VIA PRESS RELEASE | Warner Music, Sony Music outside of Europe, today announced the upcoming release of Pink Floyd’s Animals 2018 Remix – Dolby Atmos on Blu-ray and compatible digital platforms. This version will be available on May 17, 2024 and it is the first time the album will be available in Dolby Atmos.

Animals is the tenth studio album by Pink Floyd, originally released in January 1977. It was recorded at the band’s Britannia Row Studios in London throughout 1976 and early 1977, and was produced by the band themselves. The successful album peaked at number 2 in the UK and number 3 in the US and was recorded by band members David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright. The Animals 2018 Remix – Dolby Atmos, by James Guthrie, will be released on Blu-ray, which includes High Resolution Stereo and 5.1 Mixes alongside the 1977 Original Stereo Mix, and digitally. The Dolby Atmos mix goes beyond ordinary listening by immersing the listener in the music, revealing details with unparalleled clarity and depth. Listeners will feel like they are inside the song as music moves around and above them.

The album artwork has been reimagined especially for this release and presented in a digipak with a 16-page booklet, a sticker and a postcard. The front cover image still includes the iconic pig floating between two chimneys of the Battersea Power Station, conceived by Roger Waters. However, for this new release, the artwork has been re-created for the modern era by Storm Thorgerson’s Hipgnosis partner Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and Peter Curzon from StormStudios, and shows the historic building as it looks now, complete with light projections, variations of which feature in the accompanying booklet.

The projections and graphics were mapped and designed by Peter Curzon for the launch of the 2018 Remix and the photography is by Rupert Truman and Benny Trickett with Aubrey Powell. The 2022 projections were executed by Pixel Arts and coordinated by Larmac Live.

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It’s always a pleasure to speak with musicians who seem to appreciate and absorb music on another level. Folks like this often see music in a way that regular music consumers might take for granted. After all, there is a real power in music, a force and strength that can alter our emotions in any which direction. Sometimes we forget this, and we just let the sounds that we’re listening to wash over us without thinking of the other dimensions that we might be missing.

The last time I spoke with someone who had a great deal of intensity over this subject was Carlos Santana. On this episode, I speak with a close friend and collaborator of his—a multi-instrumentalist who is a particularly amazing drummer and a multi-Grammy-winning producer whose No. 1 chart successes include Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin and many others. We’re talking about Narada Michael Walden.

Walden has a new album available, it’s called Euphoria and on it you’ll hear his usual compositional and production craftsmanship, but you’ll also get the opportunity to scroll through the contacts on his phone, because many of his musical pals make an appearance: Stevie Wonder, Sting, and—of course—Carlos Santana. Euphoria finds the ever positive Narada Michael Walden creating music to move your body, but that also aims to ignite your spirit.

So, stop taking your music for granted. Especially that pop stuff you love to listen to with the windows down and your hair blowing in the breeze. There’s a reason that you feel that freedom in your soul while you’re driving to your grueling 9-5; it’s because the music that elevates you was crafted by folks who really care about how those tunes are to exist within the dimension you inhabit. You can thank guys like Michael Narada Walden for fusing his musical chops with his spiritual enlightenment to create a mini-vacation for you to take anytime you choose.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

Mission of Burma were one of the best (and most abrasive) bands to emerge from post-punk Boston, and it’s a crying shame that their career was cut obscenely short in 1983 as a result of vocalist/ guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus. They left behind a 1981 EP and a 1982 full-length, and that would be all we’d have to remember their original incarnation by (they reunited in 2002) had they not, commencing in February 1982, done some moonlighting as the backing band for local berserker and future pioneer of the New Weird America movement Dredd Foole (aka Dan Ireton) under the name Dredd Foole & The Din.

If Mission of Burma tended towards chaos, they went right over the top as The Din. Lucky for us, especially given their singular lack of ambition—they never toured, and if you never lived near Boston you never heard ‘em—they left behind a number of recordings that constitute some of the most chaotic music of the era. And Dredd Foole & The Din’s output didn’t end when the Mission of Burma packed it in. No, Dredd Foole simply kept on going with the newly formed Volcano Suns, whose members included Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott, serving as the new Din.

My favorite of the Mission of Burma Din compilations is 2022’s Songs in Heat. The A side includes all of the songs they recorded at Radiobeat Studio on February 2, 1982, while the B side is made up of selected songs from a live show the band played at the Channel in South Boston on August 9, 1982. It’s a testament to the band’s commitment to the great unhinged that the studio recordings sound almost as Stooges-level feral as the live tracks. Foole and Mission of Burma obviously had their role models, including the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and Pere Ubu, and they pay tribute to all three on the comp’s live tracks. They also, surprisingly enough, toss in a cover of the Animals’ 1967 classic “When I Was Young.”

Dredd Foole is not a polished vocalist. He’s a wild man with a hair up his ass and no particular interest in singing in tune. He sounds like a lot of people—my brother, who turned me on to them, gave me a laundry list that included “Nick Cave, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the guy from the Cramps, Joy Division, maybe the Psychedelic Furs guy, and a few other people I can’t recall.” That sounds about right.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Queen Rock Montreal captures the world’s most iconic rock band at the very peak of their live powers. Recorded in 1981 and recently released as a record-breaking digitally restored IMAX concert film, this landmark moment in the band’s history is now being released as both double Blu-Ray and double 4K Ultra High Definition packages, plus double CD and triple vinyl packages. Both come May 10th the band has announced.

Queen Rock Montreal presents Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon at their most exciting and exhilarating. As Brian May puts it, this is Queen “live and dangerous.” Queen were on all-conquering form when they returned to Montreal, Canada for the fourth time in November 1981 to play two huge concerts at the 18,000-seat Forum.

This pair of Montreal concerts marked an historic moment for Queen. After their massive success in the 1970s, the band entered the ’80s bigger than ever, with the hugely successful The Game album producing their two biggest ever US singles in “Another One Bites The Dust” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (both Billboard No.1’s), followed by the UK No.1 single “Under Pressure.”

Queen’s return to Montreal came after almost two years of touring, including their very first tours of South and Central America, which saw the band playing two nights at Sao Paulo’s Morumbi Stadium to more than 150,000 devoted fans. As a result, when the band arrived in Canada in November 1981 they were in electrifying form.

“Montreal is one of our favourite cities, it’s a great audience there, very full of energy,” says Brian May. “We’d played this particular venue, The Forum, several times before, and it was always full of really enthusiastic people giving us a lot of energy back.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Latino celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Joe Cuba Sextet’s classic Tico Records debut, Vagabundeando! (Hangin’ Out!), with the album’s first vinyl reissue in nearly 50 years.

Freshly remastered from all-analog sources, the 1964 LP is pressed on 180-gram vinyl and housed in a tip-on jacket, replicating the album’s original designs. Vagabundeando! features an all-star line-up of talent, including legendary Puerto Rican vocalists Cheo Feliciano and Jimmy Sabater, plus such fan favorites as “El Ratón,” “Nina Nina,” “I Need You,” and “Oye Bien.” Set for release on May 10 and available for pre-order now, Vagabundeando! will also make its debut in 192/24 hi-res digital audio. In addition, a Lemon Yellow color vinyl exclusive with an exciting bundle option that includes a commemorative Tico Records T-shirt is available for pre-order at Fania.com.

Celebrated conguero, bandleader, and “Father of Latin Boogaloo,” Joe Cuba (1931—2009) was a foundational figure in New York’s Latin soul scene. A native of Harlem, the Puerto Rican artist (born Gilberto Miguel Calderón) learned to play the congas as a teenager while recovering from a broken leg. Before long, the young percussionist was booking gigs across the city and, in 1954, founded The Joe Cuba Sextet.

Playing alongside such stars as Tito Puente, Machito, and Tito Rodríguez, Cuba and his bandmates quickly gained a following with their swaggering showmanship and stood out from their peers with their unique instrumentation choices—including adding a vibraphonist and doing away with horns (which was unheard of at the time).

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Remembering Shirley Scott, born on this day in 1934. —Ed.

Credited to tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis with organist Shirley Scott, Craft Recordings’ 4LP/4CD/digital set Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen: The Legendary Prestige Cookbook Albums offers 23 tracks cut during three 1958 sessions recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and first released as three separate Cookbook volumes and the Smokin’ LP between ’58–’64. The 180 gram vinyl is limited to 5,000 copies with the records housed in individual jackets replicating those original sleeves. The CD edition has three bonus tracks from the same sessions. The music is early soul jazz personified.

A curious jazz newbie might be wondering if this set is an overabundance of goodness. To which I will retort that Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen offers thorough documentation of a sharp as brass tacks quintet from inside a concise timeframe; the first session occurred on June 20, the second on September 12, and the third on December 5 of 1958, with Davis and Scott joined by Jerome Richardson on flute, tenor, and baritone sax, George Duvivier on bass, and Arthur Edgehill on drums.

For this reissue, Davis and Scott are given equal credit, and deservedly so, but on initial release it was the saxophonist who received top billing, which is also understandable, as Scott was relatively new on the scene while Davis had been a member of Count Basie’s orchestra twice, along with cutting a string of records as leader or co-leader, as was the case with The Battle of Birdland with fellow tenor Sonny Stitt, issued in 1955 by the Roost label.

But in fact, Scott was indeed given a “Featuring” credit on two prior albums with Davis’s trio (with Duvivier and Edgehill), one released by Roost and the other by Roulette, both in ’58. What this imparts is how the addition of Richardson deepened a core that was already rock solid through experience. This is vitally important, as the group knocked out 26 tracks in three days spaced out over half a year.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Animal Collective will celebrate the 15-year anniversary of their seminal album Merriweather Post Pavilion with a deluxe vinyl repress due out June 28 on Domino.

The album will be pressed to color vinyl for the first time, available as a 2xLP in Translucent Green and Bluish, and comes in a reflective foil mirrorboard gatefold jacket. A Domino Mart exclusive variant will include a 10-inch of their iconic single “My Girls” with a B-side featuring a live recording of the unreleased track “From A Beach (BBC Session)” from a 2007 BBC Radio 1 session. Merriweather Post Pavilion was universally acclaimed upon its release in 2009 and was named the #1 best album of the year by Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, and KEXP.

“Every once in a while, musicians sweep away the existing musical landscape to create something new,” stated NPR at the time. “Animal Collective is such a group, and its new Merriweather Post Pavilion is such an album.” It has since been recognized as one of the most influential records of the 2000s. “When it comes to 2000s indie, Merriweather stands as the era’s alpha and omega,” Pitchfork has written, “a diamond-cut reflection of the era’s eccentricities, seemingly impossible to replicate in form or format.”

The 15-year anniversary deluxe editions of Merriweather Post Pavilion are available for pre-order NOW.

Meiko Kaji is justly celebrated by fans of international genre cinema as the star of the 1973 film Lady Snowblood and its sequel from the next year. Alongside a sizeable filmography, she recorded an extensive body of work as a singer that amassed a dedicated following. The Wewantsounds label has been catering to her fanbase with high-quality reissues, and they’ve just released her 1972 debut Gincho Wataridori in an attractive gatefold sleeve deluxe edition with an insert and an OBI strip. It’s a musically swank affair, sturdy as pop but with cinematic sweep. Aficionados of global sounds, step right up.

Due to its outsized impact on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill double banger, Lady Snowblood is Meiko Kaji’s most well-known film with the international audience, but she was busy before and after, and reliably in the role of a single-minded vengeance seeker; if Meiko Kaji starred in a film, it was a cinch that bloody mayhem would be part of the scheme.

Debuting in a supporting role in Retaliation (1968) billed as Masako Ota (her birth name), many standalone films and series followed. Regarding the latter, there was the Stray Cat/Alley Cat Rock series (five films, 1970–71), the Sasori series aka Female Prisoner Scorpion series (four films, 1972–73) and the two Gincho or Wandering Ginza Butterfly films (1972), the first of them giving Kaji’s debut LP its name.

Although the title song and “Ginchou Buruusu” from the film Gincho Wataridori are included on this album, it is not a soundtrack. The record also includes “Koini Inochio” and “Jingi Komoriuta” from Blind Woman’s Curse (1970), the final entry in the Rising Dragon series, and notably, the film where Masako Ota became Meiko Kaji.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In celebration of the SXSW world premiere of entertainment company Mass Appeal and streaming giant Hulu’s newest documentary Freaknik: The Wildest Story Never Told, they’ve joined the SXSW lineup to bring the essence of ATL’s most infamous event to Austin for one night only!

Today, March 13, at Stubb’s BBQ the all Atlanta showcase will feature a screening of the highly anticipated documentary and guest performances from beloved Atliens who helped develop the sound and style of Hip Hop’s Southern Capital. Co-hosted by legendary Hip Hop architects Jermaine Dupri and Luke “Uncle Luke” Campbell, the showcase will include sets from iconic rapper Big Boi, Flo Milli, Ying Yang Twins, 21 Lil Harold, DJ Drama, KP The Great, DJ Jelly, and a special guest.

The announcement comes days after Hulu dropped the trailer and artwork for the much-talked-about documentary. Freaknik: The Wildest Story Never Told is a celebratory exploration of the iconic Atlanta street party that started as a Black College cookout but grew to draw thousands annually throughout the ’80s and ’90s, defining Atlanta as a cultural hotbed.

Freaknik soon became known for its lurid tales of highway hookups and legendary late-night parties that ultimately led to the festival’s downfall. At its height, Freaknik was a traffic-stopping, city-shuttering juggernaut that has since become a cult classic. Though it ceased over two decades ago, the infamous legacy still resonates through nostalgia and a new generation’s longing for a carefree platform that celebrates and promotes black excellence, joy, and fortitude.

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Celebrating Adam Clayton on his 64th birthday. —Ed.

For the longest time I had no use for U2—they were too sanctimonious and self-righteous was my opinion, and Bono stuck me as a frustrated Sunday school teacher. But as the years passed they loosened up, Bono became less of a tight-ass, and I discovered I enjoyed some of their songs, a lot. But there were plenty of haters to take my place, and they emerged from the dank caves we music critics inhabit to litter guano all over the band’s 1988 studio/live LP Rattle and Hum, the soundtrack of a rockumentary released the same year.

To cite just two of the album’s critics, The Village Voice’s Tom Carson called Rattle and Hum an “awful record” by “almost any rock-and-roll fan’s standard.” He went on to add that the LP’s sound wasn’t “attributable to pretensions so much as to monumental know-nothingism.” Meanwhile, David Browne of the New York Daily News said Rattle and Hum “just prattles and numbs.” The phrases “sincere egomania” and “the worst album by a major band in years” were also bandied about.

Rattle and Hum’s chief problem is it’s a dog’s breakfast, and lacks even the cheap glue to keep a model airplane in one piece. But I simply can’t bring myself to hate it—it includes some of my favorite U2 songs. Unfortunately they all happen to be the LP’s studio cuts, rather than the ones recorded during U2’s The Joshua Tree tour of the US.

To begin with the absolute low points, the only thing to be said for the forty-three second snippet of Jimi Hendrix’s “The Star Spangled Banner” is U2 had the common decency not to play the whole thing. As for the thirty-eight second snippet from “Freedom for My People” by Harlem street duo Sterling Magee and Adam Gussow, I guess you had to be there. And the live version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” is ham-fisted, and haven’t we heard the song seven million times too often already?

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The great Julian “Cannonball” Adderley rose to prominence in the hard-bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.

After a successful stint with Miles Davis’s sextet—including being featured on the seminal Davis records Milestones and Kind of Blue—Adderley formed his own quintet with brother Nat on trumpet and cornet, and soon became the driving force behind the soul-jazz movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s. No one would have guessed that the 46-year-old DownBeat Jazz Hall of Famer was in the last few months of his life when he stepped on stage at Montreal’s In Concert Club on May 3, 1975.

And nothing about the performance suggests that the sax legend was anything but at the top of his game. The lineup for the quintet here is Cannonball Adderley (alto and soprano sax); Nat Adderley (trumpet); Michael Wolff (piano); Roy McCurdy (drums, percussion); and Walter Booker (bass). Out of print since its original 1977 release on Dobre Records, this title now makes its official CD debut alongside a 180-gram vinyl repressing and download.

The packages will feature liner notes by music historian Cary Ginell who wrote the book Walk Tall: The Music and Life of Cannonball Adderley. The notes include interviews with quintet members Michael Wolff and Roy McCurdy. Pre-order on Bandcamp.