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

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds 60 [Various Formats] (Capitol/UMe)

Pet Sounds:

1LP Zoetrope Vinyl: uDiscoverMusic.com / TheBeachBoys.com
1LP Definitive Sound Series: Capitol Records Store
2LP Mono/Stereo Vinylphyle: uDiscoverMusic.com / TheBeachBoys.com

The Pet Sounds Sessions [Highlights]:

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic.com / TheBeachBoys.com
2LP (Green and White Splatter Vinyl): uDiscoverMusic.com / TheBeachBoys.com
2LP (Black Vinyl): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / uDiscoverMusic.com / TheBeachBoys.com
2LP (Yellow Vinyl): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Link TBD

Today – nearly 60 years to the day the original album first reached stores in 1966 – Capitol/UMe celebrate The Beach Boys’ landmark Pet Sounds with a variety of new titles.  The album will see two new reissues:

• • A new 2LP entry to UMe’s Vinylphyle series is pressed at RTI on 180-gram black vinyl and cut from original mono (1966) and stereo (1996) tapes by Joe Nino-Hernes at Sterling Sound. The two LPs are housed in protective poly sleeves within a tip-on jacket; a four-panel insert contains Howie Edelson’s new liner notes.
  • A new 1LP mono edition in Interscope-Capitol’s Definitive Sound Series (DSS) using the One Step process. This version is pressed at RTI on Neotech VR900 D2 180-gram vinyl, with AAA [All Analog Mastering] cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering from rarely used circa-1972 analog tapes from the notable Brother Records pressing. This version is limited to 6,000 individually numbered copies, and each copy includes a certificate of authenticity documenting the mastering, plating, and pressing process.
  • A “Zoetrope” vinyl edition of the original 1966 mono album.

In addition, Capitol/UMe are revisiting the 1997 box set The Pet Sounds Sessions in new “highlights” editions, available on both 2 CDs and 2 LPs.  Click here for more details, and watch this space for a review of the Pet Sounds anniversary editions!

Frank Zappa, Zappa ’66: Vol. 1 – Live at TTG Studios (Zappa/Vaulternative/UMe) (Zappa Online Store / uDiscoverMusic.com)

Frank Zappa’s archival label Vaulternative Records was launched in 2002 by the late artist’s family to present a variety of fascinating odds and ends from his voluminous archive.  Now, after a near-decade-long hiatus, Vaulternative is returning from Zappa Records and UMe to continue preserving the experimental side of the Zappa oeuvre.  The newly-refreshed Vaulternative label launches today with Zappa ’66: Vol. 1 – Live at TTG Studios on one CD or two 180-gram LPs, or via digital download/streaming (including high-resolution audio) exclusively from UMe storefronts Zappa.com and uDiscover Music. Sixteen of the seventeen tracks on Zappa ’66 are previously unreleased in any format.  The release documents the young musician at an October 1966 session at the Hollywood studio just months after the release of The Mothers of Invention’s debut album, Freak Out!, on Verve Records.  The new release has been produced, restored, and assembled by “Vaultmeister” Joe Travers and mastered by John Polito from the original 1/4-inch master tapes recorded to Zappa’s reel-to-reel system.  Radio interview segments from 1966 have also been included. Get the track listing and more here!

Beverley Knight, The B-Funk: Deluxe Edition (Cherry Red/90/9) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Today, Cherry Red’s 90/9 imprint brings the funk…The B-Funk, to be precise, with a new 2CD deluxe reissue of Beverley Knight’s electrifying debut album.  Originally released on Dome Records – which Cherry Red acquired last year – The B-Funk launched the career of the R&B/soul vocalist who went on to soar in not just music but television (mentoring on BBC One’s reality show Just the Two of Us), radio (Beverley’s Gospel Nights on Radio 2), and stage (The Bodyguard, Memphis, The Drifters Girl, Marie and Rosetta, and her Olivier Award-winning turn in Sylvia) while maintaining a high profile in various arenas of philanthropy. Read more here!

Peter Frampton, Carry the Light (UMe)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Peter Frampton Store
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Peter Frampton Store

British-born blues-rock great Peter Frampton releases Carry the Light, a new LP crafted with his son, Julian Frampton.  Carry the Light marks Frampton’s first album of original rock songs since 2010’s Thank You, Mr. Churchill and welcomes a host of guests including Graham Nash, Sheryl Crow, Tom Morello, H.E.R., Benmont Tench, and saxophonist Bill Evans.  The lead single “Buried Treasure” is a salute to the late Tom Petty and named for his SiriusXM program of the same name, and features Tench on his imitable keyboard flourishes.  Carry The Light arrives in a variety of formats, including CD, 180-gram yellow vinyl, and digitally in stereo, hi-res audio, and Dolby Atmos mixes. A limited-edition vinyl edition, which will feature a premium cover treatment and be numbered, will be available exclusively via Peter Frampton’s official store, uDiscover Music, and Sound of Vinyl.

Jethro Tull, Under Wraps: The Unwrapped Edition (Chrysalis)

5CD/BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
Walk Into Light LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

The latest in the long-running series of Jethro Tull hardcover book-style sets features not one, but two albums – including an Ian Anderson solo set.  Under Wraps: The Unwrapped Edition explores both Tull’s Under Wraps (1984) and Anderson’s debut as a solo artist, Walk Into Light (1983), via the kind of comprehensive presentation that fans of the series have learned to expect. This new 5CD/Blu-ray set has been overseen by Anderson and is built around remixes of both albums by Bruce Soord: a remix with the original 1983-1984 drums, and one with newly-recorded “2026 drums.”  Typical for this series, the remixes are bolstered by various odds and ends from the period.  A 1984 BBC Radio 1 concert from London’s Hammersmith Odeon is also included.  The Blu-ray Disc offers stereo and Dolby Atmos remixes of both albums, as well as promotional videos.  A lavish 100-page hardcover book puts everything into perspective.  Soord’s 2026 Drums remix of Walk Into Light will be simultaneously released on vinyl.  Read more here.

The Style Council, Cafe Bleu: Special Edition (Polydor/UMR)

6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Not long after dissolving The Jam, frontman Paul Weller was back with The Style Council, a loose collective more pointedly inspired by R&B and dance ideas, with more explicitly political lyrics. Fans embraced the change, putting singles “Speak Like a Child,” “Long Hot Summer,” “My Ever Changing Moods” and “You’re the Best Thing” into the U.K. Top 10. (“My Ever Changing Moods” also became a U.S. Top 40 hit, something The Jam didn’t have.) This new 6CD box set of 1984 debut album Café Bleu includes the remastered album, an expanded edition of the EP Introducing The Style Council and several discs of B-sides, rarities, and unissued demos, outtakes and live BBC cuts. A vinyl edition, on three LPs, features the remastered album, a smaller expansion of Introducing and highlights from the unreleased material. Both sets will feature new liner notes by veteran British music journalist Gary Crowley, a crucial champion of The Style Council early in his career.

Matt White, Matt White’s Dolly (Adhyâropa Records) (Bandcamp)

Everybody loves Dolly Parton…and South Carolina-based trumpeter-composer-arranger Matt White is no exception!  He’s paying tribute to Miss Parton with the release of Matt White’s Dolly, reimagining Parton’s famous compositions with a contemporary chamber music flair, an improvisatory spirit, and an appreciation for (and understanding of) the southern folk, country, and sacred traditions in which these songs were written. “She’s the greatest living American,” White shares, “because she embodies the things we hope this country can be — kindness, welcome, independence, and taking care of people.”  Matt White’s Dolly includes his reinventions of such Parton favorites as “9 to 5” (in three variations), “Jolene,” and “Down from Dover.”  White was also influenced by his immersion into Gullah culture and finding its connections to Parton’s music.  The album will be available on digital platforms as well as on CD.  Please click here to pre-save on your favorite platform, and click here to listen to the first single, “Down from Dover.”  The CD is available via Bandcamp.

Various Artists, The Sherman Brothers Album (Kritzerland)

Writer, director, composer, lyricist, producer, and Kritzerland head honcho Bruce Kimmel had a long and beautiful friendship with Richard M. Sherman, one-half of the legendary Sherman Brothers songwriting team.  Now, he’s unveiling The Sherman Brothers Album as it was meant to be heard.  Bruce produced the original sessions for the album 25 years ago but didn’t get the opportunity to see the album to fruition – leading to an unfortunately missed opportunity for fans of the duo (and who isn’t?).  Now, he’s been able to right that wrong and release the album as it was originally intended to be heard…and it’s every bit as delightful as we would have expected.  Click here to read our interview with Bruce, and here to order this supercalifragilistic album which is shipping now!  It’s limited to 500 copies.

My Fair Lady: Original Swedish Cast Recording (Kritzerland)

Kritzerland has another treat also shipping now: the first pressed-CD, expanded release of the 1959 Original Swedish Cast Recording of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady.  This recording stars Jarl Kulle and Ulla Sallert (co-star of Broadway’s Ben Franklin in Paris, opposite Robert Preston). The label has expanded the original LP with bonus tracks from the German, Hebrew, Mexican, and Italian recordings of the score – all of which we’d love to see on CD!  It’s limited to 500 copies.