Release Round-Up: Week of February 16

February 16, 2018 By Joe Marchese — No Comments

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up!

The Choir, Artifact: The Unreleased Album (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Omnivore premieres an unreleased album from pre-Raspberries group The Choir, recorded in 1969 by one of the final iterations of the popular Cleveland band. These ten ultra-rare recordings have been restored for this release by the team of Tommy Allen and Ducky Carlisle (The Raspberries’ Pop Art Live), and Choir fan Eric Carmen has provided liner notes along with Al Kaston and Choir members Denny Carleton and Phil Giallombardo. Read more here!

Sonny Rollins, Way Out West: Deluxe Edition (Contemporary/Craft Recordings) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Craft Recordings celebrates the 60th anniversary of Sonny Rollins’ 1957 classic Way Out West with a 2-LP slipcased box set adding an entire second album of bonus material. Past CD releases have included three alternate takes (“I’m an Old Cowhand,” “Way Out West,” and “Come, Gone”) as bonus tracks. This new vinyl reissue ups the ante by including those as well as four more previously unreleased tracks on a second vinyl LP: two fly-on-the-wall spoken word bits from the studio; an alternate version of “There is No Greater Love,” and Take 1 of “Way Out West.” It’s been pressed at Quality Record Pressings on 180-gram vinyl. Though it’s available digitally, a CD release is not currently planned. Read more here, and watch this space for our full review!

Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, Charlotte’s Web: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Varese Vintage) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The delightful soundtrack to Hanna-Barbera’s 1973 animated classic Charlotte’s Web finally comes to CD from Varese Sarabande, featuring the wonderfully melodic songs of the Sherman Brothers as performed by Debbie Reynolds, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Lynde, Henry Gibson, and others! Get the full scoop here!

Van Morrison, In Concert (Eagle Vision)

Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

This new video gives you two intimate Van concerts for the price of one: a 2016 set recorded for the BBC, and a 12-song performance at Cyprus Avenue in his native Belfast, recorded on his 70th birthday in 2015!

Car Seat Headrest, Twin Fantasy (Face-to-Face) (Matador)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Seattle-based indie darlings Car Seat Headrest came to prominence with the release of their lo-fi sixth album Twin Fantasy in 2011 (recorded by a laptop microphone). Now, frontman Will Toledo has proclaimed that last year he “learned how to finish” the album, re-recording and reworking it anew; both versions are featured on the 2CD package, while the new version is now available on vinyl (with the original making its way there this Record Store Day).

Kendrick Lamar/Various Artists, Black Panther: The Album (Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

One of the biggest hip-hop icons working today performed on and curated this new companion album to the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lamar, SZA,, The Weeknd, Vince Staples, Future and Khalid are just a few of the voices giving life to the themes and stories of T’Challa, King of Wakanda.

Categories:

Release Round-Up

Formats:

Blu-Ray, CD, DVD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming, Vinyl

Genres:

Classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rap/Hip-Hop, Rock, Soundtracks

Tags:

Sonny Rollins, The Choir, The Sherman Brothers, Van Morrison

Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song and beyond, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with labels including Real Gone Music and Cherry Red Records, has released newly-curated collections produced and annotated by Joe from iconic artists such as Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Spinners, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Meat Loaf, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Liza Minnelli, Darlene Love, Al Stewart, Michael Nesmith, and many others.

Joe has written liner notes, produced, or contributed to over 200 reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them America, JD Souther, Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, BJ Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, Petula Clark, Robert Goulet, and Andy Williams.

Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray.

Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.