With jazz and free improvisation at its core, 577 Records of Brooklyn, NY wields a joyous tenacity in documenting a variety of creative dialogues, with much of it released on vinyl. Such is the case with two UK-based trios; there’s Robert Mitchell, Neil Charles, and Mark Sanders, aka The Flame, with Towards The Flame​,​ ​Vol. 1, out now on LP, digipak CD, and digital, and there’s Pat Thomas, Chris Sharkey, and Luke Reddin-Williams with Know: Delirium Atom Paths, out June 30, also on LP, digipak CD, and digital. Through similarities of approach the records offer wildly distinct and equally inspiring collective visions.

Along with the number of contributors in each group, a major element these records have in common is their reality as live performances. Know: Delirium Atom Paths is the oldest of the two recordings so it gets covered first. The date was March 10, 2020 at Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, UK, aka the Fusebox Leeds, with the date right at the cusp of COVID bringing everything to a screeching halt.

Know: Delirium Atom Paths is one 44-minute piece (broken into two parts on vinyl, obviously) featuring Pat Thomas on keyboards, Chris Sharkey on guitar, and Luke Reddin-Williams on drums. Notably, Thomas’ keyboard (there might be more than one) is electric. Delivering washes and bursts of sound in the opening moments of “Delirium Atom Paths,” one could even describe Thomas’ instrument as electronic, particularly as it intermingles with Sharkey’s positively effects-laden guitar.

As the performance unwinds the aura of fusion is perceptible, but the sound is spikey, raw and dangerous, in keeping with the style’s pre-smoothed out early days, but there are also stretches that vacate the fusion zone for the realms of fibrous, edgy electronica, and with an non-labored air of the futuristic in the scheme.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Stevie Nicks released her solo debut in 1981, a quadruple-platinum #1 smash that launched her immensely successful solo career. The beloved singer-songwriter has released eight acclaimed solo records, selling nearly 10 million albums in the U.S. and influencing generations worldwide. She’s also the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, first as a member of Fleetwood Mac and then as a solo artist in 2019.

Rhino combines all of Nicks’ solo studio albums in a new, career-spanning boxed set. It comes with eight albums: Bella Donna (1981), The Wild Heart (1983), Rock a Little (1985), The Other Side of the Mirror (1989), Street Angel (1994), Trouble in Shangri-La (2001), In Your Dreams (2011), and 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault (2014). The collection also features Rarities, a new compilation of hard-to-find tracks only available with the set. Several albums were newly remastered from the analog masters for this release, including Rock a Little, The Other Side of the Mirror, Street Angel, and Trouble in Shangri-La.

Complete Studio Albums & Rarities will be available on July 28 as a 10-CD set ($99.98) and digitally. A newly remastered version of “One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star” from Rarities is available today on all digital download and streaming services. Originally released as the B-side to “Talk To Me,” the lead single from Stevie’s 1985 album Rock A Little, “One More Big Time Rock & Roll Star” was also included as a part of The Enchanted Works of Stevie Nicks box set in 1998.

A 16-LP version ($299.98), limited and numbered to 3,000 units globally, and pressed on crystal-clear vinyl, will be available the same day exclusively from Rhino.com. Several albums in the collection are making their vinyl debut, including Street Angel, Trouble in Shangri-La, and In Your Dreams. All three—plus The Other Side of the Mirror and 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault—will be released as double LPs housed in gatefold sleeves. The new Rarities collection comes as a 3-LP set in a tri-fold sleeve.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Could it be you’re falling in love? With six Grammy Award nominations, eighteen Gold and Platinum albums, twenty top 40 Pop singles, and both Pop and R&B chart-toppers, The Spinners more than earned their place in pantheon of American popular song.

Working with producer-arranger-conductor Thom Bell, the five-man group consisting of Philippé Wynne, Bobbie Smith, Henry Fambrough, Billy Henderson, and Pervis Jackson (and later, John Edwards) came to define the sound of smooth and sophisticated Philadelphia soul in the 1970s even as they paved the way for disco.

With Bell’s singular arrangements and the unmistakable musicianship of MFSB supporting them, The Spinners delivered rich, textured harmonies on hit after hit including “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair),” “Sadie,” “The Rubberband Man,” and the No. 1 duet “Then Came You” with Dionne Warwick.

From soul and pop to funk and dance, The Spinners transcended the tag of R&B to make a style all their own. On the eve of their long-awaited induction into the 2023 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are proud to celebrate The Spinners on The Complete Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell Productions 1972-1979.

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Aside from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from The Beatles in 1967, Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd may be the most important and iconic album of the rock era. The album has been issued and reissued countless times over the years since its debut in 1973. There have been various formats released of the album and endless configuration reissues.

For such an important album, the various recent 50th anniversary releases, while not entirely disappointing, perhaps could have been done differently. This is surprising in that Pink Floyd, like The Beatles (sorry to make that comparison again), has been at the forefront of reissuing not only its music, but also visual material and audio in the latest advanced formats. While Pink Floyd has sometimes fallen short in releasing their music in the best analog way on vinyl, sound and packaging design is something it always excels at.

One of the most welcome aspects of this new reissue series is the vinyl reissue of The Dark Side Of The Moon – Live At Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1974. This concert, widely bootlegged, was officially released on CD as part of the 2011 Dark Side of the Moon Immersion box set released in 2010 and now long out of print. It is now available as part of the deluxe box set and as a standalone release. This is a captivating listening experience, as the group’s playing the album in its entirety, with slight unique touches, and makes for a fresh listen of an album we’ve all heard countless times.

Moments of jazzy improvisation by keyboardist Rick Wright and a more pronounced gospel feel on the backing vocals in particular stand out. The entire live recording has a more organic feel and seems to literally breathe and pulse. The original studio album may be the pinnacle of ’70s rock studio-craft, so to be able to have a live experience this good, and now on vinyl, is truly a revelation.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings announce their latest partnership with Paramount Pictures to release the 2-CD and 2-LP versions of Scream VI: Music From The Motion Picture, featuring Brian Tyler and Sven Faulconer’s bone-chilling score for the latest installment of the legendary horror franchise.

Both release formats include the full 95-minute score from Tyler and Faulconer. The CD edition of the album contains a 12-page booklet filled with cast photos from the set, while the variant cover vinyl version comes packaged in a gatefold jacket featuring original artwork from acclaimed illustrator Doaly, which depicts Ghostface’s looming presence over his newest hunting ground, New York City. Fans can also find a Varèse Sarabande Vinyl Club edition of the album (pressed on Stab Green vinyl and limited to 1,000 copies) exclusively at VareseSarabande.com and CraftRecordings.com. Available to pre-order now, the 2-CD version of the album will be released in September 2023, with the 2-LP following in December 2023.

In 1996, Scream ushered in a new era of slasher flicks—mixing self-awareness and satire with chills, gore, and plenty of plot twists, asserting itself as the dominant horror franchise of the ’90s and ’00s. 2022’s Scream marked the return of the franchise after a 11 year break following Scream IV, and was a hit both at the box-office and with critics, who praised the film on its masterful continuation of the story of the original characters, while introducing younger characters into the mix that picked up the baton in the never-ending fight against the torment of Ghostface.

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With lead vocalist-rhythm guitarist Thalia Zedek and lead guitarist-backing vocalist Chris Brokaw as the constant members, Boston’s Come released four highly regarded full-length albums in the 1990s. The third has just been reissued by Fire Records on vinyl with three bonus tracks. After two records from the original lineup, Near Life Experience was the handiwork of Zedek and Brokaw with numerous noteworthy guests, and the results easily avoid the tired, going-through-the-motions feel familiar to records made after significant changes of personnel. Instead, the set ranks right up there with Come’s best stuff, and that gets pretty high indeed.

Before Come, Thalia Zedek was in White Women, Dangerous Birds, Uzi, and then with a considerable jump in profile, Live Skull. It’s not overstating matters to say that Zedek was the main point of interest for many when Come’s debut single “Car” b/w “Last Mistake” came out as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club in August of 1991, even as Chris Brokaw was simultaneously playing in the early slowcore outfit Codeine (he’d previously been part of the obscure 7 or 8 Wormhearts with Phil Milstein of Uzi and guitarist Glenn Jones, and he also survived backing up GG Allin).

The other members of Come circa their very strong 1992 debut album 11:11 (or Eleven:Eleven) were drummer Arthur Johnson and bassist Sean O’Brien, both with prior roots in the Athens, GA scene, Johnson playing in wildcards Bar-B-Q Killers and O’Brien in Kilkenny Cats. They helped 11:11 make sizeable critical waves in the ’90s Alt-Indie free-for-all, and stuck around for the equally sharp 1994 follow-up Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but then left the band prior to the recording of the album under review here (I do believe they have returned to the band for live shows).

For Near Life Experience, half the tracks were recorded with Mac McNeilly of Jesus Lizard on drums and Bundy K. Brown of Tortoise and Gastr Del Sol on bass, and the other half with Kevin Coultas and Tara Jane O’Neil of Rodan and The Sonora Pine on drums and bass, respectively. In the attempt to prolong inspiration and energy, this is a solid batch of recruits, and it’s worth noting that numerous additional contributors to the album (something of a new development in the Come discography) broaden the sound as the attack stays focused.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Originally released in 1974 by world-renowned Indian musician Ravi Shankar, Shankar Family & Friends was a pioneering album that mixed Eastern and Western styles—fusing together Indian, pop, classical and jazz music.

Produced by George Harrison, it combines Western musicians such as Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman, and Nicky Hopkins side-by-side with Indian-music innovators Alla Rakha, Ashish Khan, Shivkumar Sharma, and Hariprasad Chaurasia. Under the musical direction of Shankar, the large orchestra featured on the album showcases over 30 instruments from the East and West that combined in a ground-breaking way that made it one of the first world music albums ever released.

Containing the first single issued on Dark Horse, “I Am Missing You,” featuring Lakshmi Shankar on vocals backed by a full Western rock band, Shankar Family & Friends has been out of print for many years, until now. Dark Horse Records is proud to present the original album remastered at Abbey Road Studios from the original source masters by Paul Hicks (George Harrison, The Beatles, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones) and reissued for the first time on CD as a standalone release alongside an orchid color vinyl edition.

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Guitarist Danny Paul Grody has been on the scene since the late 1990s, initially in bands (Tarentel, The Drift) and then solo for a series of full-length recordings. Arc of Day is his latest, which in contrast to his prior truly solo releases, finds him in the company of esteemed collaborators Chuck Johnson on pedal steel, Jonathan Sielaff on clarinet and bass clarinet, and Grody’s former bandmates Trevor Montgomery and Rich Douthit on bass and drums-percussion, respectively. Arc of Day is out June 16 on vinyl and digital through Three Lobed Recordings.

Tarentel came first, debuting with a self-titled EP in 1998 for Temporary Residence Limited, with scads of releases both short and long to follow on numerous labels. The Drift came next, formed in 2002 and hitting with Noumena, the outfit’s first LP, a double, in ’05, also on Temporary Residence Limited. That label issued The Drift’s entire discography, including two more ’05 releases, a 12-inch EP and a CD mini-album Travels In Constants Volume Nineteen (the latter part of an extended series, with a volume from Tarentel amongst the contributors).

Both Tarentel and The Drift are fittingly described as post-rock in orientation, but Grody’s solo work, with its focus on sharp fingerpicking often in a post-American Primitive mode, is distinct in approach, but without a disconnect with his earlier work. Both Tarentel and The Drift were essentially winding down as Grody’s first solo record, Fountain, came out on CD; the year was 2010.

To expand upon the progression of Grody’s work, he didn’t just wake up one day reborn as a Takoma-style string dazzler. Instead, his picking aptitude was well integrated into a sound that pulled from various sources, with Grody’s prior bands amongst them. Nowhere is this more evident than on his latest, which reconnects him with a pair of bandmates plus kindred spirits Johnson (noted as a deft fingerpicker in his own right) and Sielaff, who’s half of Golden Retriever adding a horn dimension, an element shared with The Drift (Johnson and Golden Retriever cut Rain Shadow for Thrill Jockey in 2020).

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PITTSBURGH, PA | Pittsburgh-area Deadheads said fare thee well once again to the latest iteration of The Grateful Dead, Dead & Company, on June 5th at The Pavilion at Star Lake. For those who were able to make it inside the venue despite hours of nightmarish backed up traffic (get it together, The Pavilion), it was another memorable night of psychedelic sounds and sights.

I’ll be sad to see Dead & Company dissolve, as the members have really honored the spirit and sound of The Grateful Dead while maintaining a high level of musicianship throughout their eight-year stint. Original Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart have lead the way, with John Mayer lending his incredible guitar skills, multi-instrumentalist Otiel Burbridge retaining his fan favorite status, Jeff Chimenti dazzling on the keys, and Jay Lane doing an excellent job of sitting in on drums for original member Bill Kreutzmann, who opted out of the final tour due to back issues.

The night featured some tour debuts, including “China Doll” and The Band’s “The Weight,” and additional crowd pleasers in “Jack Straw,” “Bertha,” and “Althea.” The Final Tour is making its way across the country before concluding in San Francisco mid-July. But if there’s one thing we know about The Grateful Dead, it’s that the music never stops. I look forward to seeing what’s on the horizon.

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