Justin Townes Earle – All In: Unreleased & Rarities (The New West Years) (New West)
When a unique artist dies tragically young, it’s natural to yearn for more music. Four years after the loss of Justin Townes Earle, All In: Unreleased & Rarities (The New West Years) provides a set of rarities, demos, and live cuts, but there’s much more here than simply the requisite posthumous filler. Earle was in top form as a songwriter, and All In works not only as a memorial or an academic look at his process but as a standalone music set. Removed from its context, the collection would still be a stellar set of roots music played across various styles. There’s nearly an album’s worth of new material ready to go, and it plays as such.
The demos for “Appalachian Nightmare” and “Over Alameda” offer insight but stand up as their own recordings. The covers work thanks to Earle’s ability to find his voice even within well-known songs like “Glory Days” and “Dreams”. This type of release so often feels like just one more chance for fans to grab onto something, but All In stands out as being a serious collection of real and affecting music, surely made more powerful by the context of its release, but noteworthy and wonderful simply on its own merits. – Justin Cober-Lake
East Village – Drop Out (Deluxe Edition) (Heavenly)
For fans and collectors, this edition of East Village’s Drop Out is a Holy Grail obtained. For everyone else, it is a chance to experience one of the all-time great British indie guitar albums from the style’s golden age. The London quartet’s only LP was recorded in 1990, but the group split up before it could even be mixed. Finally released three years later, it was lost amid grunge and techno. Yet the music – wistful, romantic, highly melodic yet inventive – is right there with the best of the Smiths and the Stone Roses. Even 30 years ago, it must have sounded nostalgic, and now it seems like a warm, welcome window to an era when strumming a vintage Rickenbacker was a rite of passage. This Deluxe Edition includes the original Drop Out as well as the sought-after early singles compilation Hot Rod Hotel. Prior to it, people paid up to hundreds of dollars for this music, and it isn’t difficult to hear why. – John Bergstrom
Bryan Ferry – Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 (BMG)
For over five decades, Bryan Ferry has been rock and roll’s most alluring flaneur. His cosmopolitan observations of love and urban life and the delights of fleeting moments and long-lasting affairs seduce the listener whether he covers old classics or presents self-penned ditties that possess the patina of age. He can make songs from the 1920s and 1930s sound modern and vice versa in the best sense. This five-CD, 81-song retrospective contains the broad swath of Ferry’s oeuvre, from renditions of romantic standards from the Great American Songbook like Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When” to the hot and heavy self-penned disco rumblings of “Slave to Love”. The boxset also includes his first new music in over a decade, two songs including a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Star”.
This retrospective includes material from a variety of labels: Island Records, Polydor, Virgin, E.G. Records, and BMG. The five-CD deluxe box set contains a 100-page hardback book containing extensive new liner notes, rare and unseen photographs, and imagery. There is also a two-LP gatefold edition that presents “The Best of 20” songs pressed to black vinyl with variants including a green/blue vinyl pressing and a clear vinyl pressing. A one-CD version also features the same 20 songs and a booklet containing liner notes and photographs. The five-CD set includes rare and unreleased material such as B-sides, extras, curiosities, and outtakes such as a version of John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” originally planned for a Yoko Ono tribute to her late husband that was never released. – Steve Horowitz
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru – Souvenirs (Mississippi)
In 2023, Ethiopian nun Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru passed away at the age of 99, leaving behind a body of over 150 original compositions and, thankfully for us, a substantial collection of her own recordings from the 1960s onward. One of the first Ethiopian girls to move overseas for education, Gebru spent much of her childhood in Switzerland, where her studies included Western classical violin and piano education. While her instrumental works have garnered international interest over the last decades thanks to compilation series like Éthiopiques and Rough Guides, her vocal performances have been largely unavailable to listeners worldwide.
Out on Mississippi Records, Souvenirs changes that with eight pieces Gebru recorded in the 1970s and 1980s for her family and self-released in 2013. Like all her music, the dreamy works on Souvenirs sparkle and the addition of her unassuming voice grounds the ethereal sounds of her keys in an enriching sense of humanity. – Adriane Pontecorvo
Margo Guryan – Words and Music (Numero Group)
Margo Guryan was the personification of sophisticated chamber-pop songcraft and 1960s cool, an artist who made a baroque pop masterpiece that was completely ignored at the time of its release but is now enshrined alongside touchstones of the idiom like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle. Now, Numero Group has just released a three-LP box set compiling the work of this late, great singer and songwriter, Words and Music.
From her humble beginnings as a struggling jazz songwriter to the peak of her 1968 baroque pop masterpiece Take a Picture, from her acclaimed collection of long-unreleased 1970s creations Demos to the recent viral ubiquity of her “Why Do I Cry”, this box set captures the entirety of Guryan’s career, including 16 previously unreleased recordings and 32 pages of expertly curated liner notes and images. Also featured is a new release. It is a never-before-heard version of Guryan’s “Spanky and Our Gang”, a tune written as a thank you to Spanky McFarlane and her band for their hit recording of her song “Sunday Morning”. The collection was produced by her stepson Jonathan Rosner and music historian Geoffrey Weiss, along with Numero Group’s Douglas Mcgowan, Rob Sevier, and Ken Shipley. – Sal Cataldi
Remi Kabaka – Roots Funkadelia (BBE Africa)
A prolific drummer in the 1970s Nigerian rock scene and beyond (e.g., with artists like Hugh Masekela, Paul Simon, and Steve Winwood), Aderemi Kabaka’s 1980 album Roots Funkadelia came into international circulation for the first time this year thanks to a reissue on BBE Africa. Five substantial tracks long, Roots Funkadelia covers as much ground as its punchy title promises, with stylistic elements running the gamut from jùjú to disco. Recorded in Los Angeles with the Mean Machine–the Commodores’ long-running brass section–Roots Funkadelia boasts an instrumental fullness crucial in matching Kabaka’s vision of bringing together a wide range of genres.
It’s a joy of a record, Kabaka and company celebrating West African popular sounds and everything they’ve generated in the diaspora, with jazz, funk, and reggae especially prominent in the mix. It’s the kind of well-balanced, broadly appealing mix that makes it a must-have for vintage vinyl lovers of every ilk. Kabaka has always been a consummate performer, and Roots Funkadelia makes it clear that he’s just as capable in the spotlight as playing in support of it. – Adriane Pontecorvo
Chaka Khan – Chaka (Rhino)
The 2024 reissue of Chaka Khan’s Chaka revitalizes an iconic album that cemented Khan as a musical powerhouse. This remastered edition sharpens the lush production of hits like “I’m Every Woman”. A timeless empowerment anthem, “I’m Every Woman” remains as infectious and indispensable as when it debuted in 1978. Similarly, the funk and soul stylings in “Sleep on It” lay the groundwork for Khan’s expression of self-assurance and agency. This reflects the inspirational ethos central to Khan’s artistry. Beyond its exquisite R&B grooves, the reissue includes never-before-heard studio outtakes, showcasing Khan’s creative process and vocal brilliance.
Chaka reflects the disco era’s liberating energy while channeling the power derived from the Civil Rights and Feminist movements. The 2024 reissue bridges past and present, as Khan’s genre-defying artistry and social commentary will remain influential. Especially in 2024, “A Woman in a Man’s World” lyrics are received as a clarion call. Chaka is a powerful reminder of the ongoing urgency for representation within the music industry and society. Through her legacy, Chaka Khan continues to create space for a new generation to recognize the transformative power of music. – Elisabeth Woronzoff
Joni Mitchell – The Asylum Albums (1976-1980) (Elektra / Asylum)
Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell made some of her most challenging music during the four years represented in this box set and its companion, The Asylum Years (1976-1980). The Asylum Albums contains Hejira (1976), Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), Mingus (1979), and the live Shadows and Light (1980). Together, the four albums document a dive into contemporary jazz that is deeper than any of Mitchell’s fellow singer-songwriters. While songs like “Coyote” and “Amelia” link Hejira stylistically with Mitchell’s earlier work, the music on Don Juan and Mingus defies nearly everything that came before.
Hejira, Don Juan, and Shadows and Light all serve as tributes to the late Jaco Pastorius, whose slinky fretless bass and boundless spirit enliven the arrangements. Guitarists Larry Carlton, John McLaughlin, and Pat Metheny trade duties across the four sets. Saxophonists Michael Brecker, Gerry Mulligan, Tom Scott, and Wayne Shorter appeared. Bassist Stanley Clarke, who replaces Pastorius on Mingus, adds his own flair to Mitchell’s idiosyncratic tribute to the work of Charles Mingus. The fourth set, Shadows and Light, provides respite from the Los Angeles studio chill of the first three albums, allowing Mitchell and her band to loosen up on renditions of “Free Man in Paris” and “Woodstock”. – Peter Thomas Webb
Hank Mobley – A Slice of the Top (Tone Poet Series) (Blue Note)
A Slice of the Top is a classic example of how even an iconic label like Blue Note could use and abuse its artists. Recorded in 1966, the album presents tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley like he never was before or after, leading an all-star octet featuring trumpet player Lee Morgan and pianist McCoy Tyner. One reason Mobley was so overlooked and underrated was that, unlike contemporaries John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, he never ventured beyond the hard-bop idiom.
On A Slice of the Top, though, he stretches that idiom in wonderful, far-flung directions. The five selections are alternately rollicking, rip-roaring, groovy, and sublime—but never less than inspired. Mobley’s equally underappreciated talent as a composer is underscored by the fact he penned four of them. Tragically, Blue Note shelved A Slice of the Top until 1979, by which time Mobley had hit the skids. This top-shelf vinyl release, though, finally gives it its due as one of the great, essential jazz albums. – John Bergstrom
New Jill Swing 1988-1994 (Ace)
New Jack Swing was a blast of funky fresh air in the 1980s. The genre – a riotous blend of hip-hop, soul, and dance-pop – dominated the dance and pop charts throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. The names synonymous with the style include Teddy Riley, Full Force, L.A. Reid and Babyface, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. These impressive songwriters and producers crafted high-tech dance music that became classics and mainstays on urban and top-40 radio. In New Jill Swing 1988-1994, the spotlight is pointed on the female artists of the genre. The list of artists on New Jill Swing is refreshingly free of ubiquitous superstar names like Janet Jackson, and instead, listeners are gifted with deeper, more niche cuts.
That’s not to say New Jill Swing is bereft of household names. Even though Jackson is missing, we still hear hits from stars like SWV, En Vogue, and Xscape. Also featured are some great 1980s ladies like Karyn White, who’s represented by the sprightly dance hit “The Way You Love Me”; Miki Howard’s fabulous groovy “Ain’t Nuthin’ in the World”; former Klymaxx member Joyce Irby’s feisty “She’s Not My Lover”. The best of all is Different World actress Jasmine Guy’s high-octane funky “Try Me”.
Divas and dance music have had a long and storied history. From disco divas in the 1970s to the current crop of female-fronted pop, women play a prominent role in dance music. On New Jill Swing, we glimpse a subgenre of dance divas that slammed a little harder. – Peter Piatkowski