We are firmly getting back to the not-new business.
Hello, Friends.
Originally released on April Fools Day 2003, The White Stripes celebrate 20 years of Elephant this week with a very handsome 2023 edition. It has all aged phenomenally well, with the rawness and clattering ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’ alongside the pounding ‘Seven Nation Army’. As the iconic David Fricke wrote at the time, it’s “a work of pulverizing perfection.”
A really nice job by Third Man, with a limited Red Smoke / Clear with Red & Black Smoke double vinyl edition.
Back in press for the first time in a few years is World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane on Luaka Bop. An absolute masterpiece of spiritual/devotional music, it is a compilation of music that was originally only available via private press cassette tapes. One of our Records of the Year back in 2017.
Born Under A Bad Sign is the absolutely seminal 1967 LP from Mississippi-born “King of the Blues Guitar” Albert King. Originally released on Stax, the compilation is from two sessions with in-house backing bands Booker T. & the M.G.s and the Memphis Horns. Pure fire.
We have a thirty-and-a-bit year anniversary pressing of Dr. Dre’s era-defining The Chronic this week. The album was his post N.W.A solo debut LP - released on Death Row Records - but featured loads of guests, with Snoop Dogg being all over it. Heavy and double.
Two really good releases this week to under the Blue Note ‘Classic Vinyl Series’, with Jamaican-born trumpeter Dizzy Reece’s 1960 Star Bright, and trumpeter Johnny Coles’ Little Johnny C. A really fast moving sextet under Coles’ direction and Star Bright really is a hard-bopper with a pretty-wild band.
As ever, really great restoration work with both albums in stereo; all-analogue mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.
We have a legit classic on a special Light in the Attic pressing in the racks, with Lou Reed’s second solo album, Transformer. Produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, it was a post Velvets reinvention and remains weird and wonderful.
+ Pressed on very limited edition Bronze colour vinyl.
Lastly, we also have a repress of Soulwax's thrilling 2004 LP Any Minute Now, but it’s so limited we probably shouldn’t even mention it.
- Drift