Squelching house, driving fusion, a floating pig and plenty of Linus & Lucy ice skating.
An absolutely essential piece of tech/house history this week with Berlin's uncompromising Tresor records starting a series of special reissues of the entire Drexciya and related projects catalogue. Drexciya was an American electronic music duo from Detroit, Michigan, consisting of James Stinson and Gerald Donald. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of James Stinson and feels like a poignant time to revisit these seminal works that undoubtedly inspired generations. Neptune's Lair has it all! Drive, change of pace, tone, texture, squelch; it’s just an entire world in a record. Amazing stuff. Detroit-based contemporary artist Matthew Angelo Harrison has re-conceptualised all of the covers and this reissue feels like a proper artefact.
The Mescaleros Years is the second edition in BMG’s lavish Joe Strummer reappraisals and the first comprehensive collection highlighting the intense period of creativity between 1999 and 2002. The 7LP and 4CD sets bring together the albums Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (1999), Global A Go-Go (2001), the posthumous Streetcore (2003), and Vibes Compass, a brand-new compilation of 15 B-sides and rarities. All albums are remastered by Grammy Award winner Paul Hicks and the sets include extensive new liner notes and interviews.
Pretty sure that we said this when I Should Coco and In It for the Money were reissued, but Supergrass are, were and will always be one of our favourite bands over here at Drift! The band’s eponymous third album is pressed up (including Indie Exclusive Neon Orange colour vinyl) for the first time in ages, possibly since its release in 1999? Three huge singles, but it’s all the warm experimentalism in between that drives that album and makes this one such a treat.
Be With Records come up trumps again this week with more gold from the Ian Carr / Nucleus vaults. Originally released on Vertigo in 1973, Labyrinth was never re-pressed and is something of a mythical quest for the crate diggers, with Madlib being known to be a fan. Beat-heavy, it is some of the darkest music from their esteemed catalogue. The following year (also Vertigo, also rarer than hen’s teeth) saw Under The Sun, more of a melodic and swooning fusion affair. Both are so rich, it’s been such a joy to really dive into these amazing albums over the last few years.
Following last month’s 1997 repress, Ash’s number one selling Free All Angels album gets a handsome 2022 edition on vivid Yellow and Clear Splatter colour vinyl.
The 2018 edition of Pink Floyd’s Animals is back on vinyl this week. The DVD/Blu-Ray editions include the 5.1 Surround mix. The LP is in a nice gatefold sleeve and for this new release, the artwork has been re-designed for the modern era by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, the studio partner of Storm Thorgerson who worked closely with the band and created the original.
A jazz triplet to finish this week, firstly with saxophonist Joe Lovano’s sublime 2003 album I’m All For You: Ballad Songbook. A really graceful album of timeless melodies. All-analog, this is mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes.
To mark the 65th anniversary of John Coltrane’s iconic Blue Train album, Blue Note have released two special editions as part of the acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile series. It is available as a single mono pressing and also as a deluxe double LP edition that features seven alternate and incomplete takes, none of which have been released previously on vinyl, and four of which have never been released before on any format. This release was also mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes and sounds absolutely incredible.
Lastly this week, only the (second) best-selling freaking Jazz album of all time!!!
We’re wistfully looking through the forthcoming Autumn months and getting ready for A Charlie Brown Christmas with the Vince Guaraldi Trio. The iconic, beautiful and all-time essential album has a positively delicious set of pressings for 2022, with a gold foil sleeve edition the first to drop this week. A “Snowball White” colour vinyl edition follows shortly, as does deluxe double LP and super deluxe CD box set editions that include a new and previously unreleased take of “Skating” amongst many others, plus comprehensive new liner notes and other wonderful ephemera.
Not that anyone questioned this, but it is categorically the best thing about Christmas!
- Drift