New Release Round-Up 12-10-21

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Barn - Reprise
Barn, the new Neil Young & Crazy Horse album was recorded in a remote, restored, 19th century log barn. This musical family has played together for a half century, yet they continue creating new music. Neil and the Horse fans have long shouted for “more barn” and here it is… 10 new songs that capture the wild, rock and roll spirit, the idiosyncratic raw sound and the lyrical beauty that epitomizes a classic NYCH collaboration. The last song appeared on the last morning and was recorded just an hour later during a pounding hailstorm and during the full moon. The album was recorded this summer over a handful of days. The ten new songs encompass all that Neil Young with Crazy Horse are known for, beautiful romantic acoustic ballads, powerhouse electric rockers and insightful rollicking tunes that stick with you. Niko Bolas was parked adjacent to the barn, in an exquisite analog mobile recording truck, Le Mobile ready to capture and mix the album on the spot. 

  

Green Day - BBC Sessions - Warner Records
Between 1994 to 2001, Green Day would visit the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in London four times and record live sessions for Radio 1’s “Evening Show” and its popular DJ Steve Lamacq. This compilation documents those sessions, and includes many of the band’s hits including “When I Come Around”, “Basket Case”, “Brain Stew/Jaded” and “Minority”.

  

The Band - Cahoots: 50th Anniversary Edition - Capitol
The Band celebrates the 50th Anniversary of their fourth studio album Cahoots with an all-new remix and remaster by Bob Clearmountain. The Super Deluxe Box includes the new stereo mix, bonus tracks and a previously unreleased bootleg concert at Olympia Theatre, Paris 1971, on 2 CDs. Also included, is a surround-sound Blu-ray, a 180g half-speed master LP, a 7" single, booklet, all-new liner notes and collectable lithographs.

Brian Wilson - At My Piano - DECCA
Genius, icon, trailblazer - he revolutionized music as head of the Beach Boys. Now, legend Brian Wilson retraces his steps and reimagines the most iconic songs from his back catalogue into their purest form, him alone at the piano. Featuring God Only Knows, Wouldn't it Be Nice, California Girls, Good Vibrations and many more on solo piano.

  

Frank Zappa - 200 Motels: 50th Anniversary - UMe
Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" turns 50! In celebration of FZ's famous 1971 "Surrealistic Documentary," Zappa Records, UMe, and MGM are pleased to present the original soundtrack newly remastered by the legendary Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, and featuring all original packaging including the booklet and mini-replica movie poster. Pressed on 180-gram heavy vinyl 2 LP by Optimal Media in Germany.

Kelley Stoltz - Antique Glow: Expanded Edition - Third Man Records.
Third Man Records is proud to release the 20th anniversary expanded edition of Kelley Stoltz's defining album 'Antique Glow.' Originally self-released in miniscule vinyl-only quantities in 2001, 'Antique Glow' has served not only as a template for the length of Kelley Stoltz's twenty-plus year career, but has also served as a compass for other Anglophile, TASCAM 388 home recording acolytes.  Original copies featured Stoltz's clever, wry and fanciful hand-painted adornments overtop reclaimed thrift store LP jackets, Third Man's release here utilizes some of those original unused images for a die-cut sleeve that ultimately gives the listener six different possible album covers. The songs are by and large masterpieces of bedroom pop magic. From the whispering 'Here Comes the Sun'-adjacent acoustic underpinnings of album opener 'Perpetual Night' through the fuzz-threaded leads of 'Are You Electric?' Stoltz's inspirations are impeccable and clear. Sixties Davies British Invasion through 80's British Bunnymen post-punk, with appropriate off-shoots into West Coast American pop-psych, Velvets-indebted hooliganism and Drake/CSNY acoustic attenuations, the end result is pure joy. On the expanded version, standout tracks previously relegated to an Australian tour-only CD (like the breathlessly cinematic 'Old Pictures') see their first-ever vinyl and digital release while there's an additional 8 songs from the 'Antique Glow'-era seeing their first ever release in any format. The cutting room floor quality here is second-to-none, Stoltz clearly gifted with the curse of writing too many indelible songs, so the newly released 'Too Beck' (originally cast off by Kelley because he thought 'it sounded too much like Beck') and 'Umbrella' stand firm as some of the best, most timeless music Stoltz has ever released... a full two decades after he recorded them! With all instruments and vocals performed by Stoltz, the singularity of vision here is impeccably clear and executed.