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…include a new remastered version of the original album, a disc of rarities and a CD featuring a live show from that year.
One in the winter of 1983, Paul Westerberg – singer, guitarist and songwriting leader of Minneapolis trouble boys The Replacements – phoned manager Peter Jesperson with hot news: “I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written, and we need to record it right away.” Jesperson said there was no rush; the band’s second album, Hootenanny, had just gone to the pressing plant.
Jesperson soon heard why Westerberg was so excited. During a gig at a local club, the singer, drummer Chris Mars, lead guitarist Bob Stinson and Bob’s teenage brother, bassist Tommy Stinson, lit into “a bouncy tune I didn’t…

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…remastered edition with three previously unreleased tracks uncovered from the original recording sessions plus an additional bonus track.
It’s worth remembering that in the mid-late ’80s, Eric Clapton wasn’t firing on all cylinders. He had all but abandoned the powerful blues and blues-rocking that helped make him a superstar, instead focusing on slick, commercially viable pop that frustrated his core roots audience and left critics cold. The albums were adequate and professionally constructed, but far from inspired.
Then came 1988s Crossroads. That four-CD anthology tracked Slowhand’s extensive and influential resume starting with the Yardbirds, John Mayall and Cream, then continuing through his solo years. It was a hit; an early example…

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…feature 13 non-LP remixes and B-sides. Original mastering engineer Bernie Grundman has overseen the remastering along with engineer Chris James.
…An eternally hard-to-pin-down artist, Prince was already at work on the album when Purple Rain hit theaters and record store shelves, and the LP arrived less than a month after he’d finished touring that record. “I didn’t wait to see what would happen with Purple Rain,” he told Rolling Stone. “That’s why the albums sound so different.” (He’d call it “the smartest thing” he did in that same interview.) Influenced by the psychedelia of the West Coast-based Paisley Underground movement (but not, he was clear in one of his only period interviews, The Beatles), Around the World mixes Middle Eastern orchestration…

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…Anthology Collection include remastered editions of the original three collections of rarities and outtakes compiled by George Martin and released through 1995 and 1996, available across six CDs.
Martin’s son Giles, who remastered those albums, also curates a new collection, Anthology 4, across a further two CDs or three LPs. Anthology 4 is drawn mostly from archival sets released in the wake of the band’s 2009 remastering of the catalogue, with 13 unreleased tracks taken from eras that have not been covered by such releases. The album is rounded out by new mixes from producer Jeff Lynne of Anthology‘s then-new tracks “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” along with “Now and Then,” a song from the same sessions that was released in 2023.

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Keaton Henson is a master of dark introspection and unashamed vulnerability, a 21st century manifestation of what used to be called bed-sit blues. There isn’t a shred of extrovert joy in his latest album, where he explores, with forensic authenticity and a gift for poetic lyrics, a miasma of self-doubt, regret and resignation. “Don’t I just know how to fuck things up” he sings, almost mantra-like. It’s very British, this gentle and almost whimsical self-deprecation, but unless you’re seeking a homeopathic remedy – in which like cures like– for you own despair, this might be an album to avoid.
This isn’t to say that Henson’s vibe is toxic in any way, for there are several gems here, in a collection of songs which take a new turn…

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It is only fitting that blazing blues rock guitarist Jay Hooks was born and raised in “Rocket City,” Houston, TX. His return to recording after a twenty year hiatus, Tequila and Bullets, blasts off with an unrelenting, in-your-face roar.
Hooks is intentionally recapturing the powerhouse sound that led to a signing with Provogue Records in 1999 and his two albums – 2000’s eponymous release produced by the late Ben Elliott and 2002’s Red Line, produced by Hadden Sayers. He now enlists a third reputable producer in drummer Matthew R. Johnson, who is Mike Zito’s longtime drummer and leads his own group, Dry Johnson. If there were a sub-genre called ‘Outlaw Blues,’ Hooks would be its lead spokesman.
Hooks returned to the stage in 2018 after…

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Wet glass is a slippery substance, and so, too, is this second album from North Carolina’s verity den. This home-recorded follow-up to the 2024 debut sidles fluidly between dark, muscular shoegaze, pristine and delicate dream pop and fuzz-hazed space rock. A nod to Yo La Tengo’s slowest, most ambient soundscapes leads into Sonic Youth-style guitar ruckus; the haze of prime Loveless effects storms makes way for 1990s 4AD dream-state reveries.
It’s all denser, better thought-out and more impressive that that strong first album, pieced together as it was out of demos. This one brings touring drummer Reed Benjamin on as a full-time member, giving the songs an increased heft and power. It’s too soon to call Wet Glass…

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It has been announced that YMO 1979 Trans Atlantic Tour Live Anthology, the first live box set to compile audio and video recordings from the five concerts held in four cities during Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1979 world tour, will released on April 2025.
In 1978, Yellow Magic Orchestra made their debut on Alfa Records (as it was then known) with the album Yellow Magic Orchestra. The following August, they performed their first overseas concert at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, where the show was recorded live and filmed. Later that fall, they embarked on the Trans Atlantic Tour, becoming the first Japanese band to undertake such a world tour. Transporting more than 1.5 tons of equipment, they performed seven shows across three countries- the UK, France, and the East Coast of the United States-true to the tour’s name, “Trans Atlantic.” Live recordings were made at their performances at The Venue in London (two shows), Theatre Le Palace in Paris, and The Bottom Line in New York.

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With continual creativity and finesse Acoustic Hot Tuna sets out touring across the United States July, August and September. Masters in their field, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady’s joy in playing unfiltered riffs, swapping notes and smiles, has delighted them and thrilled their audiences for seven decades!
Hot Tuna has brought a wealth of emotions to their music through deep perceptions and tremendous talent. Members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy recipients, they are always injecting fresh energy into their sound with constant improvisation taking their musical horizons further. Every note is a unique expression of that very moment.
Jorma enthuses, “Focus on the things you love, listen with an open heart, and the music will…

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For name alone, Maygen & The Birdwatcher deserve plaudits for originality, but you don’t have to listen to their fusion of bluegrass and folk for long to appreciate that such creativity runs deep in the veins of this fine band from Minnesota, led by the songwriting duo Maygen Lacey and Noah Neumann. The Americana Dream is their second full-length album that quashes any doubts often attached to a sophomore release.
Their acclaimed 2021 debut Moonshine introduces this rootsy shot of americana, something they built on with an EP last year. With The Americana Dream, Maygen & The Birdwatcher fly to a higher level from which they contemplate just that, the American Dream. This looks a daunting task, but as their songs demonstrate, they express…

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Courtney Hartman’s previous album, 2021’s Glade, was very much a solitary affair – Hartman recorded the bulk of it alone as she lived in a barn on the property of her childhood Colorado home – but with her new album, the appropriately titled With You, she reached out to those around her and created an album written, funded and recorded with her friends, fans and collaborators. The album documents a huge shift in Hartman’s life, too: becoming a mother for the first time.
Her journey to motherhood and beyond looms large over the album, beginning at the opening track ‘Softening’. “All of the edges now are softening / See the light almost standing still / For you,” Hartman opens, her voice barely more than a whisper, backed by an ethereal…

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Michael McGovern returns with his second album, following on from Highfield Suite, a near-solo effort recorded in lockdown, Nebraska– style from his bedroom. Trailed as a folk album, however broad that church may be, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the breadth of sound on The Thin White Road. Featuring a full band, saxophones and choirs, it’s a sound which is often full on.
Press releases reference artists as diverse as Laura Marling, Leonard Cohen, Fleet Foxes and Crazy Horse. You could add to that the rush of the E Street Band at times when the full rainbow of musicians kicks on, particularly on the opening title track.
With a strong storytelling theme throughout, McGovern picks up the stories of wandering…

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…deluxe digital version of the album featuring three new tracks.
When New Zealand’s The Circling Sun released Spirits, their 2023 debut on Soundway, jazz fans weren’t prepared. A celebratory, spiritual intersection of Afro-Latin and spiritual jazz, 21st electronic grooves, atmospheres, a choir, and souled out charts, resonated across the South Pacific; the album was greeted with praise across the global jazz community.
Orbits, their followup, draws on the experience of touring over two years, expanding their confidence and creativity. Further, their primary influences here – Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra and Yusef Lateef – inspire the band to explore the subtleties in their own dynamic sound.

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With over a hundred album releases in her discography, featuring solo outings and big band bashes and everything in between, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii could be thought to have “done it all.” But there was a missing link. Strings. Though she had recorded in duet outings with violinists Mark Feldman and Carla Kihlstedt, she had never written for or worked with a string ensemble. Always (always, always always) up for a challenge, she convened a group she called GEN, Japanese for string.
The resulting album is titled Altitude 1100 Meters. The inspiration? The air at that 3600-foot location in the highlands of the Nagano prefecture where Fujii summered with her elderly parents to escape the oppressive heat of…

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The open-minded, in-demand bassist Thomas Morgan takes an unforeseen and ambitious path in his highly conceptual debut as a leader, Around You is a Forest. At once intimate and spellbinding, the album features one solo performance and eight duets with a distinguished lineup of guests. What makes this project so remarkable is Morgan’s invention of WOODS — a programmed virtual string instrument that fuses characteristics of West African lute-harps, Asian zithers, cimbalom, and marimba. He pioneers this technique with sophistication and restraint, providing exotic yet organic foundations that inspire his collaborators to become co-narrators in sound.
The title track opens the album with Morgan alone, offering a breathtaking bass meditation…

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Le Collectif Tango Negro Ensemble honors the legacy of Juan Carlos Cáceres (1936–2015) with a double album, Tribute to Juan Carlos Cáceres, that reinterprets his most iconic works alongside previously unreleased compositions. A pioneer of what he called “tango negro” (black tango), Cáceres traced the African roots of Río de la Plata music, fusing jazz, candombe, milonga, and murga into a singular Afro-Argentine aesthetic.
The ensemble features a wide network of international artists from tango, jazz, and world music spheres. Guests include Horacio Burgos, Sedef Arçetin, Daniel Melingo, Chino Laborde, Olivier Manoury, Minino Garay, Natalio Mangalavite, Flaco Biondini, Paolo Fresu, Peppe Servillo, Fausto Beccalossi, and Javier Girotto.

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Sometimes, when you mix several disparate flavors together, you get something that tastes like mud. Occasionally, though, you’ll stumble across something delightful that you never previously knew existed. Regarding music, it’s admittedly easier to lean toward the latter outcome. When you start mixing genres, it’s usually a safe bet that you’ll get something that’s at least listenable. When bands like Khruangbin started getting wider airplay, many labelled them “global party music” because they blended various sounds from different parts of the planet into a good time. This is also what German jazz act Muito Kaballa is doing on their fifth album, Tomorrow a Flower. It’s a sharply more pop-oriented affair than what they’ve previously done. However, by stepping in that…

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Nebulous, experimental psychedelia with an emphasis on being heavy as shit, the latest from Italian group Citrus Citrus isn’t afraid to spiral into the sonic cosmos or mine a good n’ doomgaze-y riff, and take its time while doing so (only a single track is less than three minutes long, and this is a whole album).
The rather borderless, almost style-agnostic feel of the music could be chalked up to the record having being written and recorded all in one go, while the band was holed up in a studio outside of the small commune of Montello (population: 2,668), taking the time out not only to draw inspiration from their surroundings but also to meticulously construct their jams, adding in elements of shoegaze, punk, garage, space rock, and…

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