Record Time: New & Notable Vinyl Releases (April 2023)

Ramones: Pleasant Dreams (The New York Mixes) (Sire / Rhino)

The official version of Pleasant Dreams, released in 1981, was decent but cumbersome with producer Graham Gouldman attacking the initial session recordings with overdubs and after-effects that drained the Ramones’ tunes of some of their vigor and spitfire assault. This RSD release does a great service to the material by taking away all the bells and whistles Gouldman slapped on at his studios in England. The resulting LP is raw and powerful, even when the songs don’t necessarily reach the same level of greatness as heard on the five albums the group had released previously. “All’s Quiet on the Western Front” has a renewed snarl while the power pop gem “She’s a Sensation” becomes as immediate and forceful as the group’s legendary live sets. I’ve never known any other version of this album so, for me, this is revelatory. But I can definitely see some fans getting their hackles raised at trying to mess with the historical record in the manner of Let It Be… Naked. Your mileage may vary but I think this is a great counterargument.

Rich Kids: Ghosts of Princes in Towers (Parlophone)

Not long after he was unceremoniously booted from the Sex Pistols, bassist Glen Matlock turned right around and hooked up with guitarists Midge Ure and Steve New, and drummer Rusty Egan, to form Rich Kids, a snotty punk combo to rival anything coming out of the U.K. in the late ’70s. At the time, the group didn’t connect with folks in spite of their punchy, poppy sound mining the same territory as Buzzcocks and Dr. Feelgood. The years have been kind to their lone studio album. It has grown in stature among punk enthusiasts, which makes its first-ever U.S. reissue seem both exciting and like a ridiculous oversight. Produced by former Spider From Mars Mick Ronson, the 11 tracks here are unrelentingly catchy and defined by an energy and attitude that will quickly shatter your resolve and any sense of cool you may be holding on to.

Yes: Live at Knoxville Civic Auditorium, Knoxville, Tennessee November 15, 1972 (Rhino / Atlantic)

Last year, Yes released a limited vinyl boxed set featuring recordings of seven shows from their 1972 North American tour. For Record Store Day this year, the group plucked one of those gigs — their mid-November appearance at Knoxville’s Civic Auditorium — for a standalone vinyl version. A fine choice as this performance showcases Yes at their vibrant, proggiest best, expanding on the promise of the five albums they had released to that point. The renditions of both side-long suites from the then-new album Close to the Edge are electrifying, and the equally epic “Heart of the Sunrise” hits like the wave of a blast furnace. The group was brimming with so much confidence that they even gave space for Rick Wakeman to preview the music from his first solo effort The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Here’s hoping that this is only the beginning and that new pressings of the other six shows in that ’72 set are on the horizon.

The White Stripes: Elephant (Third Man)

The world outside garage rock obsessives caught up with the White Stripes around 2001 courtesy of a certain Lego video that wound up in heavy rotation on MTV. Seizing the moment, Jack and Meg White turned around with Elephant, an undeniably accessible and varied LP that ventured into tender Young Marble Giants territory (“In The Cold, Cold Night”) and added Queen-like vocal harmonics (“There’s No Room for You Here”) and thudding post-punk into their blues-rock repertoire. As a result, the band’s fame exploded and carried the duo forth into arenas for the next few years. This 20th anniversary reissue was, then, inevitable. As was the well considered way it has been re-released on vinyl. The version we received for review is the bare bones colored wax edition with some nice raised lettering on the back sleeve and rich mastering work. You can also spring for a more deluxe set that is being released as part of Third Man’s Vault series, but you’d better snap to it as those tend to sell out quickly.

Acid Arab: ٣ (Trois) (Crammed Discs)

Calling Acid Arab a “dance music collective” is technically true. Their music incorporates a variety of club-ready style (house, techno, big beat) and there seems to be an open door policy welcome in collaborators from throughout the North African and Middle Eastern diaspora. But it’s a descriptor that misses the larger picture of what this French-Algerian group gets up to. The singers that they chose for their latest album, like Cheb Halim, Ghizlane Melih and Rachid Taha, touch on centuries old traditions of bringing charged political content and thoughtful poetics into their lyrics and performances. On opening track “Leila,” Sofiane Saidi does so with a lovely elegy to his experiences as an immigrant in France and the people that nurtured him, and Sudanese Wael Alkak makes his feelings plain on “Ya Mahla,” offering up a “salute to the Arab revolutionaries.” Leave the words behind, and you’ve still got one hell of a party starter. But to do so would be a disservice to these brilliant artists from the global pop scene and would reject the importance of the crucial messages they impart on this wonderful album.

Aksak Maboul: Une aventure de VV (Songspiel) (Crammed Discs)

The fifth album by far-ranging Belgian avant-pop project Aksak Maboul exists in near defiance to our current playlist culture. A quasi-mythical tale dreamed up by the group’s leader Marc Hollander and vocalist / lyricist Véronique Vincent is meant to be consumed in one 60+ sitting, letting the various chapters and movements of a person’s odyssey through a natural wonderland play out in total, with no interruptions. That makes the decision to press it to vinyl, forcing listeners to break from the spell this album is casting once each side of the double LP runs out, seem a little strange. But at least they make the physical version worth getting a hold of. The record is enticingly packaged with a nice thick booklet that tracks the beats of the story along with some impressive illustrations and photos. And, of course, there’s a download code included so you can hear the full suite of electronic minimalism, shoegaze experimentalism and modern classical freakiness as intended.

Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood: Tête-à-tête (Ergot)

Composer Ruth Anderson was set to take a year-long sabbatical from her role as director of Hunter College’s Electronic Music Studio in 1973 and, after being connected by an acquaintance, offered the role to sound artist Annea Lockwood. When they finally met in person, their attraction to each other was immediate. Thus began a romantic relationship that lasted nearly five decades. This new release from Ergot Records serves to honor their partnership as well as pay tribute to Anderson who passed away due to lung cancer in 2019. The jewel of this vinyl set is “Conversations,” a 13-minute piece Anderson made as a gift to Lockwood using snippets of their phone calls and bits of piano music. It’s blushingly intimate at times, particularly in the closing moments featuring a collage of tender farewells, but a lovely portrait of how love can blossom in those small moments. Also included is one of Anderson’s last electronic works from 1984, a minimalist drone piece that hits almost subsonic levels and another piece by Lockwood made after her wife’s death that, again, uses other pieces of those phone chats and field recordings, including some made at Anderson’s resting place in Flathead Lake.

Paul B. Cutler: Les Fleurs (In The Red)

Former 45 Grave and Dream Syndicate guitarist Paul B. Cutler wasn’t planning on releasing an album. He was happily retired from both making music and his job as art director at concert promotion company Goldenvoice. But after working a bit with embattled singer-songwriter Ryan Adams on some nascent material that made excellent use of his signature caustic guitar sound, he dropped some tunes on YouTube. Fans and friends went nuts and urged him to see this through. He was soon fleshing the songs out with the help of old friend Brad Laner and it is now out in the world on a gorgeous double LP set. Living inside Cutler’s noise rock visions is like having one’s body and soul slowly and pleasantly eaten away by acid and rust. He frequently keeps his voice to an insinuating, sensual whisper to draw listeners to their eventual sonic corrosion with seductive ease.

dragonchild: dragonchild (FPE)

DA Mekonnen, the Ethiopian artist best known for his work as a member of Debo Band, is going all out with the vinyl release of his first album as musical alter ego dragonchild. It comes as a four LP set that features an eight-channel mix of “Meditation (Ancestor),” the closing saxophone drone piece, spread over each of the discs. So to hear it properly, listeners will need to pull a Zaireeka and spin all four at the same time. I love this idea because it brings back the long gone feeling of the collective listening experience — of getting music nerd friends together to listen to the new records they’ve all purchased. Vinyl collecting can often be such an isolated and isolating thing. Why not bring more people into the fun this way? Too, it affords them the chance to hear more of this varied album that features Afrobeat throwdowns next to ambient work next to sun-dappled electro.

Marc Ducret: Palm Sweat – Marc Ducret Plays the Music of Tim Berne (Out of Your Head)

Guitarist Marc Ducret is a longtime collaborator and friend of saxophonist / composer Tim Berne, having been a member of the latter’s groups Snakeoil, Bloodcount and others. They make a fitting pair as both push their chosen instruments (and those of the folks they are writing for) beyond what seems possible. This album is the perfect representation of their efforts. Each piece written by Berne — all new to this recording — feel like traditional jazz that has had all of its familiar trapping chipped away roughly. Rhythm has largely been left on the workshop floor as have any real hooks. What we are left with are shards of melody broken up by smooth drones and razor sharp fragments of noise. Ducret dives into each piece fearlessly, his guitar plucked and pulled as if it is about to come apart at any second. By the final side, the dust has settled and a blues track comes creeping out of the thicket. It’s a disorienting moment that, like much of the album, still surprises me no matter how many times I’ve spun this record.

Forest: Forest (BBE Music)

Western Mass. group Forest was made up of the kind of lifer musicians that I love. The hyper talented players who happily grab whatever gigs are on offer, racking up hours in the studio and on the road while never quite tipping over the edge into the abyss of fame. During their time together, Forest had a steady performance schedule and plum spots opening up for bigger bands touring through New England. They did make a shot at the big time, releasing a private press album in 1978 featuring a batch of originals that touched on AOR funk, country soul and smoothed out acid rock. Their efforts were for naught but in time crate diggers saw the true value in original pressings of their lone full-length. It became a collectors item commanding hundreds of dollars online and in shops. BBE Music has helped stem the wave of demand with this wonderful double LP reissue that combines the original release with a half-dozen unreleased tracks that compound the disappointment that Forest never got a chance to battle the Isley Brothers and Average White Band for a shot at the pop charts.

Love and Rockets: Earth Sun Moon / Love and Rockets (Beggars Arkive)

Last December saw the release of a boxed set featuring the first six studio albums that post-punk trio Love and Rockets made during their fabulous, checkered existence. Kindly, Beggars Arkive has been slowly issuing standalone versions of each record on clean black wax — a nice precursor to the tour that the band is about to undertake. The latest releases in this series are the two records responsible for L&R’s commercial zenith. 1987’s Earth Sun Moon boasted a pair of songs (“Mirror People” and “No New Tale to Tell”) that landed in heavy rotation on college radio and tastemaking MTV program 120 Minutes. But it was 1989’s self-titled album that produced “So Alive,” the sultry tune that landed the group their lone Top 10 single in the U.S. If this is your first go round with the band, come for the hits and stick around for the brilliance that accompanies them. Earth brings the inspiration of psych-folk into their soupy dub rock atmospherics, while the self-titled disc lets their glam influences shine through in a manner that they hadn’t dared since the members split off from Bauhaus.

Mary Mundy: Mother Nature / Roslyn & Charles: Everything Must Change (Real Gone Music)

Reissue label Real Gone Music have dug deep into the disco / R&B archives for this pair of releases — both of which were released in small numbers at the start of the ’80s and now command triple digits on the resale market. Not much seems to be known about Mary Mundy, the vocalist whose album Mother Nature was issued on the tiny label Image in 1980. And it sounds as though she and her team were trying to prove how adept she was at a variety of Black musical styles, from sexpot disco to glammy hip-swivelers to steamy balladry. It might have served her commercial prospects better to stick to one lane but this album wouldn’t have been nearly as fun if she did. Where Mundy aimed her music for the body, Roslyn & Charles had the spirits of their listeners in mind. Their 1981 album is a soul gospel burner that finds new life in the age-old “Amazing Grace” and dares to go for a disco throwdown on the high-powered “Come Go With Me.”

The Natural Lines: The Natural Lines (Bella Union)

When last we met this project, it was known as Matt Pond PA and by the time of their last full-length, 2020’s Songs of Disquiet, the band had built a healthy discography of melodic indie rock that easily held up the weight of its titular leader’s songs of personal unease and spiritual longing. Three years on, Pond is taking a much larger leap of faith by changing the name of his group and, as he’s said in the press notes for this self-titled album, not hurrying to get new music out. His measured approach is palpable throughout this record. The songs maintain a calm mid-tempo pace and Pond sounds more at ease than ever before even as he explores his frustration at the folks blocking his parking place or enjoying the glow of streetlights as he works on his songs at night. And by continuing to work with some key collaborators from his recent history, like multi-instrumentalist Chris Hansen and his partner Anya Marina, Pond maintains a warm familial vibe as if these songs came out whole cloth during a mid-afternoon jam with friends and neighbors.

Newski: Friend Rock (Nomad Union)

I would kill to have Bret Newski’s phone contacts. When putting together his latest album, he called on a different person to collaborate on each track. And not just his buddies from the Milwaukee music community. The guest list includes Guster’s Ryan Miller, Matthew Caws of Nada Surf, Verve Pipe leader Brian Vander Ark and some international acts like the Shabs from South Africa and H Burns from France. What could have been a mess of too many cooks is kept on course by Newski’s firm artistic vision. The album flows perfectly from one melodic power pop to the next with little loss in momentum or hooky presence. Newski calls it a “revival of ’90s alternative” but I feel like it’s far more than that. Friend Rock is the kind of record that could have been made any time within the last 55 years. Take this back to the days of the British Invasion and it would be a chart-topping sensation. In our modern era, this will fall into the hands of power pop enthusiasts of the world and blow their tiny minds and expensive speakers.

Bill Orcutt: Jump On It (Palilalia)

The ever-prolific Bill Orcutt returns this month with an album of solo acoustic guitar numbers recorded, I believe, in his own living room. Not an unusual practice for a player such as this, but it is the first time in a decade that the Bay Area artist has released a collection of acoustic material. In the intervening years, he’s been content to strangle his electric guitar into new shapes either on his own or with fellow musical nomads like Tashi Dorji and Chris Corsano. That 10-year stretch feels like it has impacted his acoustic playing in that this collection is one of his calmest and most beautiful. Orcutt allows his voice to creep into the mix, either droning countermelodies during more charged moments or simply in the deep breathing he engages in as he plays. Too, even his most fleet-fingered runs tend to conclude on a note of resolution rather than discord. This doesn’t come across as a deliberate attempt at accessibility in hopes of reaching a wider audience. It feels like the natural extension of a player and a person reacting to the chaos of the world and the tumult of his other music. He needs these moments of serenity as much as we do.

V/A: Pacific Breeze 3: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1975-1987 (Light in the Attic)

One of Light in the Attic’s most adored series of compilations — Pacific Breeze — returned in February with a third collection of glossy pop from Japan that was created as a reflection of a period of great economic prosperity in the country. These slick danceable tunes were the sound of what folks were supposed to aspire to: giddy love scenes played out in a neon-lit club or in the leather seats of a luxury automobile. Curators Yosuke Kitazawa and Mark McNeill drew from a deep well of sounds for this set. In the mix this time around are famed shibuya-kei act Pizzicato Five, synth enchanter Osamu Shoji, jazz fusion act Parachute and a variety of pop chanteuses like Teresa Nada, Miho Fujiwara and Naomi Akimoto. If you don’t know any of those names now, one spin of this set will have you filling up your Discogs wishlist with city pop rarities.

The Len Price 3: Chinese Burn (Wicked Cool)

Little Steven has been doing the Lord’s work keeping the sounds of Nuggets-style psych pop alive through his weekly radio show, his SiriusXM channel and his own record label, Wicked Cool. As part of his efforts, he has saved British band the Len Price 3 from potential oblivion by issuing two of their full-lengths and reissuing their 2005 debut Chinese Burn first on CD and now on vinyl. Steven’s attraction to this group is obvious from the jump. The record is a straight shot of garage pop, chased by some punk histrionics and gentle psychedelic leanings. Even as it slows down a touch here and there for more tender moments like “The Last Hotel,” Chinese Burn seems to fly by, powered by a volatile mixture of ale, nicotine and only lightly masked disgust at the world around them.

Dan Rosenboom: Polarity (Orenda)

The ensemble that joined forces to record Polarity came together at ETA, a musical proving ground in Los Angeles where trumpeter Dan Rosenboom has been holding regular improvisation summits. One jam session was all it took for these five players to recognize how well they complement one another. Soon the group was in a studio, knocking out performances of Rosenboom’s striving original work and dazzling group compositions. The finished album is an intricate web of ideas and styles, with each player challenging the rest to match their virtuosity and conceptual bravado. “War Money,” for example, is an appropriately blustery assault, driven by drummer Damion Reid’s rapid-fire fills that pianist John Escreet attempts to replicate with Cecil Taylor-like percussiveness. Later, “On Summoning the Will,” a piece Rosenboom wrote in honor of his wife’s successful battle with cancer, the group quilts together chords and notes into a soft, warming embrace. With any luck this is only the beginning of fruitful collaboration between these players.

Shizuka: Heavenly Persona (Black Editions)

By all accounts, Shizuka Miura floated through the Japanese music community like a dandelion seed. She made haunted, beautiful music that could be as fragile as a thin sheet of ice or as solid as granite. At home, Miura would craft dolls that balanced the adorable and the unsettling. She produced a number of those figures but during her sadly abbreviated life, she only managed to make a lone full-length in 1994 that quickly fell out-of-print. This story makes the work that Black Editions put into reissuing Heavenly Persona in a deluxe vinyl package all the more monumental. The new release stretches the music out to three sides of wax, with an etching on the unused side of the second disc. The remaster is breathtaking, catching all the nuances of Shizuka’s dynamic vocals and amplifies the often assaultive tone of her husband Maki’s guitar playing. And, perhaps more importantly, this set includes a English translation of the last interview Shizuka gave — a conversation that takes on far greater resonance in the wake of her death by suicide in 2010.