Archives

Looking ahead: July-August 2016

[Blood Orange - Freetown - Sound]

The Favorite Edition 2016 list will be published next week, and if it’s any indication, the release schedule for the rest of the year will probably not be terribly impressive.

James Blake, The Colour in Anything, July 1

Blake dropped this album many weeks back, and I’ve listened to it enough times to make me question whether I would really want to own a physical copy of it. Does it really need to have 17 tracks and be more than an hour long? A lot of interesting things happening on the album, and as many things that induce sleep.

YEN TOWN BAND, diverse journey, July 20

I wonder what prompted YEN TOWN BAND to reunite after 19 years. The band is actually fictional — CHARA played the role of Glico in the film Swallowtail, in which she led a group called YEN TOWN BAND. MONTAGE is probably one of my favorite CHARA-related albums.

Faith No More, We Care a Lot (Deluxe Edition), Aug. 19

I’m hoping a reissue of Introduce Yourself becomes an eventual reality.

Blood Orange, Freetown Sound, Aug. 19

I think Dev Hynes is responsible for softening my decades-long dim view of Michael Jackson.

Cocco, Adan Ballet, Aug. 24

Cocco has added stage and screen to her résumé as author and singer. So it’s no surprise the gaps between albums have gotten longer in the last few years. That makes Adan Ballet remarkable for coming out a year and 2 months since Plan C.

De La Soul, And the Anonymous Nobody, Aug. 26

I haven’t gotten through that backlog of De La Soul albums the trio offered for giving them my e-mail address.

Vinyl

Dead Can Dance, Dead Can Dance, July 8
Dead Can Dance, Spleen and Ideal, July 8
Dead Can Dance, Into the Labyrinth, July 8

I can haz Aion and Spiritchaser reissued on vinyl?

Madonna, Like a Prayer, July 12

Second-hand copies of the self-titled album, Like a Virgin and True Blue can be found for reasonable prices. Like a Prayer, on the other hand, is a bit harder to find, which makes it probably the only recent reissue worth getting.

XTC, Skylarking (Deluxe Edition), July 12
XTC, English Settlement (Deluxe Edition), July 12

Andy Partridge’s reissue label APE House is not messing around with these reissues, and the prices for them reflect that.

Sonic Youth, Murray Street, July 15

The release date for this reissue is a moving target. I imagine it will show up the next time I write this round-up.

Prince, Sign O the Times, Aug. 23
Prince, Lovesexy, Oct. 18
Prince, Graffiti Bridge, Nov. 22
Prince, Love Symbol Album, Dec. 13

I know I want to get the Love Symbol Album on vinyl. I’m partial to getting Lovesexy if I don’t find a used copy before then. I’m on the fence about Sign O the Times and Graffiti Bridge. And I’m disappointed The Black Album reissue was canceled.

John Zorn, Naked City, Aug. 26

I won’t tell you how much I spent on an original pressing of this album. So if you want it on vinyl, place your pre-order now!

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Looking Ahead: October 2015

[XTC - Oranges and Lemons]

The fall release schedule probably means a lot more to listeners far younger than myself, but I don’t really see much beyond these albums  — and ones previously reported — about which to get excited.

Rufus Wainwright, Prima Donna, Oct. 2

The bar for rock stars composing classical music is set low enough that exercises for first-year composition students in a conservatory become amazing acts of achievement. See Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel. Wainwright, however, really loves opera, and his songwriting already shows a strong predilection for storytelling.

Glenn Gould, Remastered: The Complete Album Collection, Oct. 9

Back in May 2015, I picked up the soundtrack to Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, a movie I hadn’t seen since college.  Listening to the soundtrack made me crave to watch it again, and after getting the DVD, I’ve picked up a few Gould recordings from the used vinyl bins. I don’t think I’m enough of a fan to drop $200+ on this set, but it would be tempting.

XTC, Oranges and Lemons (Deluxe Edition), Oct. 23

Oranges and Lemons was the first XTC album I owned, although I like Skylarking and the Dukes of the Stratosphear’s Psonic Psunspot more.

Igor Stravinsky, The Complete Album Collection, Oct. 30

On the same day Duran Duran dropped that stinker of an album known as Red Carpet Massacre, I bought a 42-disc budget boxed set of Igor Stravisnky conducting his own works. This remastered collection promises another 15 discs of material. That budget set was $40 and had the barest minimum packaging it could muster. Don’t know if I can justify spending 5 times as much if I’m pretty much going to rip them anyway. But yeah … tempting …

Dolly Parton / Linda Ronstadt / Emmylou Harris, Complete Trio Collection, TBD

Linda Ronstadt pretty much ruled out another Trio album when she revealed she had Parkinson’s disease. So this collection remasters the two Trio albums and adds a third disc of outtakes and rarities. Oct. 16 had originally been reported as the release date, but now no date has been set.

Delays

Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 4, Jan. 22, 2016

Originally scheduled for Sept. 25 and then Oct. 16, Nonesuch’s recording of Górecki’s posthumous symphony has now been pushed back to January 2016.

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