Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores this week.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Dionne Warwick, Make It Easy on Yourself: The Scepter Recordings 1962-1971 (SoulMusic/Second Disc/Cherry Red) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Cherry Red)

Naturally, we're bursting at the seams that today is finally Release Day (*) for this massive labor of love.  SoulMusic Records and Second Disc Records are proud to present Dionne Warwick's Make It Easy on Yourself: The Scepter Recordings 1962-1971, a 12CD box set with 280 tracks encompassing every one of the music legend's original Scepter albums and single releases plus over 60 rare bonus tracks - 16 of which are previously unreleased (both in the studio and in concert) - for a total of over 14 hours of music.  This set has been produced by Joe Marchese (of The Second Disc) and Jim Pierson, and executive-produced by The British Ambassador of Soul, David Nathan.  The lavish 68-page booklet features a 12,000-word essay by Marchese, drawing on previously unpublished interviews with Dionne Warwick and the late Burt Bacharach.  The booklet also features a moving personal reflection from Nathan, and an appreciation of Dionne's groundbreaking The Magic of Believing by gospel and soul historian Tim Dillinger of God's Music Is My Life.  The booklet is copiously illustrated with numerous photos as well as album artwork.  Each disc is housed within the slipcase in an individual wallet with detailed discographical annotations.  John Sellards has designed, and Nick Robbins has mastered.  As for that (*)?  Though today is the official release date and copies have started arriving within the U.K., Amazon U.S. currently has August 15 as the release date stateside.  To our American friends, we hope you find this set has been worth the wait!  Get the full track listing and more here!

Marianne Faithfull, Cast Your Fate to the Wind (Decca/UMR/ABKCO) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

We also couldn't be more excited about this box set from another legendary female vocalist.  This stunning new 6-CD box set brings together the late, great Marianne Faithfull's Decca repertoire including the complete albums Marianne Faithfull; Come My Way; North Country Maid; and Loveinamist plus two discs of singles, non-LP B-sides, and rarities including previously unreleased tracks.  Everything has been newly remastered from the original tapes, and the liner notes feature exclusive commentary from the singer.  Andrew Batt has produced, compiled, and remastered the set, while Eric Terino has designed it, utilizing original images for the covers and artwork elements.  Marianne gave her stamp of approval prior to her passing earlier this year for this lavish set which will finally put her Decca recordings into full perspective.  Read our interview with Andrew Batt about Marianne's final recordings here, and please watch this space for an extensive review of Cast Your Fate to the Wind.

Elvis Presley, Sunset Boulevard (RCA/Legacy)

5CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Our third major box set of the week, Sunset Boulevard is a 5CD collection showcasing Elvis Presley's work at RCA Records' Studio C in Hollywood - one of the more important studios he'd record in through his final recording years in the 1970s. Like Memphis before it, the set will feature new remixes by acclaimed engineer Matt Ross-Spang that will offer fresh remixes of familiar studio masters and rare outtakes. (A curation of those mixes will be pressed as a 2LP set.) The other half of the set finds Elvis and The TCB Band rehearsing for his legendary residencies in Las Vegas in 1970 and 1974. The box features rare archival photos and liner notes by Colin Escott, along with an introduction by Presley's friend and confidante Jerry Schilling.  Read more here!

Richard Hawley, Coles Corner: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Parlophone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

This 2CD reissue of the singer-songwriter's fourth album presents the original album on CD1 while the second disc collates single versions and B-sides along with previously unreleased acoustic versions of the title track, "Hotel Room," and "Darlin' Wait for Me," plus a live version of "I Sleep Alone" recorded at Sheffield City Hall.  Out today in the U.K. and next Friday in North America.

Buddy Guy, Ain't Done with the Blues (RCA) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The veteran bluesman teams up with Joe Walsh, Joe Bonamassa, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Peter Frampton, and Christone "Kingfish" Ingram for his latest studio set.  Recorded in Nashville, Ain't Done with the Blues is available on vinyl, CD, and digital formats.

Roger Waters, This Is Not a Drill: Live from Prague (Columbia/Legacy)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 
BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Roger Waters revisits Pink Floyd classics (including "Comfortably Numb," "Another Brick in the Wall," and "Wish You Were Here") and more in this 2023 show recorded at Prague's O2 Arena.  Available on 2 CDs, 4 LPs, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital formats.

Buena Vista Social Club: Original Broadway Cast Recording (BMG) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The smash Broadway musical inspired by the classic album of the same name releases its cast recording today on CD, with a vinyl edition following in October.  The album preserves the show's Tony Award-winning orchestrations as well as the performance of its band, the members of which collectively received a Special Tony Award, and Best Supporting Actress Natalie Venetia Belcon who portrays real-life icon Omara Portuondo.

And in the "Some Nice Things We've Missed" Dept., we'd like to share news of a couple more recent releases...

Vicki Lawrence, Singles (Notefornote Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

America fell in love with Vicki Lawrence when the California native was cast in the original company of The Carol Burnett Show.  Among her most memorable creations was "Mama" Thelma Harper, foil to Burnett's Eunice in a series of sketches, The Family, that led to the beloved sitcom Mama's Family.  Music was always one of Lawrence's loves, and prior to her Carol Burnett Show debut, she had performed with The Young Americans alongside such legends as Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis.  She's most remembered, musically-speaking, for her 1972 chart-topping single "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."  Now, that epic story song opens Notefornote Music's delightful 12-track compendium of Lawrence's singles recorded with producer Snuff Garrett for Bell and Private Stock labels in the United States and EMI and Stateside in the United Kingdom. "Lights" and its follow-up "Ships in the Night" were both penned by Bobby Russell, to whom Lawrence was then briefly married.  She tells the whole story of its inception in the liner notes to Singles, also sharing memories of her dear friend Garrett.  (The illustrious arrangers of these dozen songs include Artie Butler, Al Capps, Larry Muhoberac, and Steve Dorff.)  This enjoyable collection showcasing a different side of "Mama" also premieres the previously unreleased "Hollywood Seven," recorded in 1977.  Cary Mansfield and Bill Pitzonka have produced and designed this package, respectively, and Pitzonka has nicely replicated a Private Stock label for the CD-R.  Melinda Hurley and Chas Ferry have remastered the audio.  This is a must for fans of that unmistakable '70s pop sound.

Jeffrey Runnings, Piqued (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Bandcamp)

Nebraska post-punk outfit For Against released its first album in 1987 on the Independent Project Records label, netting a Grammy nomination right off the bat for Best Album Package (designed by IPR's Bruce Licher).  The band continued to record sporadically through the 2000s, with a 2013 box set bringing together their early IPR releases.  The band's bassist, vocalist, and lyricist Jeffrey Runnings passed away earlier this year at the age of 61, and IPR has celebrated his life with Piqued, his second and final solo album following 2016's Primitives and Smalls.  The late musician is quoted on the album's OBI: "The thing about this album is that it wasn't made for anyone, it wasn't even intended to be put out.  It's the sound of what I was doing in the lower level of my home with an 8-track tape machine."  He believed in stripping music down "to the bones," and that lo-fi, often dreamy aesthetic is on full display throughout the eleven mostly-instrumental songs on Piqued.  The homemade feel adds to the retro '80s vibe and intimate milieu of this music with electric guitar, synths, loops, and treated instruments.  There's an elegiac quality that pervades the compositions as well as a rawness; when he sings to his husband in "Batman Forever" - his nickname was that of the Caped Crusader - "You're the one I want to be there/When the very last light goes out," it's almost unbearably sad.  Runnings kept the tempi slow and languid, and the sound intentionally muddy with vocals and instruments bleeding together in a dense, melancholy post-Spector soundscape.  The CD and the LP (available in different-color configurations) both come with a four-song bonus EP recorded in the late 1980s which are sonically quite different than the later tracks and make for a vivid contrast.  (The vinyl EP is pressed on 12-inch vinyl and mastered at 45 RPM.)  Typically for IPR, the packaging is quite beautiful and lavish; the vinyl edition comes with three postcards of artwork created by Runnings in his final weeks.  The die-cut jacket has been letterpress-printed by hand at IPR.  The music is also available digitally.  In any format, Piqued is a fine tribute to the late artist.