VIA PRESS RELEASE | Filmtrax today released the Keeper—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, featuring an original score by composer Edo Vanbreemen, available digitally beginning November 14. Known for his evocative and psychologically immersive soundscapes, Van Breemen brings his haunting, textural style to NEON’s Keeper, directed by Osgood Perkins.

For the film, Van Breemen crafted a minimal, organic score built from live acoustic recordings and bespoke sample instruments, incorporating tapping, knocking, and wooden textures that reflect the film’s eerie cabin setting. Made By Mutant will release the Keeper—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on vinyl on Tuesday, November 18. Keeper is now playing in theaters. Edo notes “I’m thrilled to announce the release of the Keeper original score. It was an honour to work on Oz Perkins’ newest film and I’m grateful for all the talented musicians who contributed to create this. It’s rare to experience such creative freedom on a project of this scale. I hope the music delights and terrifies.”

Edo Vanbreemen is a Canadian-American film composer celebrated for his evocative, immersive, and at times haunting scores. Known for his ability to craft gripping soundscapes across narrative films and documentaries, Edo often composes in solitude from a remote cabin on a small island in the Salish Sea near Vancouver, British Columbia—an environment that deeply informs his atmospheric style.

Recent work includes The Monkey, Keeper, The Track, and BRATS, as well as the upcoming The Backrooms (A24) with Kane Parsons. These projects showcase Edo’s wide-ranging mastery of synthesis and acoustic orchestration, drawing from his background as a classically trained and improvisational pianist, multi-instrumentalist, and accomplished producer. His collaboration with director Osgood Perkins on Keeper demonstrates his experimental edge—building an original sample library from bespoke live recordings to shape the film’s eerie sonic identity.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The London Records reissue Chicken Rhythms, the debut and only album by Northside, is out now on LP and CD.

Produced by Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds), Chicken Rhythms was originally released on Factory Records in June 1991, charting in the Top 20, and contains the singles “Take 5” and “Shall We Take A Trip?,” which have been remixed by The Reflex and Leo Zero for a White Label 12-inch single available now. “Take 5 (The Reflex Revision)” is available digitally now. An exclusive three-track CD single ‘The 12”s’ is available with D2C album pre-orders and includes the original 12-inch mixes of “Shall We Take A Trip?,” “My Rising Star,” and “Moody Places.”

The 2025 vinyl reissue has been cut from the original Factory Records masters and comes on solid green vinyl with restored artwork by Central Station Design. The expanded CD edition includes 1990 single “My Rising Star” and “Moody Places” (AA side with “Shall We Take A Trip”), radio edits as well as the new remixes, plus a 24 page booklet with new liner notes from venerated Manchester music journalist John Robb.

From the north Manchester suburbs of Blackley and Moston, Northside were an integral part of the Manchester early nineties soundtrack. Signed to Factory Records by its visionary founder Tony Wilson, the band were the bridge between the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, fusing psychedelic rock with Acid House.

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Remembering Gordon Lightfoot, born on this date in 1938. —Ed.

Robbie Robertson has called Canadian folk rock singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot “a national treasure,” and so he is. Canadians don’t just love their Orillia, Ontario native son, they worship him in temples that can only be entered by pilgrims clad in the holy sandals Gord wore on the cover of his 1974 LP Sundown.

And their devotion is understandable–Lightfoot has contributed many a timeless song to the world, and none other than Bob Dylan has gone on record saying that when he hears a Lightfoot song he wishes “it would last forever.”

Lightfoot wrote many a great song from 1965 to 1970 with United Artists, including “Early Morning Rain,” “Ribbon of Darkness,” and “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” to name just a few. But he recorded his best known work for Warner/Reprise Records, with whom he signed in 1970. And it’s this work you’ll hear on 2018’s aptly titled compilation An Introduction to Gordon Lightfoot.

There are other Lightfoot compilations out there, but they either include music only your hardcore fans will want to own (see 1999’s Songbook or 2019’s The Complete Singles 1970–1980). 1975’s Gord’s Gold is arguably the best comp out there, including as it does material from both his United Artists and Warner Brothers years, but it omits “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (inexcusable!) and (even more inexcusable!) includes re-recordings of the songs from Lightfoot’s years with United Artists.

All ten of the tracks on An Introduction to Gordon Lightfoot provide indisputable proof that Lightfoot is the best singer-songwriter to stand his ground in Canada (Neil and Joni and Robbie defected and never looked back), and if you’re inclined to argue this fact with the peace-loving Canucks of the Great White North they might just crown you with a hockey stick and toss you into Lake Ontario.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) commemorates the uncanny musical legacy and life of iconic artist, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and “Godfather of Neo-Soul”—the late Roy Ayers—with the release of a new compilation entitled Secrets Of The Sun out now.

This body of work notably boasts four previously unreleased recordings in addition to four recharged and re-upped reinterpretations of essential deep cuts. It arrives on all DSPs today as well as on limited-edition vinyl. The LP is pressed on 180-gram vinyl and packaged inside of a vivid gatefold jacket with a stunning lithograph.

Fans will undoubtedly gravitate to this newly unearthed quartet of soul gems. Anchored by a slick bass thump, upbeat drums, and boisterous horns, “Pathfinder” swaggers straight into the spotlight. Ayers’s signature vibraphone lifts the song into another stratosphere, and the words ring out, “I’m the one that you don’t know yet.” Elsewhere, “Pleasure” offers a dose of aural ecstasy chased by funkified guitar, a bedroom-ready bounce, and lusty vibraphone transmissions. The hazy and hypnotic “Intermission” simply smolders, and “Dragon’s Nest” enchants with its butter-smooth rhythm and cinematic instrumentation.

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Guess who just got back from Funkytown? I did, and it was fantastic! One minute I was in my car driving down Salem Church Road in insufferable Newark, Delaware and the next I was stepping aboard the Love Train on Electric Avenue in mid-town Funkytown passing Studio 54s left and right and Mick and Bianca and Andy and Elton and Cher were on the train and high above Funkytown I could see a disco inferno blazing atop Disco Mountain like a giant disco ball, and what a disco they must have up there, I thought! And I looked down at my feet and I was wearing boogie shoes!

It was an amazing thing to happen, and it can happen to you too. All you have to do is turn on Lipps Inc.’s late-stage (1980) disco classic “Funkytown,” one of the greatest bursts of dance floor ecstasy of the pre-ecstasy era. Only several things need be said about “Funkytown,” because everything you really need to know about it is coming to you through your ears, but the most important (and I’ll return to this soon) is that it’s a robotic synthpop/disco synthesis with a solid four-on-the-floor basstastic beat that was as revolutionary as it was impossible not to bump Bertha Butts to.

But first a brief history. The song (and Lipps Inc.) were the brainchildren of Steven Phillip Greenberg, a wannabe-musical Svengali/party and wedding DJ from St. Paul, Minnesota who scored a regional hit with “Rock It,” which scored him a deal with legendary Casablanca Records. Lipps Inc. weren’t even a band yet, so Greenberg gathered up some sessions players (guitarists David Rivkin and Tom Riopelle, keyboardist Ivan Rafowitz, synth and vocoder programmer Roger Dumas, and bassist Terry Grant), then snatched lead vocalist (and saxophonist) Cynthia Johnson from a band (Flyte Tyme) that would soon become Prince side-project The Time.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Godsmack and Republic/UMe proudly announce the release of the 25th Anniversary edition of the landmark sophomore album, Awake, available on March 6, 2026, on deluxe 2LP smoky green color vinyl and CD. This commemorative edition includes a special holographic lithograph of the cover art and features five bonus tracks, including “Why,” which was featured on the Any Given Sunday soundtrack, and a Black Sabbath cover of “Sweet Leaf.”

Following their multi-platinum self-titled debut in 1998, Godsmack returned two years later in 2000 with an album that not only met but surpassed all expectations. The release delivered a powerful collection of songs that quickly became fan favorites, including “Bad Magick,” “Awake,” and “Greed,” and cemented the band’s reputation as one of the defining acts of their era. Building on the momentum of their breakthrough success, the sophomore album’s title track earned Godsmack their first Billboard No. 1 hit, while another standout single, “Vampires,” garnered the band their first GRAMMY® nomination.

The reissue celebrates a defining moment in Godsmack’s career, showcasing the enduring legacy of an album that continues to resonate with fans worldwide. Preorder the 25th Anniversary of Awake HERE.

With over 20 years of chart-topping success, the Boson rock band has cemented themselves as 21st-century hard rock titans. To date, they’ve accomplished a staggering 12 #1 singles at mainstream rock radio, including “Surrender,” “Soul on Fire,” both from the band’s most recent album, Lighting Up the Sky.

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Celebrating Anni-Frid Lyngstad in advance of her 80th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

I love ABBA. I love them so much I contacted the Swedish ambassador last week to see if I could buy them. “ABBA are a national treasure,” the ambassador informed me. “But a thousand kroner would probably do it.” I was rather taken aback really, given ABBA are Sweden’s biggest export behind Swedish Red Fish and Swedish meatballs.

ABBA’s frothy brand of Europop and disco bring back fond memories of my first and last visit to a discotheque. The experience was unforfeitable insofar as it ended with me throwing up in the parking lot, but it wasn’t ABBA’s fault–staring at the revolving glitter ball above the dance floor gave me vertigo.

From disco classic “Dancing Queen” to “Waterloo,” ABBA’s songs were good, innocent fun. Who can resist their infectious melodies and perfect harmonies? Lots of people, evidently. ABBA were anathema to the “Let’s burn down the disco crowd,” and none other than Robert Christgau saw fit to describe their “real tradition” as “the advertising jingle.”

Formed in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, ABBA first made their mark by winning the 1974 Eurovision Contest–a sure step to superstardom, as evidenced as by such memorable bands as Teach-In and Herreys. It took awhile for ABBA to catch on with US listeners, but when they did they did it big—in the years between 1974 and 1981 they placed a dozen singles on the American Top 40.

The ABBA sound is a study in contradictions. On one hand their music is as frothy as it’s frosty; detractors will tell you their music is as cold as a dip into a Hellasgården ice bath. But to pop and disco lovers their music is something you’ll want to warm your hands over—especially if you spent your formative years listening to “Dancing Queen.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Intervention Records will continue its Sun Records Hi-Fi Series—featuring classic titles from the Memphis label, mastered to vinyl from original master tapes in the Sun vaults—with a brilliant new pressing of Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar!, the first long-playing record from one of country music’s most enduring icons.

The album, featuring “I Walk The Line,” “Cry, Cry, Cry,” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” has been given the ultimate treatment for this 180-gram, 45 RPM mono release, featuring audio from original master tapes mastered to vinyl in an all-analog process, plus restored artwork featuring new liner notes. Pre-orders for Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! are open now, with a release date of February 20, 2026. The album can be pre-ordered here.

“I never imagined that I’d hear the iconic voice of Johnny Cash on Intervention Records!” said Shane Buettner, Intervention Records’ founder. “And I don’t think music fans around the world have ever heard Johnny’s voice, or Sam Phillips’ famous Sun Studio sound, as clearly and definitively as they will on this new 45 RPM mono cut. This is as close you can get to a time machine back to Memphis in the 1950s!”

Originally issued in the fall of 1957—the first long-player for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records—Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! showcases the stripped-down sound that would make the future Man in Black one of the most enduring and respected musicians of the 20th century. Backed only by his “Tennessee Two” (Luther Perkins on lead guitar and Marshall Grant on upright bass) and augmented by Phillips’ signature studio slapback that gave Cash’s “boom-chicka-boom” sound its kick, Hot and Blue Guitar! is the album that introduced many to Cash’s sonorous baritone.

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Molly Hatchet don’t get no respect, and to the extent that most people remember them at all, it’s for “Flirtin’ with Disaster,” a mad and power-chord crazy gallop towards self-destruction that deservedly stands as a classic of post-Skynyrd Southern rock. And that post-Skynyrd tells you everything you need to know. Southern rock was rapidly un-Southerning itself, and “Flirtin’ with Disaster” is the proof. (By 1981, Molly Hatchet were playing straight-ahead hard rock.) Not that it saved Molly Hatchet from being branded as a second-rate Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jacksonville late-comers aping their hometown betters.

But this is unfair, and Molly Hatchet’s eponymous 1978 debut is the proof. It’s an unapologetic Southern Rock album, and no wonder. Danny Joe Brown may sound too much like Ronnie Van Zant for his own good, but that “Hell yeah!” he opens the album with is almost as iconic (to fans anyway) as Van Zant’s “Turn it up!” And just like Jacksonville’s Finest, Molly Hatchet had themselves a three-guitar army, even if nobody is going to say they were capable of the heights of Rossington, Collins, King, or later Gaines. Still, they had their moments—check out “Boogie No More” on 1979’s Flirtin’ with Disaster. It’s deja vu all over again, a chicken-fried guitar rave-up by three guys you’ll need to consult the liner notes to name.

Molly Hatchet is an essential Southern Rock album for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that the band can do a variety of things and do them well. I’ve never heard any stories about them cutting their bones in a suffocatingly hot shack by an alligator-infested swamp with Danny Joe putting a gun to the drummer’s head as a kindly request to play a song for the twentieth time, but at their best they’re tight as Van Zant on a whisky tear, and sound just as inclined to break said whisky bottle over your head. At their best, these unreconstituted rednecks sound like a bar brawl in progress.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Since its original release in 1988, Talk Talk’s critically acclaimed fourth album Spirit Of Eden has grown to become one of the most influential albums of the ’80s.

A step away from its hugely commercially successful predecessor The Colour Of Spring, Spirit Of Eden is steeped in legend for its long and improvisational recording sessions that created a body of work that would go on to be vital in the creation of post-rock as a genre and has subsequently been credited by NME in 2013 as one of the top 100 of their “500 Greatest Album Of All Time,” Q magazine’s “40 Best Albums of the ’80s’,” and was 419 in Colin Larkins acclaimed book All Time Top 1000 Albums.

This new reissue is a single-vinyl cut at half-speed by Matt Colton at Metropolis and overseen by drummer Lee Harris and Mark Hollis’ son Charlie. It will be released on February 6, 2026 and is available to pre-order here.

Upon its original release it was met with huge critical acclaim despite it being a hugely challenging album to market—the nature of the music meant that it did not offer up any obvious singles for radio promotion or the ability for the band to play it live due to its improvisational nature.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | From the garage-fueled shadows of upstate New York, The Chesterfield Kings return with Loose Ends: 1989–2004 Rare, B-Sides & Unreleased—a ferocious collection from one of rock & roll’s most enduring underground legends. In stores now via Wicked Cool Records, this anthology cracks open the vault to deliver a fuzz-drenched feast of rarities, forgotten gems, and unreleased recordings spanning the band’s wildest years.

For the first time ever, these deep cuts and obscure one-offs—many previously scattered across hard-to-find vinyl and CD pressings—are being digitally remastered and compiled into one explosive release. It’s a time capsule of pure rock swagger: stomping rhythms, snarling guitars, and that signature Kings attitude that has influenced generations of garage revivalists and true believers. Among the treasures is one previously unreleased track: the band’s never-before-heard version of “White Christmas.” As frontman Andy Babiuk explains:

“We did a lot of obscure recordings that came out on vinyl and CDs on various labels but very few were ever printed. For the first time we’ve compiled all of these recordings and we’re glad that they are finally coming out digitally remastered for everyone to check out. One unreleased track we found is a recording of the classic ‘White Christmas’ that we were asked to record for the film Christmas With The Kranks. They used the song ‘Hey Santa Claus’ that we wrote for the movie, but not ‘White Christmas,’ so this is the first time that this never released Chesterfield Kings’ version of the Christmas classic can be heard!”

Featuring covers of The Kinks, The Lyres, and others, Loose Ends captures the raw energy and spirit that have always defined The Chesterfield Kings.

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