VIA PRESS RELEASE | The key to the success of Christopher Guest’s satirical comedies is that, not so deep down, he harbors real affection and deep understanding for the targets of his lampooning.

So, while A Mighty Wind lay the hopelessly square excesses and petty jealousies of the early ‘60s folk movement bare for all to see, it also captured the naïve, yes, but charming idealism of the time…and wound up presenting performances that do such a good job of imitating the original recordings that inspired them that sometimes you had to squint pretty hard to see the wink and the nod behind the songs.

And the resulting soundtrack album, which, of course, featured Guest’s amazing troupe of character actors (who doubled as songwriters here), including Folksmen Michael McKean and Harry Shearer (playing acoustic versions of the instruments they played in Spinal Tap), Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as the Ian & Sylvia-esque Mitch & Mickey, and Jane Lynch and Parker Posey as part of the New Christy Minstrels parody The New Main Street Singers, stands as a pretty fair folk-pop record in its own right.

A Mighty Wind—The Album also includes a couple of tracks not in the film, including The Folksmen’s hilarious rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” (you haven’t lived till you hear the line “you make a grown man come” sung in three-part folk harmony). First- ever LP reissue, pressed in forest green vinyl!

The German duo of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto, who record under the handle hackedepicciotto, are poised to release Keepsakes on July 28, available on vinyl, CD, and digital. It’s their fifth studio full-length overall and second for Mute Records, a good label fit for the married couple’s music as they brandish a combination of experimentation, song structure, and dark cinematic ambiance tinged with Industrial motifs and elements of drone. The sound is textured but packs a wallop.

The halves of hackedepicciotto were long busy prior to their union. Alexander Hacke was a founding member of German Industrial titans Einstürzende Neubauten, while Danielle de Picciotto moved to Berlin in 1987 to sing in Space Cowboys, The Ocean Club, Die Haut, and alongside Hacke, in the reunited Crime & the City Solution.

Those who know Einstürzende Neubauten only by reputation or through their heaviest recordings might expect the wallop mentioned above to be shaped by clanging, grinding, pummeling severity, but no; those cited Industrial motifs relate more to the period when the genre’s brutalizers (and associated fucked-up musical entities) were travelling down more song-oriented and soundtrack-like pathways.

Keepsakes’ opening track “Troubadour” emerges quietly, with the sound of tides as chimes and a strummed autoharp (or dulcimer) follow. As de Picciotto begins singing, the song takes on the aura of a surreal lullaby or an eerie carnival tune. It’s not abrasive or brutal but certainly is intense, a quality shared with the next track “Aichach,” which begins much more heavily, specifically via potent bass thud that hangs around as the track evolves into something of a symphonic dancefloor shaker.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Steve Miller is honoring the 50th anniversary of his chart-topping, Platinum eighth studio album, The Joker, with a new box set chronicling the artistic journey that led to its creation. J50: The Evolution of The Joker showcases Miller’s process as he expands and reimagines his craft, ultimately finding a strikingly original new sound that brought him to a wider audience than ever before and set the stage for even greater successes to come.

Curated by Miller himself, J50 dives deep into the creative process of writing and assembling The Joker and amplifies its enduring magic by chronologically placing the original album tracks alongside 27 previously unreleased recordings from Miller’s personal archive—including songwriting tapes made by Miller on his TEAC 4-track in hotel rooms on the road and at live performances, plus studio outtakes and rehearsals—as well as six audio commentary tracks from Miller and exclusive liner notes from both Miller and legendary journalist Anthony DeCurtis. J50: The Evolution of The Joker arrives via Universal on 2xCD, 3xLP + 7”, as well as digital download and all DSPs and streaming services on Friday, September 15. The vinyl version includes a reproduction of a vintage The Joker iron-on and a limited-edition lithograph.

J50: The Evolution of The Joker is highlighted by “The Joker Suite,” an extended piece showcasing the musical path to the album’s 5x RIAA Platinum-certified (5 million sales in the US alone), worldwide #1 hit title track, “The Joker,” with the previously unreleased “Lidi” and “Travelin’,” available today at all DSPs and streaming services.

The Joker was originally released worldwide in October 1973 and quickly became a hit in the United States crossing over from FM underground radio to the AM pop radio of the day. Shortly thereafter, the song went to number 1, first in the States and the rest of the world followed. This mainstream breakthrough success was certainly fueled by dramatic shifts in both the lineup and Miller’s own approach to songcraft. J50: The Evolution of The Joker brings together the original album alongside unreleased recordings, thereby illustrating Miller’s creative process.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In celebration of the 50th anniversary, Jesse Colin Young has announced a fully remastered release of one of his most iconic albums, Song for Juli, due out on September 15.

Originally released on September 4, 1973, the all-new version will be available on all streaming platforms as well as extremely limited-edition vinyl. Fans can pre-order the album beginning now, and the first remastered single “Morning Sun” is also released.

“In the waning days of the Youngbloods, I built my first house on the last ridge before the beach at Drakes Bay, 30 miles north of San Francisco. My dreams of a ‘Green Hill Mt. Home’ were coming true, and the next part of the dream was the building of a studio just down the hill from the house,” recalled Jesse Colin Young.

“By the time I got the studio outfitted with the right gear, I was starting a new band with a new sound, in a new studio right there on the ridgetop. What a wonderful adventure Song for Juli was for all of us.”

Young’s new band drew from all their influences: folk, rock, jazz, samba, country, cajun, and of course the blues resulting in one of the seminal Americana albums of the early 1970’s. “The Ridgetop house is gone due to a forest fire in the ’90s, but the music and the little studio where it was born both live on. Happy 50th to all of you that were part of this grand adventure,” said Young.

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This 1989 release marked the one and only reunion of the entire original Poco—Jim Messina, Richie Furay, Randy Meisner, Rusty Young and George Grantham. That lineup launched in 1969. The band grew out of the end of the Buffalo Springfield, with Messina and Furay forming the group. Messina would leave shortly to form Loggins and Messina, and Meisner would depart soon also to form the Eagles, only to be replaced by Timothy B. Schmit, who himself would eventually depart Poco for the Eagles, again replacing Meisner. Furay, Young, Grantham, and eventually Paul Cotton would carry on the Poco name for many years until only Young and Cotton were left.

This album was very much instigated by Richard Marx, riding high on the pop charts at the time, and he produced, co-wrote, and arranged the vocals on “Nothin’ to Hide.” The group’s impeccable harmonies remained and although it wasn’t the strongest batch of songs, for the most part, thankfully the producer eschewed some of the ’80s synthetic musical cliches of the era. The album doesn’t so much reflect the group’s seminal ’70s meld of country and rock as it offers a modern pop approach to the Poco sound.

Furay kicks it off with “When It All Began,” a song that provides a loving and affectionate short biography of the group’s heyday. Young provides some of the other better moments with a pop sound he had cultivated in the band that neither took away from the group’s signature sound or pandered to the pop trend of the moment. Messina’s contributions are surprisingly limited, although his “Follow Your Dreams” is one of the best tracks on the album. Meisner’s contributions are a little heavy-handed, and his vocals lack the smooth, high-pitched perfection of his best work with the Eagles.

A host of musicians helped flesh out the music, including Bill Payne, Leland Sklar, Jedd Porcaro and others. The group toured behind the album, opening for Richard Marx. Overall, it’s a good listen and at more than 30 years old, it sounds pretty fresh. The packaging replicates the original gatefold jacket. The sound quality is a perfect duplication of the original album.

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Londoners The Clientele has been at it for a long while now, 32 years, in fact, with a lengthy hiatus consuming most of the last decade. On July 28, they release their ninth full-length album, a double set that finds vocalist-guitarist Alasdair MacLean, bassist James Hornsey, and drummer Mark Keen expanding on their signature ethereal indie pop. It’s ambition that pays off in a big way, as I Am Not There Anymore is stylistically and instrumentally broad, yet focused and unstrained. Distinct from anything they’ve released before, it still connects like an album by The Clientele.

Since announcing their presence in 1998 with Suburban Light (they’d been at it since 1991, with recordings from this formative period documented on the 2005 compilation It’s Art, Dad), The Clientele hasn’t exactly pulled a Ramones move and kept to the same rigid template, but they have honed an approach that’s pretty easily recognizable.

Branching out can be invigorating for artist and listener alike, but it can also prove disastrous (as in, “hope you enjoy our new direction.”). I Am Not There Anymore features electronic beats, tapes, bouzouki, celesta, and Mellotron, so the potential for calamity was extant. But hey, the use of Mellotron makes total sense, as a baroque sensibility fits and isn’t foreign to The Clientele’s general thrust.

However, there’s a full-on string section plus trumpet heard on I Am Not There Anymore, playing string and horn arrangements from MacLean and Keen, save for one track, “Through the Roses,” which was arranged by Hornsey and Alicia Macanás. The latter also co-wrote and sings on “Fables of the Silverlink,” the eight-minute opening track that combines heavy catgut action with those electronic rhythms before settling into that familiar Clientele sound. But the deep strings and electro beats do return, along with Macanás’ vocals.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey might be better known as members of legendary post-punk group The Sound, but the two were childhood friends and had been playing together even earlier in The Outsiders, and continued their deep musical rapport as a duo, creating these intense and engaging songs as Second Layer at the same time as their higher profile band output. Following our release of Courts Or Wars, combining their early material, we are proud to reissue their only full length album, World Of Rubber.

Fueled by experimentation in both song construction and recording techniques, the duo leave you enveloped in what The Quietus described as, “a monochrome worldview morbidly obsessed with the dehumanizing effect of war, nuclear weapon annihilation, and the fracturing and negation of the self within an increasingly distorted and technologically mediated society.” Indeed, the goal had been to make each album a concept album, with this to be titled: Second Layer’s World Of Rubber. Alas, this was to be the first and last of those efforts. New detailed liner notes from Graham Bailey shed considerable light on the creation of this cold classic and its immediate aftermath.

Bailey’s inventive construction and deconstruction of various electronics, effects boxes and tape loops form the propulsive base for these songs. Borland’s guitar playing is jagged and unleashed. Above it all is an undeniable sense of melody and Adrian’s distinctive vocals. Soon, they would wonder where Second Layer ended and The Sound began, but World Of Rubber would stand as a document of this fertile period. It would also be a lasting testament to their desire to push the boundaries of their creativity. Dark and brooding the result is what Bandcamp described as “brutally bleak, blank-eyed post-punk that remains chillingly compelling.”

Who’s the latest jazz giant to land a fresh edition of a canonical album in the retail racks courtesy of Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics reissue program? That’d be pianist-composer Mal Waldron. The LP is Mal/2, cut in 1957 and released the same year by Prestige, with a load of talent on board and raising the bar of quality, including John Coltrane on tenor sax, Jackie McLean on alto, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Art Taylor on drums. The byproduct of two sessions nearly a month apart, the sounds are cohesive in how they navigate away from the post-bop norm of the late 1950s. Mal/2 is out July 28 on 180 gram vinyl in a tip-on jacket, mastered analogue from the original tapes.

In the various synopses of his career, Mal Waldron is reliably credited as Billie Holiday’s final accompanist (a job that began the same month as Mal/2’s first session), with his work on a few jazz masterworks (Charles Mingus’ Blues & Roots, Max Roach’s Percussion Bitter Sweet, Eric Dolphy’s two At the Five Spot volumes, Abbey Lincoln’s Straight Ahead) peppered in.

There may also be mention of his enduring collaboration with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. They first recorded together on Lacy’s second album Reflections, released in 1958 by Prestige subsidiary New Jazz, notably the first album dedicated entirely to the music of Thelonious Monk. Although The Quest, issued in ’62 by New Jazz, is often cited as Waldron’s masterpiece as leader, Dolphy’s participation has tended to steal the spotlight a bit. Such is the case with Mal/2, which has been picked apart and released whole under Coltrane’s name, as on the 5CD collection of Trane’s ’50s support work Side Steps.

After gradually rebounding from a 1963 heroin overdose and the ensuing mental-physical breakdown, Waldron moved to Europe, began recording and performing again and essentially never stopped until his death in 2002. And rather than landing a consensus pick on a short (or long) list of essential jazz recordings, it’s Waldron’s voluminous studio sessions and the myriad captured live sets that secure his posthumous reputation, establishing him navigating deftly between the avant-garde and a warm, sincere classicism, and often subtly intermingling the two disciplines (a facility he shared with Lacy).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings announces a special gift for jazz fans this holiday with a new audiophile pressing of A Dave Brubeck Christmas.

Originally released in 1996, this bestselling title marks the legendary pianist’s sole holiday outing, as he interprets yuletide classics like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “The Christmas Song,” as well as stirring originals (“To Us Is Given,” “Run, Run, Run to Bethlehem”). Available September 22nd, this new 2-LP, 180-gram vinyl edition of A Dave Brubeck Christmas features lacquers cut at 45 RPM by Ryan Smith, delivering the highest quality listening experience.

One of the most important and innovative figures in the post-war cool jazz movement, Dave Brubeck (1920–2012) captured the ears of a generation, rising to become one of music’s biggest stars. Despite his global popularity and crossover appeal, however, Brubeck did not release an album of Christmas music until the latter quarter of his six-decade-long career. The resulting record was a welcome—and utterly refreshing—addition to the modern-day holiday cannon.

Featuring Brubeck on the piano, without accompaniment, the stripped-down set was recorded in a single day at Stamford, CT’s Ambient Recording Studio, with nearly every track captured in just one take. Russell Gloyd, who served as Brubeck’s longtime producer, manager and conductor, spoke to Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich about the album in 2018. “Listen to any track and it is Dave playing directly to you,” he noted. “Listen to Dave’s ‘Joy to the World’…You hear the church bells. It’s not Dave improvising, it’s Dave painting a picture.” Brubeck didn’t deliver a cookie-cutter holiday album. Like everything he did, A Dave Brubeck Christmas defies expectations, offering listeners a reflective performance that mirrors the entire range of moods that the holiday season often evokes.

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