gone [Athens of the North]
Iona: Iona; The Book of Kells; Beyond These Shores; Journey into the Morn; Open Sky [Open Sky]
Kansanturvamusiikkikomissio: 666; Seitsemäs pasuuna [Svart]
King Crimson: Islands: Elemental Mixes [Panegyric]
Kitty Craft: Mew 1996–2004 [Takotsubo]
*Kneecap: 3CAG [Heavenly]
Korn: III: Remember Who You Are; The Path of Totality [Rhino]
*The Lemonheads: Car Button Cloth [Fire]
*Lowest of the Low: Shakespeare My Butt [Sonic Envy]
Machine Head: Unto the Locust [Nuclear Blast]
Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers: Conscious Party [Capitol]
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology [Rhino]
Alison Moyet: Hometime; Voice; The Turn; The Minutes; Other [Cooking Vinyl]
Needtobreathe: The Outsiders [Omnivore]
*Nektar: A Tab in the Ocean (2025 mix) [Esoteric/Cherry Red]
No Fun at All: The Big Knockover [Music on Vinyl]
*Opera de Nuit: Opera de Nuit [Dark Entries]
Orbital: Glastonbury 1994 [London]
*Outkast: ATLiens [Sony]
Pierce the Veil: Misadventures (picture disc) [Fearless]
Randy: Randy the Band [Music on Vinyl]
Ratt: Dancing Undercover (zoetrope picture disc) [BMG]
Sanctuary: Into the Mirror Black [Music on Vinyl]
Sepultura: Roots [Atlantic]
Steve: Out of the Closet [Dark Entries]
The Story So Far: What You Don’t See; The Story So Far [Pure Noise]
*Suede: Coming Up [Demon]
T. Rex: 1974–1977 [Demon]
Tony! Toni! Toné!: The Hits of Tony! Toni! Toné! [UMe]
Ron Trent: Primitive Arts [Peacefrog]
Armin van Buuren: 76 [Music on Vinyl]
*The Veils: The Runaway Found; Nux Vomica; Sun Gangs [Rough Trade]
*Jane Weaver: Seven Day Smile [Fire]
Weezer: 1192 [Ernest Jenning] (wide release after RSD)
Westminster Choir: O Magnum Mysterium [Chesky]
Wipers: Land of the Lost [Music on Vinyl]
*Y la Bamba: Ojos del Sol [Tender Loving Empire]
*Warren Zevon: Life’ll Kill Ya [Friday]
Various Artists: Greasy Mike Goes South of the Border [Jazzman]
Various Artists: A Walk on the Wild Side: Classic Tracks from L.A.’s Legendary Central Ave. Scene (1944–1955) [Shanachie]
