VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings is proud to announce the release of The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection, which spotlights Charlie Parker’s groundbreaking bebop sessions for the legendary jazz label, spanning 1944 to 1948. The deluxe, four-LP box set—also available digitally—features newly restored and remastered audio, faithfully reproduced artwork from the original 10-inch albums, plus a booklet containing vintage photos, rare ephemera and new liner notes from GRAMMY® Award-winning journalist and author Neil Tesser.
These historic recordings, reissued as the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of Parker’s birth, feature such jazz greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Set for a February 28th release date, The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection is available for pre-order today (1/8), while the instant grat single, “Ko-Ko,” can now be streamed or downloaded on all major digital outlets. “Ko-Ko” was one of Bird’s early masterpieces and his first recording as a leader. In 2003, “Ko-Ko” was added to the National Recording Registry, categorized as a recording that is, “Culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.”
When saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker and his contemporaries introduced bebop in the ’40s, they were ushering in a bold new style that would influence modern music for decades to come. Nowadays, as Neal Tesser argues in the box set’s liner notes, it’s easy to forget that bebop was considered avant-garde. “Bebop undergirds such a vast swath of American music that its revolutionary nature recedes into the background. It is now so familiar and comfortable, such an ever-present part of the family history, that non-historians can hardly envision it ever being ‘revolutionary.’”
NEW RELEASE PICK: Animal Collective, Ballet Slippers (Domino) Yes, this came out in November (it all seems so long ago, now), but a little thing called Black Friday went down and then two weeks later TVD unveiled our Best of the Year. Ballet Slippers is also a long one, three LPs in fact, so it didn’t get the necessary attention until the holiday break. And it was time well spent, as this live collection from 2009, with a heavy emphasis on Merriweather Post Pavilion (assembled from four shows to hit like a full performance), connected with my memory banks like a punch from Ali. It’s been over ten years since this stuff unraveled in the air, but Ballet Slippers, peppered as it is with selections reaching back to 2002, really underscores the ’00s as Animal Collective’s decade. Simultaneously warped and accessible. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: The Revillos!, From the Freezer, Compendium of Weird, Live from the Orient (Damaged Goods) Formed by vocalists Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife after the breakup of the Scottish ’77 punk era act The Rezillos, this outfit’s initial run was 1979-’85. The 20-track comp From the Freezer (CD only, as it was upon first release in 1996, though this edition is a gatefold digipak with booklet) details their existence quite well. I resisted simply calling them ’77 punk, and that’s because they (and the band that preceded them) didn’t conform to the music’s angry standard, though they do fall into a fun-loving niche of the period; at times, it’s like early Blondie and the B-52’s morphed into another band. There are also a few Joe Meek-ish motions and a Crampsian love of junky youth culture.
The thing about this band (with either the z or the v) is that they were consistently so revved up and loudly amped that it always felt punk enough for me. And thus it remains. As you might’ve gleaned, they’ve gathered something of a following, and Compendium of Weird (which is out on vinyl, though the CD adds two cuts for a 17-track total) is an extensive dig into the vaults. It should come as no surprise that Compendium isn’t as consistently sharp as Freezer, but the number of cuts that should’ve stayed in the can (like the head-scratching pop move “Heaven Fell”) number very few, and the cover selections, including “Cool Jerk,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” and “ Do You Love Me,” nicely reinforce their ’60s-derived foundational inspiration.
Long-posthumous clearinghouse comps can instill worry, especially in punk territory, but Compendium holds it together. A much bigger fear is the emergence of reunion material, and there are few places where that sorta thing can get more horrific than in the punk zone. The big difference in the case of Live from the Orient is that it indeed captures The Revillos in performance, specifically during a Japanese visit in 1994 (the first time they’d gotten back together since ’85). initially released in much shorter form in ’96 on the Vinyl Japan label, the source tapes, which for a while were effectively lost, were partially salvaged by guitarist Kid Krupa prior to his passing, with the job finished by drummer Rocky Rhythm. Amped and energetic, the results blow the doors off expectations. 21 tracks, 18 on the vinyl. A- / B / B+
Pittsburgh, PA | Longtime Pittsburgh Record Store Closing: The store has been around for nearly 25 years. After nearly a quarter of a century, Dave’s Music Mine on Carson Street in the South Side will be closing soon. A store employee confirmed Tuesday that this week is the last that Dave’s will be open on weekdays, although it is expected to be open on weekends for several months. According to Dave’s website, the store debuted in 1996. Originally called Jerry’s Music Market, the store was located on the second floor next to McDonald’s on Forbes Avenue in Oakland. After expanding to five locations, Dave’s scaled back to just the South Side store in 2008; the Carson Street location has been around since 1999. Dave’s will be at least 
London, UK | Put the needle back down: Digital streaming services are leading music fans into a new decade, but the warm and fuzzy tones of the analog past haven’t been quietly fading away. For example, Billie Eilish, the 18-year-old alt-pop superstar who skyrocketed to success in the back half of the 2010s, ended 2019 by releasing a live, direct-to-acetate LP recorded at Jack White’s Third Man Records that was only made available in two American cities, Nashville and Detroit. If you can get your hands on a copy, the disc comes with Eilish’s own hand-drawn art —not a perk fans will get with their Spotify subscription. Eilish is going against the grain (and that’s her MO), but not without tapping into a trend that’s poised to break records in 2020. According to music journalist Alan Cross, who reports weekly music sales on his blog A Journal of Musical Things, Canadians bought 973,891 pieces of brand new vinyl in 2019, an increase of 3.1 per cent compared to the year before. “That’s a healthy 15 per cent of the total number of albums sold,” Cross wrote at the end of December, noting that number doesn’t include 
Record Store Day announces 2020 event date: We’ve officially entered 2020, and our favorite day devoted solely to vinyl is almost here. Record Store Day took to social media today to unveil the 2020 date making us and fellow vinyl lovers all the more stoked for April. “Save the date,” the Record Store Day twitter account posted. 
Bury, UK | ‘HMV is here to stay’ despite store closures says Bury manager: Bosses at a Bury record store have said they are still going strong and will be sticking around after rumours that the shop might be leaving town. Steve Toolan, manager at HMV Bury, took to social media on Saturday to reject fears that the music retailer could be on the verge of shutting. He also thanked loyal HMV customers for their support over a “difficult year”. Speaking to the Bury Times, Mr Toolan said he was disappointed following rumours that Bury’s was among the slew of stores mooted for closure and expected to shut up shop in the coming months. “It is in fact our store in Bury St Edmunds that will be closing,” he added. “Obviously, we feel really bad for the manager Simon and all his staff in that branch who are at risk of redundancy. “We would like to assure all our fantastic customers that we are 
