On 19th August 1977, Skids played their first ever gig at the Belleville Hotel in Dunfermline.
49 years later, we’re announcing SKIDS 1977. Recorded in October 1977, “SKIDS 1977” features the original line-up’s first studio demo recordings, officially released for the first time. Richard Jobson (vocals), Stuart Adamson (guitar), Bill Simpson (bass) and Tom Kellichan (drums).
These are the earliest recordings of songs written by the late Stuart Adamson of Skids, Big Country and The Raphaels, later dubbed “Britain’s answer to Jimi Hendrix” by BBC Radio 1 legend John Peel. Raw, direct and full of early spark, they capture Scotland’s emerging punk scene in motion.
Eight songs from the very beginning of Skids, offering a rare insight into the early songwriting of the late Stuart Adamson and capturing the raw energy of Scotland’s emerging punk scene.
Compiled and released with the full support of Skids and Stuart Adamson’s family.
“Hear My Song: The Collection 1966-1995” is a comprehensive remastered 19 CD limited editiondeluxe box set collected the output of the prodigiously talented Laura Nyro.
Nyro was 18 years old when she signed her first recording contract and wrote the songs for which she is likely to be best remembered. By the time she was 22, she had become one of the most successful composers in American popular music. But at the age of just 24, she drew back from her creativity and fame, battered and drained by the sheer energy and nerve required to sustain her career. Fortunately for those of us who loved her music, that was not the end of the story. She returned briefly to the fray for three turbulent years in the mid-to-late 1970s, and then enjoyed a final decade of artistic achievement and public acclaim, before illness took her from us at the tragically early age of 49 in 1997.
The deepest dive yet into the phenomenal creativity of an idiosyncratic, unmistakable musical force.
“She wrote songs that had no kind of fixed compass point. They remain as unique and absolutely spellbinding to this day as when I first heard them in the 1960s.” – Sir Elton John, 2024
Nyro found her early fame challenging yet despite living under an unrelenting spotlight, she was able to create this series of utterly beautiful and stunningly unique albums.
Contains 10 original studio albums, 6 live albums (including 2 previously unreleased live concerts), Laura’s original demo tape from 1966 and a bonus disc of rarities including mono versions, alternative versions and live tracks.
Includes a Coffee-table book with in-depth liner notes by Vivien Goldman, foreword from Sir EltonJohn and testimonials from Charlie Calello, Will Lee, John Sebastian, Jackson Browne, Clive Davis, Lou Adler, Randy Brecker, Bernard Purdie, Scott Billington, John Sebastian and Gary Burden
Rare, previously unseen photographs including intimate family shots illuminate the book
Included within this set are all of Laura’s ten studio albums: More Than A New Discovery (1967), Eli And The Thirteenth Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969), Christmas And The Beads OfSweat (1970), Gonna Take A Miracle (1971), Smile (1976), Nested (1978), Mother’s Spiritual (1984), Walk The Dog & Light The Light (1993) and her posthumously released masterwork Angel In The Dark (2001). Six live albums: Spread Your Wings And Fly: Live At The Fillmore East (1971), Season Of Lights… Laura Nyro In Concert (1977), Live / The Loom’s Desire (1993 & 1994), and two previously unreleased concert recordings from San Francisco (1994). Rounding off this complete collection is Laura’s first ever demo tape Go Find The Moon (1966) and a collection of Rarities. All remastered and housed in individual sleeves with original artwork.
During the singer/songwriter movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Laura Nyro was one of the most celebrated artists of her day. She penned soulful, literate songs that took the folky introspection of her peers and infused it with elements of soul, R&B, jazz, and gospel, giving them an emotional heat that set her apart. Nyro was a hugely respected recording artist, whose confident piano work and rich, expressive vocals made other sonic trailblazers such as Miles Davis and Alice Coltrane navigate towards her. She has influenced the greatest of songwriters – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Neil Young, Carole King, Kate Bush and Elvis Costello among them.
That influence continues today being heard in the works of Alicia Keys, Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, Jenny Lewis and more. Nyro’s wonderfully expressive and poetic songs – of which many became major hits by other artists, most notably The 5th Dimension, Three Dog Night and Barbra Streisand – remain hallmarks of outstanding quality. ‘Eli’s Comin’, ‘Gibsom Street’, ‘Wedding Bell Blues’, ‘AndWhen I Die’, ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’, ‘Map To The Treasure’, ‘Sweet Blindness’ and ‘Stoney End’ are magnificent examples.
“Eli And The Thirteenth Confession” was Featured in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and Uncut’s 100 Greatest Albums of All Time as well as being deemed by New York Times as, “one of the 1960’s most influential pop recordings”.
“An optimist might suggest that 1968’s “Eli And The Thirteenth Confession” lives on in martyrdom, its influence apparent on everyone from Kate Bush and Tori Amos to St. Vincent and Joanna Newsom. But Laura Nyro’s effervescent second album deserves more explicit canonization…..Forty-six years after “Thirteenth Confession“, and thanks in large measure to it, we’ve come to accept and nurture strident, talented, slightly idiosyncratic female artists.” – Rolling Stone
Mogwai release this new 30-year, career-spanning compilation. As with their debut single ‘Tuner’ in 1996, ‘Happy Tears’ is being released via the band’s self-owned and run record label Rock Action Records, also celebrating its 30 year anniversary. The album features the physical release of the incredible dream-come-true pairing of Mogwai and Iggy Pop with the single ‘Underground’.
The album features the physical release of the pairing of Mogwai and Iggy Pop on the single “Underground”. “Happy Tears” also includes highlights from across the band’s discography, a previous digital-only single and a new reworking of a Mogwai classic.
“Brand New Paths to Helicon 1” features the Budapest Art Orchestra and is orchestrated by Adam Wiltzie (A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Stars Of The Lid).
“Underground”, the brilliant new track by Mogwai featuring Iggy Pop.
The DLP has 13 tracks on black and yellow vinyl. The limited 4LP adds 13 extra tracks of remixes, rarities, live and previously unreleased music. The 2CD replicates this version.
The freshly minted label Nanoq release a new album by David Sylvian titled “The Distance Between The Killer and the Killing“. It’s the first album Sylvian has released in 15 years. composed of sessions recorded between 2012 – 2025, the album is based on recomposed improvisational sessions with a variety of artists ranging from Otomo Yoshihide, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bilianna Voutchkova and MiakoKlein, to Jamie Drouin, Lance Austin Olson and more.
The 46 min instrumental is unlike anything tackled by Sylvian before and is seen by Sylvian himself as the official follow up to his 2009 album “Manafon“. In Pauline Nadrigny’s essay on the album, she describes something of the listening experience. ‘… voices surge that belong to no one in particular. One that hoots and hums across a violin, worked until it loses its voice, becomes mere matter among other matter. A voice inside the breath of a clarinet or a recorder. Grunts, gurgles, distant cries, somewhere between man and bird, woman and nuthatch. Fragments of choirs, far off, snatches of a song long since lost. Too far to be recovered.’
‘What a remarkable piece of work. At times it feels like listening to a symphony; at others, as though (Sylvian’s) voice is speaking through the music. At first, I was trying to find my own sound, but somewhere along the way I completely forgot about that and became utterly absorbed in the music. Hearing Ryuichi’s presence emerge here and there throughout the piece also brings a very special feeling for me. Thank you for creating something so extraordinary.’
“The Distance Between the Killer and the Killing will be released on 26th February 2027 and is available to preorder now on a variety of formats and special editions, art directed by Sylvian and designed by Chris Bigg. Alongside the standard vinyl LP and plastic-free gatefold CD, there are two limited editions: a marbled vinyl housed in a mirror-board sleeve; and a deluxe CD in case-bound book packaging.
David Sylvian returns with ‘the distance between the killer and the killing’,
The Clash have announced a new compilation, The World According to The Clash, set for release via Sony Music on November 13th.
The compilation, which features 11 of their most celebrated tracks, was originally distributed in 1982 to US-only radio stations and has never been made publicly available… until now. Before the release of “Combat Rock” in 1982, which went on to become their biggest-selling release, “The World According to The Clash” was prepared for US radio DJs as a means of pulling together and easily disseminating standout tracks from their history.
Therefore, the forthcoming release draws together many of their most beloved and most influential tracks, including ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, ‘Rock the Casbah’, ‘London Calling’, ‘Clampdown’, ‘Train in Vain (Stand by Me)’,‘Lost in the Supermarket’, ‘The Guns of Brixton’ and more.
The music hails from the brief five-year period, wherein vocalist and guitarist Joe Strummer, vocalist and guitarist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon played incessantly, wrote and recorded prolifically, and released five albums of the most expansive and influential music of the era. 2026 has marked a year of jubilant celebration for the iconic band, who earlier this summer celebrated 50 years since their first-ever gig with a fan event in Sheffield, where the show took place in 1976.
Officially deemed their 1977 album, “London Calling“, the best project in their discography, writing, ” The Clash’s third effort proved their most fondly remembered, their most assured and, indeed, their finest work. This album remains our desert island record, an extraordinarily diverse catalogue only a band at this creative level could produce.”
“The World According to The Clash” will be made available via limited edition red vinyl and orange vinyl, alongside CD and digital formats.
Foreigner is also expanding “Head Games” with a newly unearthed complete concert from the accompanying tour, along with outtakes and alternate versions.
Foreigner will release an expanded version of “Head Games” on October 30th.
The box set version of the 1979 album, which features concert staples such as the title track and “DirtyWhite Boy,” will include a disc of outtakes and alternative versions, as well as a newly unearthed complete concert from the Head Games tour.
The previously unreleased song “Trouble” has been remixed and released as the first taste of the “HeadGames” set, with a newly added guitar solo from none other than Peter Frampton.
Featuring the hits “Dirty White Boy” and “Head Games”, this new edition features the original 10 track studio album newly remixed, a disc of outtakes and alternative versions, plus a previously unreleased show from the Head Games tour that includes Foreigner classics “Cold As Ice” and “Feels Like The First Time”, among many others.
The set is completed by a Blu-ray featuring an Atmos remix of the studio album. This new collection has been overseen by Jeff Pilson and Wyn Davis, and features a new essay by Ken Sharp detailing the history of this iconic record.
You can hear “Trouble” and check out the complete four-disc “Head Games” Super Deluxe Edition
Originally released on DVD 23 years ago, Barcelona 2002 has not been available in any audio format until now. This new 2026 mix from the original multitrack master recordings supplants the DVD soundtrack to provide the best audio document to date of the Rising tour. The 24-song set includes ten songs from the album, the tour debut of “Spirit In The Night,” a solo piano performance of “Incident On 57th Street,” “Born In The U.S.A.,” “Dancing In The Dark,” “Night,” “Ramrod” and “Land Of Hope And Dreams” before closing with “Thunder Road.”
Barcelona joins Helsinki 2003 as the second concert from the Rising tour released in the Live Archive series, though the two releases stand apart in meaningful ways
As outlined in the essay that accompanied its release, Helsinki was liberated from a proprietary DSD recording system used across the 2002-03 tour, though curiously (and fortunately) not Barcelona.
The Palau San Jordi show was captured on half-inch digital multitrack tape, like the format used on the Reunion tour. Why the change? Perhaps because the show had been earmarked for a live television broadcast and a future DVD. That would explain why Brendan O’Brien, who produced “The Rising“, was on hand (this night only, it seems) to record the concert on what we’ll assume was his preferred format.
The resulting “Live in Barcelona” DVD audio mix was made to complement the video, and as such was never released in a non-video format. That 2003 disc also prioritized a 5.1 surround mix for home theatre viewing, embracing the ambience of the venue and keeping a fair amount of distance between the listener and the stage. The stereo mix for DVD was secondary to the 5.1, as was customary at the time.
This 2026 Archive release was transferred from the original digital master tapes and newly mixed by Jon Altschiller. It’s an upgrade to the “Live in Barcelona” DVD audio, with considerably closer, clearer, and more detailed sound, excellent instrument separation, and a wide stereo soundstage.
Barcelona was an arena show, contrasted with a stadium gig in Helsinki that also happened to be Springsteen’s debut performance in Finland. Both shows feature heavy helpings of “Rising” material (Barça features one more track than Helsinki, “Countin’ on a Miracle”), but long-time-listener, first-time-caller Finnish fans got seven songs from “Born in the U.S.A.” The Barcelona variants not featured in Helsinki are tonally tough and hard to quibble with: “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “She’s the One,” “Spirit in the Night,” “Incident on 57th Street,” “Night,” and an electric “Born in the U.S.A.”
The pairing of “Prove It All Night” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” delivers early in the set. The former is fueled by call and response from Springsteen and Stevie Van Zandt along with gritty solos, while the latter gets an extended prelude marked by subtle guitar phrasing and novel line readings. “Darkness” is one of several songs across the night that tap new vocal approaches Springsteen used on “The Rising”, particularly in his upper range and falsetto voice. When he reaches for those notes, the poignancy rises.
“She’s the One” and “Night” (by request) step forth with the diamond-hard look of a cobra. They aren’t here for fun, bearing an edge found in their ’70s models and not heard often since. The Big Man, Clarence Clemons, is sharp and his saxophone shines in a “Born to Run” doubleshot that couldn’t sound this vital in a stadium.
Barcelona also features the tour debut of “Spirit in the Night,” summoning more rotary-phone era vibes, as does the beloved epic “Incident on 57th Street,” sung with a slightly modern feel but still shooting on Kodak color film. Both are performed solo piano by Springsteen — somewhat common for “Incident” but rare for “Spirit,” which is charmingly rendered and includes a lyrical glitch that Springsteen handles graciously with rapturous support from the crowd.
Where Helsinki opened with an acoustic “Born in the U.S.A.”, Barcelona gets a blistering, full-band take in its encore. One of those winning high-note moments comes at the end of the line, “I got a picture of him, in her arms.” This high-voltage “U.S.A.” carries an extended guitar solo like its 1988 counterparts, but the playing is more somatic in expression. At 4:12, leading up to the song’s crescendo, Springsteen strums the same short chord locked in with Max Weinberg’s snare hits to thrilling effect for a good 20 seconds before the legendary breakdown and reprise finale.
The addition of the E Street Horns and Choir on later tours brought its own power and soul to Springsteen’s shows, but there’s something deeply moving about “Rising” tour performances by the core E Street Band and Soozie Tyrell. “The Rising” material was beautifully arranged for the stage; it not only showcased the instrumental breadth of the musicians, but their voices as well.
Like great graphic design, the use of negative space in “Empty Sky” and “You’re Missing” gives these versions emotional gravitas as they shift from spareness and solitude to deeper expressions. “Into the Fire” is a vocal tour de force, with Springsteen’s thoughtful phrasing, rich solemnity and fragile falsetto matched strength for strength by Patti Scialfa’s ethereal background vocals. Their work is supported by Tyrell, whose voice and emotive violin playing adds another empathetic layer.
Most stirring of all is “My City of Ruins,” which starts intimately with Springsteen on piano, then grows in scope and hope as he moves to the front of the stage and the band meets the moment in a soaring rendition. It’s more great work from Clemons and E Street’s full voices.
“Land of Hope and Dreams” winds down the show with another dose of optimism. Listen to Springsteen rise up on “You’ll need a good companion, for this part of the ri-EEED.”). He tags the song’s progenitor, Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” connecting to that which we have attempted to overcome before. The night ends with “Thunder Road,” reminding us why we got on board the E Street train in the first place.
Is this technically a “new” Rising tour recording? No. But while we keep vigil outside the laboratory waiting for a cure for the tour’s Genex recording system contagion, let’s enjoy a great indoor 2002 performance that sounds better than ever 24 years later.
Bruce Springsteen – Lead vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica; Roy Bittan – Piano, keyboards; Clarence Clemons – Tenor and baritone saxophones, percussion, backing vocal; Danny Federici – Organ, keyboards, accordion; Nils Lofgren – Guitar, lap steel guitar, backing vocal; Patti Scialfa – Guitar, percussion, backing vocal; Garry Tallent – Bass; Stevie Van Zandt – Acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, backing vocal; Max Weinberg – Drums; Soozie Tyrell – Violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocal
Guitarist Slash will release his seventh solo album, “Flying Blind”, on February. 26th, 2027.
It will be the Guns N’ Roses guitarist’s first new album since 2024’s blues covers collection “Orgy of theDamned“, and his first collection of all-new music since 2022’s “4.” For the fifth time Slash is joined by singer Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators – Todd Kerns on bass, Brent Fitz on drums and FrankSidoris on rhythm guitar.
“It’s a really fun, kind of spontaneous rock ‘n’ roll record,” Slash said in a press release announcing “Flying Blind2. “It’s very straightforward and down-to-earth and raw.”
The creation of the title track was a prime example of that spontaneity. “While we were standing there in pre-production, a riff came to me and started developing,” Slash explained. “I had nothing of that song prior to those guys coming in, and then we started up a night of rehearsal and played that riff. It came together really quickly. As for it being the first single, you never know what the first single is going to be until you’ve recorded it. When I started thinking about it, ‘Flying Blind’ just seemed to have the right kind of melodic sensibilities and a hook to make it single material.”
Slash, Kennedy and the Conspirators will embark on a massive world tour in support of “Flying Blind” in April 2027.
Slash feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators Flying Blind
Two decades after the Raconteurs arrived with “Broken Boy Soldiers”, Third Man Records is opening the vault. The label has announced Vault #70: The Raconteurs – “Broken Boy Soldiers XX“, a 23-track 20th anniversary companion to the band’s 2006 debut. More than 20 of the tracks have never been released, including nine demos and outtakes and a recording of the Jack White-led group’s very first live performance, captured March 20th, 2006, at Liverpool’s Carling Academy.
“Over 34 incisive minutes, the Raconteurs — White and his longstanding Detroit compadre BrendanBenson, plus drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence from Cincinnati garage rockers the Greenhornes — take a joyous sprint through the parts of their record collections devoted to the late ’60s and early ’70s, referencing the Who circa Tommy, early Led Zeppelin and the English blues rock quartet Free,” In its original review of “Broken Boy Soldiers” Spin magazine said. “There’s also a dash of the ornate musical form once known as progressive rock, not least in keyboard passages that cry out for cringe-inducing words like arpeggio.
The album spawned the favourites “Steady, As She Goes,” “Hands” and the title track, while establishing the Raconteurs as one of the era’s most intriguing supergroups — or, as its members initially put it, “a new band of old friends.”
The new set digs deep into the sessions behind that debut. Among the highlights are a studio demo of “Level,” an early version of “Steady, As She Goes,” the previously unheard “Mech Royal” and an alternate take of “Blue Veins” that stretches past seven minutes.
There’s also a glimpse of the band before the album even existed, as the previously unreleased Liverpool concert runs through the Broken Boy Soldiers track list and adds covers of Love’s “A House Is Not a Motel” and the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Headin’for the Texas Border.”White later recalled the peculiar novelty of playing with the new band, joking that he wasn’t used to being able to take a sip of water in the middle of a song.
The physical package is suitably elaborate. The 23 tracks are spread across three 180-gram colored-vinyl LPs — Metallic Copper, Grand Green and Coke Bottle Clear — housed in two gatefold jackets and a slipcase. The set also includes a film strip from the “Steady, As She Goes” video shoot, featuring individual shots of the band captured on 35mm film, plus one of four collectible cards from ThirdMan’s Tripppl imprint.
Vault #70 is available exclusively through Third Man Records,
