…Under Wraps: The Unwrapped Edition explores both Tull’s Under Wraps (1984) and Anderson’s debut as a solo artist, Walk Into Light (1983), via the kind of comprehensive presentation that fans of the series have learned to expect.
The impetus for bringing the albums together is their shared sound. Both albums deviated from the folk-rooted “classic rock” sound of the ‘70s to embrace a then-contemporary style with drum machines, synthesizers, and electronics. At the time, even the band members were split on Under Wraps; bassist Dave Pegg once opined that the outtakes from Tull’s previous album – one which pointed towards Under Wraps with its integration of electronics but still featured more traditional instrumentation, too – might have made…
Category: *editions*
Frank Zappa’s archival label Vaulternative Records was launched in 2002 by the late artist’s family to present a variety of fascinating odds and ends from his voluminous archive. Now, after a near-decade-long hiatus, Vaulternative is returning from Zappa Records and UMe to continue preserving the experimental side of the Zappa oeuvre.
…Sixteen of the seventeen tracks on Zappa ’66: Vol. 1: Live at TTG Studios are previously unreleased in any format. The release documents the young musician at an October 1966 session at the Hollywood studio just months after the release of The Mothers of Invention’s debut album, Freak Out!, on Verve Records. The new release has been produced, restored, and assembled by “Vaultmeister” Joe Travers and mastered…
Founded in 1961 by George Kooymans and Rinus Gerritsen, Dutch rock band Golden Earring (or Golden Earrings, until 1969) started off as a beat band, experimented as a psychedelic quartet and finally became a heavy rock group. Their ninth album Moontan (1973) – including their classic track Radar Love – hit the international album charts and is the band’s most successful album in the United States, being the only Golden Earring album to be certified Gold by the RIAA.
Golden Earring is the sixth, self-titled album that is also known as ‘Wall Of Dolls’ because of the cover photo. The record, released in September 1970, marks the debut of drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk with Golden Earring and is the first in a series of progressively oriented…
…Restored and newly mixed by the band’s Archivist Andy Gamble from tapes found in Francis Rossi’s library. This 2CD edition features the full 18 track concert.
Recorded at the legendary Hammersmith Odeon on 27th June 1979 as part of the bands If You Can’t Stand the Heat Tour, this is regarded as one of the most sought-after live shows from the band and shows Status Quo at their loudest and proudest.
‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ barrels out with cheerful abandon, then ‘Down Down’ grinds forward on that unmistakable Quo chug. ‘Roll Over Lay Down’ stretches into a crowd-pleasing stomp, the band sounding thoroughly pleased with the volume of their own amplifiers.
Is Trixies for real? The titular ’60s London night club – filled with cutthroats, dancers, toffs, actors, musicians – is evidently a creation of Squeeze lyricist Chris Difford’s febrile imagination. But does, as the promo insists, this song cycle/musical really date from 1974, three years before Squeeze even had a record deal and Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were all but teenagers? The idea seems quite incredible, but yes, a little sleuthing reveals it to be true: there’s a fleeting reference to it in D&T’s 2004 book, Song By Song, and it’s mentioned again in Difford’s 2017 memoir, Some Fantastic Place. Trixies, shelved for the foreseeable after punk loomed onto the horizon, might otherwise have been their first album. And how different Squeeze history may have been if it was…
Originally released in 2011, Grace For Drowning is the second solo album from Steven Wilson. This Headphone Dust digital edition expands the original double-album experience with additional bonus tracks and demos, including the rare bonus material CD “The Map” originally included with the physical Grace for Drowning deluxe book edition.
“Grace for Drowning is more experimental and more eclectic. For me, the golden period for music was the late sixties and early seventies, when the album became the primary means of artistic expression, when musicians liberated themselves from the 3 minute pop song format, and started to draw on jazz and classical music especially, combining it with the spirit of psychedelia to create journeys in sound I guess you could call them.
Over the last 50 years Scotland has often been the centre of some of the most exciting things to happen to guitar music. Author Grant McPhee has put together this comprehensive 3 CD set which documents 1985 to 1999 when Scottish independent music was thriving. It’s released by the ever reliable Cherry Red and covers a range of scenes and styles. Following on from the beginning of the decade with the mighty Postcard Records label led the way with iconic Scottish guitar bands like Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera. The baton was passed on to many of the groups featured here.
Beginning with Jesus & Mary Chain’s, ‘You Trip Me Up’ we’re thrown right into 1985. Originally signed to Creation Records…
Few bands could turn sheer volume, chaos, and attitude into an art form quite like Motörhead, and The Löst Tapes, Vol. 8 (Live at Winter Gardens, Margate, 5th Nov 1984) is another explosive reminder of why the band remains untouchable in the live arena. Captured during the turbulent No Remorse era, this newly unearthed recording throws listeners straight into the sweat, distortion, and deafening force of Motörhead at one of their most transitional moments.
What makes this release especially fascinating is the lineup itself. The concert documents the short-lived but powerful 1984 formation featuring Lemmy Kilmister, Phil Campbell, Michael “Würzel” Burston and drummer Pete Gill during a period when the band was rebuilding after major internal changes.
Among his many achievements, Cooper’s 2011 release ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’ stands out as a gripping sequel to his iconic 1975 concept album ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’. Revisiting the twisted world of Steven, the album blends nostalgia with modern flair.
Originally intended as a sequel to ‘Along Came a Spider’, it features an all-star lineup including legendary songwriter Desmond Child and pop sensation Ke$ha, along with original Alice Cooper band members Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith to capture that authentic ’70s vibe.
Now, Welcome 2 My Nightmare is being reissued in a newly mastered 2CD digipak edition, as well as a special 3LP vinyl version that runs at 45rpm for superior sound quality.
TripleAkuma is the third in a series of essential live documents from Merzbow.
The stage and the studio are not the same place, and Merzbow has an acute understanding of this juxtaposition. Whilst the sheer density of the music might be maintained across both spheres, the live experience of Merzbow is truly something that exists as profoundly physical and moreover, overtly performative.
Merzbow’s live methodologies draw not just from a saturation of frequency at all levels, but a recognition of how frequency can be used to affect the body. Working at the extremes of both low and high sonic energies, he creates a situation within which the fullness of the body can be tested; the aural body, that of our ears…
Alive & Alright a double live album recorded in front of a small gathering of about 50 fans on February 4th, 2000, performing all of the Between The Bridges album plus one b-side,” also filmed for video in an attempt to find a workaround to the emerging problem of music videos costing more than the budget for entire albums, thinking Canada’s music video channel might possibly play various live recordings in lieu of music videos, which they did not.
When attempting to provide an overview of a big story – one that encompasses both the myriad achievements of its subjects over a span of several decades and the impacts of those achievements – you can take two routes. There’s the “just the facts” approach, where you list off…
When Jimmie Vaughan and Kim Wilson teamed up to form The Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974, they created a band that helped shape the soul of modern Texas blues. Vaughan’s history with that storied band has finally been chronicled in The Jimmie Vaughan Years: Complete Studio Recordings 1978-1989, a comprehensive four-CD box set available December 11th, 2025 via The Last Music Co.
The Jimmie Vaughan Years captures Grammy-winning Vaughan’s blues journey after he cut his teeth in Austin’s late-60s blues scene, including an early recording produced by legendary American songwriter Doc Pomus and Joel Dorn. The result is a stunning collection, not only of Vaughan’s music, but also The Fabulous Thunderbirds…
Let X=X triple-LP / double-CD set was recorded live during a 2023 tour by Anderson and the jazz band Sexmob-Steven Bernstein on brass, Kenny Wollesen on drums and percussion, Douglas Wieselman on winds and guitar, Briggan Krauss on saxophone and guitar, and Tony Scherr on bass. Its cover and interior packaging feature paintings by Anderson. The album features 23 songs, including many favorites from throughout Anderson’s career, performed in new arrangements-plus one by Lou Reed and Metallica, “Junior Dad.”
The New York Times said Anderson and Sexmob’s concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) “wasn’t a historical recreation of past recordings; Sexmob’s sound is a beefier one than on Anderson’s albums.
After the Numero Group released a comprehensive look at the American Analog Set’s 1990’s recordings on the New Drifters box set, it only makes sense that they would do the same for the combo’s 2000’s output. Destroy Destroy Destroy is another beautifully packaged retrospective that gathers up the three albums they released during the decade — 2001’s Know By Heart, 2003’s Promise of Love, and 2005’s Set Free — plus two discs of stray singles, EPs, compilation appearances, and rare tracks.
The set captures the evolution of the group from a more abstract musical group dedicated to repetition, space, and subtlety to one that utilized that same basic template while applying it to songs that were more narrative and concise.
Bruce Springsteen doesn’t need to risk alienating a small but vocal fraction of his fanbase by taking a stand against what he sees as a clear and present danger to the future of America, a land he clearly loves with every fiber of his being.
But he does it anyway because that’s just how much he cares about the things that truly matter. That’s an admirable trait that Springsteen has embodied for the longest time.
And if the way the crowd responded to his most impassioned speeches taking Donald Trump to task at what appeared to be a sold-out Mortgage Matchup Center on Thursday, April 16, when the Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour hit downtown Phoenix, are any indication?
…He hadn’t even played guitar before setting…
Brown Box includes all of the duo’s studio output released between 1990 and 2007, including Twin/Tone debut album God Ween Satan: The Oneness, a run of releases on Elektra spanning 1992’s Pure Guava to 2000’s White Pepper; the outtakes collection Shinola, Vol. 1; and the band’s most recent release, 2007’s La Cucaracha. (Chocolate and Cheese uses the same 2024 remaster from the box, but it has not been confirmed if the others have received similar treatment.) All the discs are packaged in CD-size wallets; there does not appear to be a booklet or additional notes in the packshot. The albums White Pepper and 2003’s dark Quebec, long out-of-print on vinyl, will also be made available on colored vinyl: a “green pepper” LP for the former…