BOSTON, MA | A sold-out Roadrunner crowd was teleported into a dream-pop induced bliss as electronic group M83 blasted off in support of their latest album Fantasy.

M83’s stop in Boston came in the middle of their tour, showcasing the band’s talent as they fired on all cylinders. Fascinating visuals and an incredibly mixed sound engaged the packed house with music filled with pure emotion—evoking unique memories of the past to make a performance personal for each attendee.

As a fan, there is nothing more exciting than a surprise new album announcement and a tour to support—especially a band you weren’t sure you’d ever see live. Since their inception in 1999, M83 has only played six shows in Boston, with the last being in 2016.

Before this announcement, I watched older performances on YouTube to get a sense of how their incredibly produced songs on previous albums translated into a live setting. Primary songwriter and lead vocalist Anthony Gonzalez also used this concept as his central theme for M83’s newest release Fantasy.

“I wanted this record to be very impactful live,” said Gonzalez. “The combination of guitars and synths is always in my music, but it’s maybe more present on this new record than on previous ones.”

M83 kicked off their set with the first three songs in sequential order off this latest release. The band was illuminated by a striking lighting display, at times immersed in fog, and backlit by a screen displaying the four-eyed character featured on Fantasy’s cover. Gonzalez played guitar for the majority of his set, and this seemed to amplify his moving vocals. An immense bass-filled sound was felt deep in your chest and captivated the crowd for the entire set.

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Red Rose Speedway was the breakthrough album for Paul McCartney’s 1970s post-Beatles career with his group Wings. McCartney, released in 1970, was his homespun, debut solo album. Ram, released in 1971, was a collaboration with his wife Linda and expanded on the musical ideas and simplicity of McCartney. Wildlife, also from 1971, was the debut album of Wings, his new group, which included Linda, Denny Laine, formerly of the first incarnation of the Moody Blues, and American session drummer Denny Seiwell.

Wild Life continued the less-is-more quirkiness of the two albums that came before it, as Wings was just getting its footing. Red Rose Speedway, the first Wings album of 1973 included new member Henry McCullough from Ireland on guitar. He kicked around England in the 1970s before joining the Grease Band, the group that backed Joe Cocker at Woodstock. He also played with Spooky Tooth and was part of the soundtrack album Jesus Christ Superstar.

McCullough was part of Wings prior to Red Rose Speedway for the rousing hit singles “Give Ireland Back to the Irish,” “Hi, Hi, Hi,” and later the James Bond theme song “Live and Let Die,” which re-established McCartney’s formidable skills as the writer and singer of infectious hit pop songs. McCartney already had songs such as “Every Night,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Another Day,” “Too Many People,” and “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” under his belt prior to Wings and McCullough’s joining the group, but McCullough’s playing helped Wings take that next big leap to bona-fide hit-making ’70s supergroup.

Red Rose Speedway was originally slated to be a double album. In fact, the previous major reissue of this album was an Archive Collection series release in 2018, which included a release of how that double album was intended, among other related reissues of the album in 2018.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Offspring announces a special limited-edition 15th-anniversary reissue package of their acclaimed record, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, out June 16 via Round Hill Records/UMe. Available for the first time on vinyl in many years, this special edition will feature a bonus 45 with two new live tracks recorded at Hellfest in 2022, re-imagined artwork on the cover, and art lithos for each song. There will also be a digital version of the record that will be released along with new animated artwork for streaming services.

At the time of release, Rise and Fall, Rage And Grace cracked the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and went to #4 on Top Alternative Albums in the US, along with reaching #3 in Japan, #3 in Australia, #4 in Canada, and #6 in France. In addition, “You’re Gonna Go Far Kid,” the band’s #1 most streamed track with over 1.9 billion global streams across streaming services, is featured on the album. To this day, it continues to be one of the band’s most illustrious records, and the RIAA recently awarded it a Gold Certification. Pre-orders for the 15th anniversary package of Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace are available now, HERE.

“We are pumped to be putting out the 15th-anniversary special edition of Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace,” says lead singer Dexter Holland. “We’ve worked with Round Hill to personally put together this re-release that has special art, a re-imagined album cover, and even a bonus 7” with a couple of live songs from our Hellfest performance in France last year. We have always been very proud of this record—it has one of our most well-known songs, ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’ on it—and we can’t wait to get this special edition out. Enjoy!”

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Dedicated to uncompromising music of assorted styles, but primarily avant-jazz, psychedelia, and folk, the ESP-Disk label endures in its seventh decade by offering four new releases on April 28. They are Normal Street by Painted Faces (vinyl), GALUT: Ballads of Wadi​-​Sabi by Alan Sondheim with Azure Carter, Edward Schneider and Rachel Rosenkrantz (wallet-lite package CDr), and America: The Rough Cut and In the Dark by Allen Lowe (digipak CD/digipak 3CD). All four are considered below.

Brooklyn-based Painted Faces, the solo endeavor of David Drucker, has released a slew of material since 2009, but I haven’t heard any of it until now, not even the prior ESP-Disk release, Tales From the Shiny Apartment, which came out in 2019. Painted Faces is part of a more recent ESP-Disk impulse, specifically the addition of noise music to the label’s roster. Not that Painted Faces are strictly about making a racket; no, there is tangible song structure on Normal Street and even some acoustic strumming.

In fact, this album is more about drifting abstraction than needling abrasion, though the opening title track suggests otherwise, at least until it shifts into a stretch that’s sure to please drone mavens far and wide (there is a bit of squall as the end nears). “An American Werewolf in Ridgewood” and “Forest Techno” are reminiscent of the lo-fi scene in its earliest days, “Painted Dollhouse” is collage-like and spacy until it taps into a stuttering CD-like repetition, and “Playing the Field the Ambassador Prowls” got me to thinking of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. And that’s just dandy.

That’s also just side one. “Laughing Charlie” takes a drone current, adds some baroque organ and then gets nice and twisted, a tendency that continues deep into the side, even as matters get more songlike, particularly in the druggy folk of “Contact Mind.” Also collage-y and a big drifter, “Xea” brings the LP to a close. It takes a few listens for the whole, which initially registers as inspired but loose, to really cohere, but once it does it’s hard to shake. Normal Street is an impressive effort, and I’m eager to hear more from David Drucker.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Black Sabbath’s first official live album, Live Evil, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with a new Super Deluxe Edition that introduces newly remixed and remastered versions of the acclaimed double album.

Live Evil (40th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) will be released on May 19 as a 4-CD set for $59.98, a 4-LP set for $99.98, and digitally. The collections feature two versions of the legendary album: a newly remastered version by Andy Pearce along with a new mix created from the original analog multi-tracks by longtime band associate Wyn Davis. The physical versions also come with illustrated hardback books that include new liner notes and replicas of the concert book and poster from the Mob Rules tour. The new mix of “The Mob Rules” is now available digitally.

A new era of Black Sabbath began in 1979 when singer Ronnie James Dio joined the band, along with founding members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward, to launch a new incarnation of the iconic heavy metal band. The newly minted quartet debuted in 1980 with Heaven and Hell, a platinum-certified smash that won over fans of the original lineup.

Halfway through the album’s tour, Ward left and was replaced by Vinny Appice. When the tour ended in 1981, the group decamped to Los Angeles and quickly recorded Sabbath’s 10th studio album, Mob Rules. Released in November 1981, the album would be certified gold. While touring for the album, the band announced plans to record several shows for what would become its first official concert album.

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On May 12, courtesy of Craft Recordings, Workin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet relaunches the Original Jazz Classics reissue series on 180-gram vinyl cut from the original master tapes. Featuring a magnificent band led by trumpeter-composer Davis, the group consists of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Bringing Davis’ working band into the studio resulted in an uncommonly communicative brilliance that fully earns Craft Recordings’ description of foundational, making it a fitting beginning for the rekindled Original Jazz Classics line.

Workin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet is one of four albums by the group that were released by the Prestige label between 1957-’61, with the contents drawn from two substantial sessions held on May 11 and October 26 of 1956. The lore once had it that it all came from one gargantuan session, but time has clarified the matter. There were actually three Prestige sessions by this group, an aggregation often described as Davis’ “first great quintet,” with their initial date taking place on November 16, 1955 and supplying the music for Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet, released in April of the following year.

Maybe the most striking bit of background about Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’ and Steamin’ is that they are the byproduct of a contractual obligation. I don’t want to make too much of this, as once a musician signs a contract they are obliged to make records in fulfillment of the agreement, and it stands to reason that those musicians would want any record with their names on it to be wholly worthwhile.

But in this case, the May and October Davis Quintet sessions were undertaken to give indie label Prestige enough music to satisfy the terms of the contract and allow the recordings Davis and this group had made under the radar for the significantly larger label Columbia (sessions chronologically overlapping the Prestige dates), to be released as ‘Round About Midnight in 1957.

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Remembering Mark Stewart. —Ed.

The recent vinyl landscape has been positively loaded with quality post-punk reissues, and in a fine development the politically raucous experimentalism of The Pop Group’s second 45 “We Are All Prostitutes” and ensuing LP For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? are getting added to the pile, with the latter offering reproductions of the original release’s four double-sided posters. Both were part of Rough Trade’s glorious amassing of post-punk vitality at the dawn of the 1980s, and they’ve return to the racks courtesy of the Freaks R Us label.

Initially composed of Mark Stewart on vocals, Gareth Sager and John Waddington on guitars, Simon Underwood on bass, and Bruce Smith on drums, The Pop Group commenced activity in Bristol, England in the year 1977. Formed in opposition to punk’s tenet of simplicity and inevitable drift into orthodoxy and formula, The Pop Group set to work embodying an alternative to what they identified as a musically if not necessarily ideologically conservative movement.

They achieved this goal by embracing free jazz, dub, funk and general experimentalism as punk’s intensity and usefulness as a vessel of socio-political dissatisfaction were retained. Befitting the non-rudimentary approach, their debut single “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” didn’t appear until March of ’79, but once the ball of wax was set in motion it rolled hard and heavy.

Y, The Pop Group’s first full-length, arrived a month later, and like its 7-inch predecessor it was produced by long-serving reggae figure Dennis Bovell; both were put out by Radar Records, a prominent if fairly unglamorous imprint of the new wave era, and they effectively established the parameters of a unit that grew more uncompromising as it hurdled toward dissolution in ’81.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Funky Nothingness delivers on all fronts, showcasing Zappa’s love for rhythm and blues, picking up where Hot Rats left off with extended instrumental work-outs fusing rock, jazz, and classical elements into music that can only be described as ZAPPA.” —Joe Travers, Zappa Vaultmeister

In 1969, after The Mothers of Invention disbanded, Frank Zappa released his groundbreaking solo debut, Hot Rats. Fusing jazz and rock, the innovative album became one of the artist’s bestselling releases, thanks to classic tracks like “Peaches En Regalia” and “Willie the Pimp.” Over the following year, in between various projects (including producing Captain Beefheart’s debut, Trout Mask Replica, and emceeing Belgium’s Festival Actuel, where Zappa met British drummer Aynsley Dunbar), he assembled a core group to lay down tracks at Los Angeles’ recently opened Record Plant.

The sessions, which took place primarily in February and March 1970 at the new studio, featured Zappa once again in the producer’s chair and joined by several of the musicians that played on Hot Rats, including Mothers member Ian Underwood (keyboard, saxophone, rhythm guitar), violinist and vocalist Don “Sugarcane” Harris, and Wrecking Crew bassist Max Bennett.

The five-piece band was rounded out by Aynsley Dunbar, who had just relocated to Los Angeles and moved in with Zappa following his invite to join the band. Together the group recorded hours’ worth of original compositions, inspired covers and extended improvisations that drew from Zappa’s R&B and blues roots, while blending influences of the emerging jazz fusion scene. Largely instrumental, these recordings showcased the guitarist’s virtuosity, while offering what could have easily been the sequel to Hot Rats, had it ever been released.

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Chicago’s Illinois Speed Press’ dual guitar attack has been said to have inspired Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington to form Lynyrd Skynyrd, and if true (I’ve read like five books on Skynyrd and never heard of ‘em) it’s their only lasting legacy.

Like me you’ve probably never heard of them unless you made the Midwest festival circuit at the tail end of the sixties, caught ‘em at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood (where they played regularly) or just happened to be watching the tube the time they played American Bandstand, which is too bad because on their 1969 eponymous debut they do a whole lot of top-notch axe jousting. They had a wild, dissonant streak too—the album’s opening track is proto-noise rock that probably led at least a few first-time listeners to take a ball-peen hammer to the platter.

When the Illinois Speed Express is remembered at all it’s because guitarist/vocalist and co-founder Paul Cotton stepped out of the band and into Jim Messina’s shoes in Poco in 1970, which I can’t help but think of as a classic case of downward mobility. But it made sense because by then Illinois Speed Express had gone the country rock route with 1970’s Duet, joining the legion of enlistees in the Sweetheart of the Rodeo revolution. Which was simple enough—you didn’t have to sign any enlistment papers, just trade in your paisley shirt and Beatles boots for a fringed buckskin jacket like the one David Crosby liked to ego around in and learn how to play pedal steel guitar. God those were awful times.

But on The Illinois Speed Press you won’t hear much country—just blues-based, R&B-tinged, heavy on the twin-guitar rock. Despite their name I seriously doubt the boys in the band were speed freaks, and when it came to velocity it was an open question as to whether they could beat their compatriots from the Sucker State REO Speedwagon in the 100-yard dash, but what they had in spades was a pair of top-notch guitarists. Their songs may not have been all that, but Cotton and fellow lead guitarist/vocalist Kal David knew how to rip it up and tear it up, assisted by Mike Anthony on organ and piano, Rob Lewine on bass, and Fred Page on drums.

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