VIA PRESS RELEASE | Yes’s fourth album, Fragile, first reached the American Top 10 in February 1972. Reaching platinum in the U.K. and double platinum in the U.S., the record launched the group to new heights with hits like “Roundabout” and its beloved B-side, “Long Distance Runaround.”

This summer, Rhino is releasing an extensive reissue of Fragile featuring a newly remastered version of the original album on both CD and vinyl, plus rare and unreleased recordings. A Blu-ray disc completes the collection with Steven Wilson’s new mixes, including the album in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 Mix DTS-HD MA. Fragile (Super Deluxe Edition) will be available on June 28, including four CDs, one LP, and a Blu-ray disc. Renowned audio engineer Bernie Grundman cut lacquers for the set’s LP. Pre-Order HERE. The music will also be available on digital and streaming platforms on the same day. Ahead of the album’s release, an alternate version of “Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)” is out digitally now.

Fragile marked keyboardist Rick Wakeman’s debut with Yes, which included Jon Anderson (lead vocals), Chris Squire (bass, vocals), Bill Bruford (drums), and Steve Howe (guitar). After he joined in the summer of 1971, the band recorded nine songs for the album, four group arrangements (“Roundabout”), and five individual compositions, including Anderson’s “We Have Heaven” and Howe’s instrumental “Mood For A Day.”

Fragile (Super Deluxe Edition) introduces a new remix of the album and instrumental mixes by Wilson. In addition, two discs of rarities provide a glimpse of the album’s creative journey, from early versions of “Roundabout” and “South Side Of The Sky” to unreleased live recordings from the Fragile Tour, including “Long Distance Runaround / The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus).”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Monsters of Folk—the acclaimed band comprised of Jim James (My Morning Jacket), M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes)—are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their self-titled, one-and-only album with an expanded new edition, arriving Friday, June 14 via ATO Records on clear vinyl and digital download. Pre-orders are available now. In addition, a number of multi-colored vinyl options will also be offered exclusively via Barnes & Noble, Vinyl Me Please, and Rough Trade.

First released in 2009, Monsters of Folk now sees the original 15-song album joined by five additional studio tracks from a previously unreleased 2012 session featuring “Fifth Monster” Will Johnson (Centro-matic), including the high-energy heartland rock anthem, “Disappeared,” premiering today alongside an official visualizer streaming now at YouTube.

“That session was very much kept in the moment,” says Will Johnson. “I remember looking over at Jim playing drums on ‘Disappeared,’ joyfully bashing away, and it harbored that same exuberance of starting your first band: that moment in the garage where things take flight, and the energy and happiness just lead you onward.”

Twenty years ago, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, M. Ward, and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis came together for a revue-style tour that found the four musicians quickly developing a rarefied camaraderie. Taking their moniker from a tongue-in-cheek nickname bestowed by the tour’s road crew, the so-called Monsters of Folk reconvened a half-decade later and set to work on a self-titled debut album that alchemized their distinct sensibilities into 15 idiosyncratic yet strangely timeless songs, redefining the context of the supergroup while fully devoting themselves to the singular magic of creating without constraint.

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The productivity of Motown Records endures as a highpoint in 20th Century music, an achievement that endures right up to the present. Long playing records are a superb point of entry into this bountiful garden of aural delights, and beginning this month Elemental Music kicks off the Motown Sound Collection, a thoughtfully assembled series that will reissue over two dozen Motown albums monthly throughout 2024 and into next year from a wide range of celebrated acts. The first two LPs, The Supremes’ We Remember Sam Cooke and The Temptations’ Wish It Would Rain and are available now.

There would seem to be little argument that Motown Records’ crucial format was the 45rpm single. For over two decades, Barry Gordy’s organization was an unstoppable hit machine (indeed, Hitsville, USA), and singles delivered a steady stream of material to the radio stations where the hitmaking process was extended, inspiring listeners young and old to bring those songs into their homes for repeat play.

If the hit single was Motown’s bread and butter, full length albums were a further validation of success. It’s to Gordy’s credit that he didn’t simply choose to dump hit singles and their flipsides onto LPs as an afterthought. Taking a considered and occasionally thematic approach to album assemblage secured Motown as a prestige enterprise in an era where youth music was still undervalued as largely disposable. The label’s LPs were regularly crossover hits themselves.

Recorded and released in 1965, We Remember Sam Cooke is the fifth album by The Supremes and the third in a trio of themed albums, following The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop, and A Bit of Liverpool. Those prior entries have their moments (and a reissue of the Brit Invasion set is on the horizon from Elemental), but the Cooke tribute connects as the most natural fit for the vocal group’s talents.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Artists include Blitzen Trapper, Low, Trampled By Turtles, Joe Pug, Amanda Shires, Quaker City Night Hawks, Jason Isbell, Nicole Atkins, and more.

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. Although it would become his biggest selling album with seven top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Luther Dickinson of North Mississippi Allstars says “any of those songs could be played with acoustic guitar alone and still be great.” Taking this idea as its premise, Dead Man’s Town: A Tribute to Born in the U.S.A. strips the album’s twelve indelible originals to the core, with contributions from Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires, Low, Nicole Atkins, Justin Townes Earle, Blitzen Trapper, Joe Pug, Trampled by Turtles, and more.

Rolling Stone described Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires’ Dave Cobb-produced cover of “Born In The U.S.A.” as “reimagining ‘Born in the U.S.A.’… with a reduced approach more influenced by that of the acoustic ‘Nebraska.’” Isbell says of his cover, “”Born In The U.S.A.” is one of my favorites because so many people have seemingly misunderstood the lyrical content and the song’s overall tone. When you listen to the demo, the dark, minor key arrangement makes it clear that this is not strictly a song of celebration. We wanted to stay true to that version.” Amanda Shires adds, “I love that the song paints a picture of struggle in the face of the American dream, and the irony in the chorus is delivered with such force that it nearly transcends irony altogether.”

If a time machine existed, there might be several periods and more importantly places cultural travelers would love to go back and visit. Going way back, a trip to Florence during the Renaissance would be heaven for art lovers. Also appealing would be Paris in the 1920s, an explosion of modern art and literature and an exploration of new modes of living.

More recently, there were many happening places to be during the 1960s, such as the Greenwich Village folk scene and San Francsico for the psychedelic experience, but few would rival England during the Swinging London scene. While this time only lasted a few years, primarily in the mid-’60s, that time-frame is somewhat elastic. Though new modes of living, art, fashion, photography, film, pirate radio, the shops, the clubs and other happenings exploded, perhaps the music of the era was its best feature and has had the most enduring legacy.

This new 3-CD, 63-track box set presents some of the grooviest sounds from that amorphous time, with tracks here from 1963 through 1968, but it also includes music that is part of other scenes, genres and sounds. The tracks here mostly reflect the period just before The Beatles made the A Hard Days’s Night movie and mostly before psychedelic music seemed to be at its peak.

There are many familiar names included here such as Kiki Dee, Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds, Dusty Springfield, The Troggs, The Kinks, Eric Burdon & the Animals, The Who, Tom Jones, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, The Spencer Davis Group, The Easybeats, Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames, Small Faces, Jack Bruce (including as a member of The Graham Bond Organization with Ginger Baker), The Moody Blues, and Petula Clark (with England Swings). The tracks from these artists are wonderful, some are even fairly well known and certainly Small Faces, The Kinks and The Who were also central to the mod scene.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Sony Music will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s history-making Born In The U.S.A. on 14th June with a special-edition release featuring new coloured vinyl and expanded packaging.

Available on translucent red vinyl, this anniversary edition of Born In The U.S.A. will feature a gatefold sleeve and exclusive booklet with archival material from the era, new liner notes penned by Erik Flannigan and a four-colour lithograph.

Released on 4th June 1984, Born In The U.S.A. had an unprecedented seven Top Ten singles, sold over 20 million copies to date and captured the pop culture zeitgeist with once-in-a-generation impact. Springsteen and The E Street Band’s accompanying Born In The U.S.A. tour included 156 sold-out performances across the globe, while tracks like “Dancing In The Dark,” “No Surrender,” and “Glory Days” remain staples of their live show to this day.

Forty years after the Born In The U.S.A. tour kicked off in the summer of 1984, Springsteen and The E Street Band started the European leg of their 2024 run last weekend in Cardiff, garnering five star reviews in The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Sun and Mail on Sunday. The tour follows a triumphant run across the continent last year, which sold 1.6 million tickets and was praised as among the best of the band’s career.

The 40th anniversary release for Born In The U.S.A. follows Sony Music’s career-spanning Best Of Bruce Springsteen collection, which is now available as an 18-track set across 2 LPs or 1 CD and digitally as an expanded 31- song package.

Since debuting on his own in the late ’90s, singer-songwriter Tim Easton has released a slew of records and played countless shows all over the globe. Currently in the midst of an extensive tour, his latest album Find Your Way is out May 17 on LP, CD, and digital through Black Mesa Records. It’s a robust set of blues-tinged, country-infused folky Americana that finds Easton in strong voice across ten solid songs.

Prior to releasing his first solo album Special 20 in 1998 (reissued in 2023 by Black Mesa on LP and CD), Tim Easton was part of the Haynes Boys, a Columbus, OH-based Americana outfit that released a pair of 45s and a CDEP spanning back to 1993 plus one self-titled full-length in ’96 (reissued on LP by Re-Vinyl Records in 2015). Haynes was also in Kosher Spears, and fronting the Freelan Barons, he recorded Beat the Band in 2011.

In tandem with Evan Phillips (of The Whipsaws) and Leeroy Stagger (of an extensive solo discography), Easton is also part of the contemporary folk aggregation Easton Stagger Phillips, the trio having cut two albums, One for the Ditch in 2008 and Resolution Road in 2013, both for Blue Rose Records (the Rebeltone label handled the vinyl for Resolution Road).

But now a dozen albums deep, Easton is best known as a solo artist. His latest, produced by Stagger and recorded in Victoria, British Columbia with an all-Canadian backing band that includes Geoff Hicks, Jeremy Holmes, Jeanne Tolmie, Ryland Moranz, and Tyler Lieb, opens with the title track’s strummed acoustic, double bass and snare foundation, soaring pedal steel, a hint of Dylan in Easton’s vocal, and brief injections of fiddle.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Erasure (Andy Bell and Vince Clarke) will release the 2CD Deluxe Hardback Book edition of 1997’s classic Cowboy album on Mute / BMG on 31 May 2024.

Cowboy—their eighth studio album, originally released in March 1997—saw the duo return to the UK Albums Top 10 and lead single, “In My Arms” (described by The Guardian as “pop at its purest”) is available here also in a rare acoustic version, giving the synth-pop ballad a more intimate feel. The “downright anthemic” (Billboard) “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” soon followed, and the 2CD collection includes a new remix by Belgium synth pop maestros, Telex. Third single “Rain” is given the remix treatment for this release by Blancmange, who celebrate their 45th 2024, and outsider pop trio Stealing Sheep.

Produced by Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Liars, Yann Tiersen), and Neil McLellan (The Prodigy), the album was recorded in studios in sunny Spain and in London, and released in North America on Madonna’s Maverick label. This new edition of Erasure is packed with a booklet that features sleeve notes by Electronic Sound’s Mat Smith and exclusive photographs by Peter Ashworth, and includes three previously unreleased remixes, along with B-Sides, demos, classic remixes, an extended version of their cover of Blondie’s “Rapture,” and rarities.

This is the latest release in a series of 2CD Deluxe Hardback Editions. Erasure’s eighteenth studio album, The Neon, was released in 2020, going straight into the UK Official Albums Chart at #4—their highest chart position since I Say I Say I Say.

On May 17, the Craft Recordings Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series continues with an 180 gram pressing of For Real! by pianist-composer-bandleader-survivor Hampton Hawes. A superb mix of original material and standards, the LP’s six songs undeniably extend from bebop and yet are wholly in tune with their year of origin 1958, as an unperturbed West Coast ambience deepens the vibes. Cut from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman and released in a tip-on sleeve, the set has never looked or sounded better.

Saxophonists are notorious thunder stealers, so it’s unsurprising that most of the records Hampton Hawes cut as a leader are trio sessions. His first three, all released by Contemporary in 1955–‘56, are trios with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Chuck Thompson. These are The Hampton Hawes Trio, This Is Hampton Hawes, and Everybody Likes Hampton Hawes.

But the man did branch out a bit, following up the above albums with three more for Contemporary from a quartet that featured Mitchell, drummer Buzz Freeman and guitarist Jim Hall, all titled All Night Session!. The contents of those LPs, essentially studio jam sessions, were recorded in 1956 but not released until ’58 as three separate volumes that shared the same photograph of a suave and smiling Hawes.

Adding Hall broadened the sound with little risk of the pianist being overshadowed. Another quartet record, Four!, was recorded and released in 1958, this one replacing Hall with guitarist Barney Kessel and Freeman with drummer Shelly Manne. If lacking the loose spontaneity of the recordings with Hall, Four! benefits from a killer band as Hawes was entering his prime.

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