VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MoFi), a renowned leader in high-fidelity audio reissues, is proud to release Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s (ELP) seminal self-titled debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, in audiophile sound. A cornerstone of progressive rock’s golden age, the album is available for order now at mofi.com as a numbered-edition 180g 33RPM LP. A numbered-edition Hybrid SACD will be available at a later date.

Supergroups existed before Emerson, Lake & Palmer formed in 1970, but few matched the English trio’s virtuosity, vision, and verve. Their prowess was obvious from the start, and their self-titled debut stands as a towering statement of creative imagination. The album, which includes genre-defying originals and hybrid arrangements of two classical pieces, matches outrageous ambition with the otherworldly skills of three musicians who remain among the finest to ever pick up their respective instruments: Keith Emerson on keys, Greg Lake on guitar and bass, and Carl Palmer on drums.

Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM LP of Emerson, Lake & Palmer presents the benchmark album in audiophile sound, mastered at its California studio (1/4” / 15 IPS analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe), housed in a Stoughton jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing. Clear, dynamic, and balanced, this collectible edition honors the perfectionist approaches that informed the playing and recording of the record.

The reissue brings to light the epic scope, tonal depth, and mind-bending musicianship on display. The presence, separation, imaging, and crispness help make every song feel as if the group has set up shop in your listening space.

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British guitarist John McLaughlin has had one of the most admired careers in music. Passing through the British blues scene that launched such guitar gods as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Mick Taylor, to name a few, McLaughlin abandoned the blues-to-rock route and has since almost exclusively worked in jazz.

It is jazz where he began, most notably playing in the great second Miles Davis Quintet, beginning in 1969 with In A Silent Way and through 1989 playing on eleven Davis albums, but also playing with his Davis bandmate Tony Williams in Lifetime, his other Davis bandmate Wayne Shorter, along with the likes of Larry Coryell, before forming and leading the groundbreaking fusion group the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

He would still play with musicians from the rock and blues world (Jack Bruce, Duffy Power, Graham Bond, Carlos Santana, et. al.) on occasion, but the Mahavishnu Orchestra (along with his time with Davis) would be his launching pad to groundbreaking jazz icon status. The group would have two incarnations and after the first incarnation in 1976, he formed another group that fused styles: Shakti.

While George Harrison has rightly received hefty praise for being one of the first Western pop musicians to explore Indian music, McLaughlin’s extensive catalog and tours with the various incarnations of Shakti may be the most fully realized collaboration between a Western musician and Indian musicians. The group’s place in Indian music is secure, but with McLaughlin as a key member of the ensamble, they must also be considered a world music group and in many respects, pioneers of that elastic genre.

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Post-punk legends The Chameleons are gearing up for a brand new full-length album due later this year—their first full-length in over 20 years! They’ve released two new EPs “Where Are You?” and “Tomorrow Remember Yesterday”—the former consisting of new material and the latter of archival material recorded with the current lineup.

Their latest five song EP “Tomorrow Remember Yesterday” is a collection of newly recorded songs whose origins harken back decades. Says Vox, “These songs were amongst the very earliest songs we got together pre-Peel session in 1981, but were discarded at the time due to them feeling unfinished.”

I sat down with vocalist/bassist Vox (fka Mark Burgess) for this episode and it was quite a ride! We talked about Peel Sessions, spotting his favorite Dr. Who on the stairs at the BBC, Steve Lillywhite, LinnDrums, ayahuasca, therapy, love, and The Psychedelic Furs.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Okkyung Lee is one of contemporary music’s greatest cellists, but on her new record, just like any other day (어느날): background music for your mundane activities, she sets her cello aside for a keyboard, a computer, and a tape recorder, bringing ten compositions to life in a sly undercutting of what gets thought about when the subject turns to experimental music. Melodic and often beautiful, the album is no mere gesture toward the pop sphere. It’s available on vinyl and digital from Shelter Press on September 5.

Okkyung Lee has amassed a large discography since emerging as a recording artist in the late 1990s, excelling as a collaborator (The Bleeding Edge by Evan Parker, Peter Evans, and Lee, psi, 2011), as the leader of her own ensembles (Noisy Love Songs (For George Dyer), Tzadik, 2011), and as a solo musician (Ghil, Ideologic Organ/Editions Mego, 2013).

A superb improvisor, composer and virtuoso instrumentalist, Lee has thrived in connection with the NYC Downtown avant-garde, where she has proved highly adaptable to a wide range of stylistic situations. By extension, Lee’s recording path in this decade is an unusually fertile distillation of her musical range.

There’s the vivid chamber brilliance of Yeo-Neun (Shelter Press, 2020), the sublimely hairy saw-scape of “Teum (The Silvery Slit),” a piece constituting her side of a split LP with Florian Hecker (Portraits GRM, 2020), and the deep emotional resonance of Na-Reul (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2021).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Who Are You, The Who’s eighth studio album, is to be released in a suite of formats including a super deluxe edition this October featuring over 70 unreleased tracks including never-before-heard versions of the title track “Who Are You,” newly mixed live tracks from their first tour without original drummer Keith Moon and candid recordings of the band rehearsing in 1977 and 1978. Also included in the 7CD/1 Blu-ray set are brand-new Atmos & Stereo mixes by Steven Wilson. The album will also be released as a deluxe 4LP box set, a 2CD deluxe edition, and limited-edition coloured and half-speed master vinyl editions.

Initially released in August 1978, Who Are You marked a significant chapter in The Who’s career while a commercial triumph, peaking at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and achieving double platinum status and No. 6 on the U.K. Albums Chart, it was also tragically the last album to feature legendary drummer Keith Moon, who died a week after its release.

The album saw the band pushing boundaries once more, with the songs referencing the incoming influence of British punk. Most notably, the title track was written after a night out with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols, and it reflected the sentiments of “Music Must Change” and “Sister Disco.” Pete Townshend also delivered some of his most ambitious and intricate arrangements, incorporating layers of synthesisers and strings into The Who’s powerful backing tracks.

The title track “Who Are You” preceded the album in early July ’78 and became an instant anthem and has remained in the band’s set list to this day. Aided by its appearance in the CSI TV franchise in the early 2000s, it is one of the band’s most-streamed tracks.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Rock icon Ann Wilson, singer-songwriter and founder of Heart, will unveil her remarkable life story in the forthcoming feature documentary In My Voice. Told in Ann’s own words, the film traces her extraordinary 75-year journey, from a nomadic childhood to the stages of the world’s biggest arenas, and into a bold new creative chapter. With additional commentary from family, friends, artists, bandmates, and industry executives, the documentary focuses on the authenticity of Ann Wilson.

Drawing from a deep personal archive of home movies, photographs, journals, and never-before-seen footage, In My Voice offers fans an unprecedented window into Wilson’s life and artistry. For the first time, audiences will hear how she found her voice, sustained it across five decades, and allowed it to guide her through fame, adversity, and reinvention. “This film is my story in my own words, told the way I’ve always wanted to tell it,” says Ann. “It’s about finding my voice, keeping it alive, and sharing the journey with the people who’ve been part of it all along.”

The documentary is directed by Barbara Hall, a Prime-Time Emmy®-nominated producer and director celebrated for her passion for remarkable human stories and music. With more than 25 years of experience in developing, producing, and directing original programming, Hall has built a career on authentic, immersive storytelling.

She has helmed award-winning specials, series, long-form documentary films, concerts, and thematic music documentaries, and is known for securing rare, exclusive rights to bring untold narratives to the screen. A member of the Producers Guild of America, the Guild of Music Supervisors, and the Documentary Producers Alliance, Hall has also been honored with the 2025 Women In Film/Nashville Alice Award Trailblazer Award.

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Remembering Billy Preston, born on this day in 1946. —Ed.

One thing that the Peter Jackson Get Back Disney series made clear was how integral Billy Preston was to the Get Back/Let It Be period of January 1969 for The Beatles. He joined The Beatles at their Apple headquarters basement recording studio on January 22nd and worked with them until filming ended on January 31st. He would work with them again, and in fact be signed to Apple Records, making two solo albums for the label. Universal has just reissued Encouraging Words on vinyl, his second release for the label, which was originally released in 1970.

Preston was only 22 when he joined The Beatles, but he had a lifetime of musical experience under his belt. His debut album Greazee Soul was released in 1963 when he was only 16 and still attending high school in Los Angeles. He would release four more albums before his Apple debut, That’s the Way God Planned It, in 1969. By that time, he had already backed Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, and Ray Charles.

While George Harrison produced Preston’s Apple debut, he co-produced Encouraging Words, with Preston. The album was recorded in London at Olympic and Trident Studios. Harrison returned to play on Encouraging Words, as did Eric Clapton. Clapton played on the title track (which also includes Delaney Bramlett), “Right Now,” and “Use What You Got.” Many other musicians played on Encouraging Words, including Clapton’s bandmates in Derek and the Dominos—Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, and Jim Gordon—along with Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, and members of the Edwin Hawkins Singers, The Temptations, and the Sam and Dave band.

When the album was released, it was the first time people heard the George Harrison songs “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Must Pass,” which came out later on George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass in 1970, and album Preston is on. There was also a song Harrison co-wrote with Preston entitled “Sing One For The Lord.” The other two songwriters in The Beatles—John Lennon and Paul McCartney—are present here by virtue of Preston’s take on the Get Back/Let It Be-era song “I’ve Got A Feeling,” a song Preston played on.

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Based in New York City, Matthew Ryals is a synthesist and composer-improviser with three full-length studio recordings in his discography. On September 5, he releases Exalge via Infrequent Seams which documents a live performance in Milan, Italy from November 2023 in collaboration with Federica Furlani, aka effe effe, a violist based in Milan. Ryals is heard on modular synth for the duration as effe effe’s viola and effects enter roughly mid-way through, the instruments entering into a superb tangle, moving from easily identifiable to impossible to distinguish who’s playing what. Exalge ends with a vinyl-only bonus track.

Too often, experimental music gets stereotyped as dry and formidable, particularly by those unable (or unwilling) to engage with the unique energies sparked by musical abstraction. Exalge presents a solid entry point for those who are perhaps intimidated by experimentation but are nonetheless open to or curious about the expansive range of its possibilities.

Right away in “Knots,” the opening piece in Exalge (the LP named after the Milan-based cultural center where the performance took place), Ryals establishes a weave of rhythmic patterns and in short order begins injecting (indeed disrupting) them with a wide variety of sonic outbursts. Along the way, the rhythms intensify as the cyclical elements undergo variations, and then comes a massive stretch of explosiveness that hits the ear like a 60 year old robot is having an epileptic seizure in a windstorm.

Excluding the concluding studio recorded bonus track “Crosstalk,” Exalge captures that continuous performance in Milan. “Surface Tension” follows with a similar approach as head in “Knots,” although there is more crackle and fuzz, and also more space in the unwinding. effe effe enters during “Ancient Crimes,” but only after an aural landscape that suggests the detonation of many bombs. Across this section, effe effe’s contribution is easy to recognize as viola, and likewise in the opening moments of “Limb Loosener.”

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the Labor Day holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on 9/2.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols, an album that rewired 20 years of rock in under 40 minutes, is available today from Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi), the premium vinyl reissue series. Order HERE.

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols (Rhino High Fidelity) was cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal in Germany. This release is limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively at Rhino.com and select Warner Music Group stores internationally.

Singer and main lyricist Johnny Rotten (John Lydon), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glen Matlock—later replaced by Sid Vicious—recorded the Sex Pistols’ only studio album at Wessex Sound in London.

Released in 1977, it debuted at #1 on the U.K. charts despite being banned by major retailers and causing widespread controversy. Bristling with broadsides like “Anarchy In The U.K.,” “God Save The Queen,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “Holidays In The Sun,” the album distilled rage and disillusionment into a single, unrelenting statement.

In the album’s new liner notes, producer Chris Thomas recalls how the band found their recording approach almost by accident during an early session. “We put down a track, just rhythm guitar and drums, pretty much first-take, no mistakes. It was impossible to know if it was any good, so, being a bit stumped, I asked Steve if he would like to have a go at putting the bass part on.”

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