Cream’s 1968 album, Wheels of Fire, is getting a Super Deluxe Edition chronicling the full creation and fruition of the supergroup’s—Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce—ground breaking third album. The expanded title, to be released in 5-CD and 3-LP editions on June 12th, 2026, via Polydor/UMe, features newly remastered mono and stereo versions of the studio album, live performances, and 15 rare recordings, nine of which are previously unreleased.
The set includes a special, newly remastered stereo version of the nine-track studio portion of the album. Originally released utilizing CSG processed recordings, this remastered, de-CSG’d version now presents the album phase corrected, delivering the recordings with greater detail and a crisp soundstage.
The newly remastered mono and stereo versions of the studio album are sourced from the late Cream producer Felix Pappalardi’s personal reference reels. These recordings have never been released before and include many alternate mixes.
The collection features remastered versions of the four live tracks recorded in March 1968 and originally released on LP2 of “Wheels Of Fire“, alongside eight additional tracks performed at those concerts, including an unreleased live recording of “We’re Going Wrong,” recorded on March 10th at San Francisco’s Winterland.
A newly compiled rarities collection features 15 recordings, nine of which are previously unreleased. This collection includes early versions, alternate mixes and single versions.
The set is completed with a hardcover book featuring sleeve notes by Jim Farber and photographs of Cream from the era. The 5 CDs are housed in a gatefold sleeve and, together with the book, are enclosed within a rigid slipcase with a silver lamination finish.
“Stopped A Freight Train With A Grain Of Sand” is the latest instalment from the “Let’s Go Dancing” series — an epic (and still unfolding) 100-song living tribute to Drivin N Cryin singer/guitarist and celebrated songwriter / solo artist Kevn Kinney.
This new set sharpens its focus on the harder, faster and louder edges of Kinney’s songbook. If earlier chapters leaned into folk-born introspection, “Stopped A Freight Train With A Grain Of Sand” roars, spotlighting the grit and voltage coursing beneath Kinney’s writing, whether delivered solo or at the helm of Drivin N Cryin.
The roster this time includes Deer Tick, The Black Crowes, The Crosses (featuring Dan Kubinski of Die Kreuzen), Butch Walker, Edwin McCain, Dinos Boys, Bobby Bare Jr., The Ghost Wolves, Fang of Gore, Tim Nielsen, Mark Bryan, Miles Nielsen And The The Rusted Hearts and Peter Stroud.
A Dublin-born, stylistically restless but fundamentally punk troubadour, Stefan Murphy emerged in the early ’00s under the moniker The Mighty Stef, which became a full-band concern around 2007, wrapped up in 2016, and was followed by a short stint as Count Vaseline. Then, in 2019, Murphy met a gentleman by the name of James Mechan, who happened to be Stiff Little Fingers’ guitar tech. That last part is relevant, as any current convert to the band we’re discussing here can testify. And so is the first part, as Mechan wanted to record Murphy at his Nashville studio.
Those plans were derailed by the pandemic but not forgotten when Murphy moved to Nashville in 2022. Work commenced, the pair were joined by Ryan Sweeney (of Cheap Time) on drums and Eli Steele (Sweet Knives) on lead guitar. The result was The Sleeveens, named after an Irish slang for “trixter”…not the earthly type responsible for a plastic Aztec death whistle on your exhaust pipe but rather the otherworldly one that temporarily vanishes the keys to the vehicle.
“National Anthem”, their second album, should and could comfortably sit on the proverbial shelf of rock history next to all-timers with titles like “Even Serpents Shine”, “Eternally Yours”, “All Rise”, “Setting Suns”, “Radios Appear”, Nobody’s Heroes”, “Sorry Ma, I Forgot To Take Out The Trash” and “Rocket To Russia.”
When five-time Grammy winner Taj Mahal intersects with The Phantom Blues Band, it’s one of those rare joints that hits you before you even know you’ve been hit. They walk in, plug in, and the whole room shifts. Studio assassins, road lifers, groove keepers and somehow still hungry. Mahal’s fearless, open-hearted spirit still shadows the whole thing with that genre-hopping joy. He leads you down the road with a history lesson and the Phantoms carry it with honour to the Griot.
Mahal sings and plays harp as he fronts an all-star lineup of legendary musicians with the three ringleaders for the Phantoms — Johnny Lee Schell, the soulful gunslinger with tone for days; Tony Braunagel, the drummer who keeps the whole ship steered straight and on time, every time; and Larry Fulcher, the anchor, the heartbeat, the quiet storm on bass.
On this record they slide through blues, soul, R&B, and island colour with the ease of men who’ve lived every bit of it. This is deep-groove, grown-folks music from a band that still plays like the night is young.
Recorded around 2010, Time weaves original compositions by members of the Phantom Blues Band with deep-cut blues interpretations, alongside a previously unreleased original song by Bill Withers.
The album’s title track, “Time” is a previously unreleased song written by Bill Withers, discovered as an early demo and, with the blessing of Bill and Marcia Withers, is brought to life for the first time by Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band.
Taj and PBB’s collaboration spans over 3 decades, including the albums “Dancing the Blues” (1993), Phantom Blues” (1996), “Señor Blues” (1997), the classic live album “Shoutin’ in Key” (2000), “Maestro” (2008) and this new album, “Time” (5.1.2026).
“Time” is not a reunion, but a continuation, blending reggae, New Orleans grooves, country blues, R&B, and Latin rhythms—guided by the same shared musical language forged decades ago.
Taj Mahal & The Phantom Blues Band’s “Time,” from the new album ‘Time,’ out on May 1st.
The Black Keys have announced details of their 14th studio album ‘Peaches!’ set to release May 1, 2025. News of the release comes just six months after last year’s ‘No Rain, No Flowers’ album.
The duo have also released the first singe from the album, a cover of Earl Hooker’s “You Got To Lose” and is accompanied by a video in which the Black Keys play a surprise show at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way, a juke joint in Memphis.
Longtime collaborators Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney return to an organic approach. Auerbach described the album as “Their most natural” “Everything was all cut live in one with no separation, including vocals,” Patrick Carney adds. “It was a nightmare to mix but we got it sounding raw and filthy.” The Akron duo’s 14th studio album (and sixth since 2019), a visceral and raw 10-song collection described by singer Dan Auerbach as the band’s “most natural record” since their 2002 debut, “The Big Come Up“. In similar DIY spirit, the album was recorded with all musicians playing in same room with few overdubs,
‘Peaches!’ was recorded with all of the musicians in the same room and includes limited use of overdubs. he album is The Black Keys’ first recorded and mixed entirely by Auerbach and Carney since 2006’s ‘Magic Potion.’
The songs chosen reflect Auerbach and bandmate / drummer Patrick Carney’s obsessive record-collecting habit, which in recent years has escalated into an ongoing series of Record Hang DJ-set dance parties where they spin vintage 45s for packed, high-energy dancefloors in the coolest spots across the globe.”
The new album’s roots were formed when frontman Dan Auerbach’s late father was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and drummer Patrick Carney suggested that some time in the studio might offer Auerbach some catharsis.
The Black Keys’ upcoming tour schedule continues to fill in alongside previously confirmed shows and festival appearances. After performing at Rock En Seine 2026 in France in late August, the band will head to London for two newly booked concerts.
The Black Keys Announce New Covers Album ‘Peaches!’ Out May 1, 2026
R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe gives update on debut solo album: “It’s taken longer than I wanted” The singer has only released a handful of songs under his own name since his former band split amicably in 2011, including ‘I Played The Fool’ with Andrew Watt, Josh Klinghoffer and Travis Barker earlier this week for the new show Rooster.
He has said he hopes the record will be released before the end of 2026, He has, been working on his first solo album for several years and in a new interview with The Times, he has given fans some significant updates on the record’s progress. I took five years but I got pulled back into music. It’s been a struggle. That’s the main thing. I want it to be great, but I’ve got the pressure of having been in R.E.M. and it’s a high bar, because I want this to be as good as that, and that’s near impossible.”
The interview also revealed that Stipe has still got eight songs to finish before the record is complete, but he is working to a deadline and he hopes that it will be released before the end of 2026.
The GRAMMY-winning artist, singer/songwriter and R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe collaborates with Louis Cato and The Great Big Joy Machine on a brand new, unreleased track from his upcoming debut solo album.
Keep up with all of Michael Stipe’s projects, including his four recent photography books, at https://www.michaelstipe.com.
The Waterboys have announced “Atlantic Rain”, a set of outtakes and extended tracks from the “Fisherman’s Blues” sessions, due for release in July.
Anyone who thought 2013’s six-disc, 121-track “Fisherman’s” Box Set and the 2017 ‘collectors edition’ were the last word when it came to the sessions, think again. “Atlantic Rain” came about when Mike Scott went through around 80 reels from the sessions that hadn’t been labelled correctly and discovered dozens of forgotten tracks.
As well as previously unreleased covers of artists such as Bob Dylan (‘Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground’), Prince (‘When Doves Cry’ – released to Patreon subscribers last year) and The Rolling Stones (‘No Expectations’), Scott’s archival work uncovered several unreleased originals, including ‘Come Back To Galway’, ‘Light Shine On Me’, ‘Endless Store’ and ‘Man With The Wind At His Heels’.
“Atlantic Rain” compiles 25 of these tracks (all never before released, with seven extended versions) across three discs – the tracklisting is the same on the 3CD and 3LP vinyl editions– and comes with a book featuring a 15,000 word essay from Scott and unseen photos.
The band are also releasing “Strange Boat“, an official shop-exclusive companion EP on either CD or 10-inch vinyl, featuring a further six tracks from the sessions. All are unreleased, with “two of them ‘new’ and four of them variations on familiar songs”.
“Fisherman’s Blues Sessions” must be some of the most extensive in rock/pop history! ‘Atlantic Rain’ is a new release with 17 previously unreleased tracks and 7 extended versions of tracks from the old box set. 3CD and 3LP versions with companion EP available (with 6 more tracks)
“Atlantic Rain” is out on 17th July 2026, via Chrysalis Records
IAN SWEET is the chosen shape Jilian Medford often steps into—and sometimes dissolves inside of. What began 10 years ago as a solo project that launched her to indie-critical-darling status, over time has evolved into something more atmospheric and less containable: a porous altar, a mirror, a weather system. There are stretches when the line between Jilian and “IAN SWEET” disappears entirely—this time around a very real life trifecta of battling industry pressures, the ending of a 3-year relationship, and a return to living in her native city of Los Angeles. These serve as the backdrop under which “Shiverstruck“, her fifth album as IAN SWEET, has found its way into the world.
“Shiverstruck” arrives from a place of deliberate separation. Where earlier works collapsed the distance between Jilian and IAN SWEET, this record gently reestablishes it. The writing process became an act of surrender and an intentional relinquishing of control. “I was thinking about how easy it is to mistake survival for connection,” Medford explains about “Shiverstruck” album opener “987.” “Music has pushed me to be more empathetic, to pay attention to emotions and experiences that aren’t always comfortable, and channel that into something that feels authentic.” Rather than meticulously sculpting every emotion, she allowed the songs to assume their own architecture. In doing so, she discovered a new softness—a compassion for herself that doesn’t require total collapse to feel human.
Across her career, Medford has cultivated a body of work defined by emotional precision and dynamic force—guitars that lurch from whisper to rupture, melodies that carry both ache and defiance. Her songs interrogate identity not as a fixed condition, but as something negotiated daily. Often associated with a lineage of confessional indie rock, she has been labeled a “sad girl,” an archetype she once embraced, whether as armor or proof of depth. But her trajectory has never been about sadness itself; it has been about understanding it, metabolizing it, and ultimately refusing to be reduced by it. “Shiverstruck” was written during her second year living in New York City, a period that shaped her in ways both profound and messy. In 2023, to make ends meet amidst the increasingly unsustainable economies of touring and streaming as an independent musician, Medford put her strengths as a songwriter to the test, taking an unexpected job working with children. “Singing to babies, leading classes, playing guitar, dancing in circles, singing about sheep, frogs, trains, trees…you name it. It was absurd in one register but transformative in another,” Medford expounds “Watching children respond to music for the first time; their faces lighting up completely unselfconscious, it rewires your brain as a songwriter and steers you more towards honesty. Everything felt immediate and real.”
Simultaneously, Medford was confronting the less visible pressures of the industry around her. There were moments that tested not just her career, but her sense of agency as a working musician within it. She saw AI-generated IAN SWEET soundalikes impersonating her music show up as official IAN SWEET releases on streaming platforms and had to fight off confusion among fans. In another instance, Medford found out that her music was being used by a popular production house for a film trailer, without permission or payment for its licensing. Upon confronting them, she was only then offered compensation if she signed an NDA, agreeing to not mention the situation had ever occurred at all (Medford declined).
Although these experiences proved frustrating, they clarified something: Medford would not ascribe to the unspoken expectation for women in music to stay agreeable and absorb the impact quietly. This sentiment lends itself to the album single “Wildheart.” “I used to define myself by sadness, and would wear the ‘saddest girl in the room’ superlative like a badge of honor,” Medford explains, “But I’ve let that go. I exist beyond that narrative, even while still feeling deeply. The ‘wild heart’ idea is what keeps me moving through fear, doubt, and the pressure of this industry. I’m just trying to exist beyond my insecurities and beyond what anyone else thinks of me.” That shift shaped “Shiverstruck” into something that began to feel less like documentation and more like manifestation—intuitive signals pointing toward changes she hadn’t yet consciously named.
“It was the hardest I’ve worked and ruminated on lyrics,” says Medford. The writing was the heart of everything and had to feel really grounded. I put in crazy amounts of time and energy to make them feel like the truest reflection of who I am and where I’m at in my life right now.” By the time Medford got to Maze Studios in Atlanta to work with “Shiverstruck” producer Ben H. Allen (Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Soccer Mommy), the song’s foundations were already solid. From there, Medford and Allen worked together with drummer Harold Brown and engineer Ben Etter to build them into ten thoughtfully constructed tracks.
In their completion, something came into focus, what had once been abstract became undeniable. As Medford was wrapping up production on the album, she ended a long term relationship, a decision that arrived with a sense of clarity the songs themselves seemed to foreshadow–the “wreckage” referenced in “987,” or the thrill of reliving nostalgic emotions for someone as heard on the propulsive lead single “Criminal Kissing.”
In a way, the album’s focal point naturally falls to “Jilian,” written by Medford in tribute to all of the pitfalls and lessons learned from her time living in New York. “Sad singer, such an idiot. Bad sex, cigarettes, all the little mistakes that make life feel cruel and hilarious at the same time,” says Medford. “I know I sound dramatic and maybe I am (yeah, I am). My time living in New York made every mistake and every misstep feel larger than life. This song is messy, self-aware and full of the contradictions that make me who I am.” In the aftermath, she relocated back to Los Angeles, returning to the place she felt most at home. “New York is incredible. It pulls something out of you and expands you in ways you can’t anticipate,” Medford elaborates. “I think everyone should experience that. But for me, I kind of always knew I’d return home to LA to rejoin forces with myself.” The process of making “Shiverstruck” had quietly set that return in motion. What followed was not a reinvention, but a recognition: a coming back to herself with greater honesty, and a deeper trust in what that self requires.
Francis of Delirium aka Luxembourg-based musician Jana Bahrich—is releasing a new album, “Run, Run Pure Beauty“, on May 29th via Dalliance Recordings. This week she shared another song from it, “Requiem for a Dying Day,” via a self-directed, stop-motion video.
Bahrich had this to say in a press release: “‘Requiem for a Dying Day’ began after reading about Katy Perry going to space and then developed into this pre-emptive mourning and grief for our future. I wanted the video to be done in clay mation because the form itself is a celebration of process and slowness. All the work that has been put into it is blatantly on display, every thumbprint and every minor adjustment. We are hurtling towards our future without much pause or forethought. I wanted this video to be an attempt at the opposite, so I chose the most painstaking medium I could think of.”
“Run, Run Pure Beauty” is her second album. Bahrich produced the album with long time collaborator Chris Hewett. Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Silver Jews) mixed it. Live, Bahrich plays guitar and sings vocals and is joined by Jeff Hennico (bass), and Denis Schumacher (drums).
Francis of Delirium follows up her acclaimed debut album with Run, Run Pure Beauty. Featuring the singles ‘Little Black Dress’ and ‘It’s a Beautiful Life’, it serves as an excavation of hope in bleak times. Recorded after coming off tours with both Bôa and Blondshell, the album was produced by Jana Bahrich (Francis of Delirium herself) and long time collaborator Chris Hewett, and mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Silver Jews, Wild Nothing). Its eleven songs of discovery, despair and perseverance ultimately serve as a mirror on its creator and is a brilliant next installment in the Francis of Delirium arc.
An artist who seeks to connect with her listeners on a deeper level, she’s made hope and inner strength central themes on her new album, Run, Run Pure Beauty. Jana says the title track is “an imagining of the world after it has been destroyed by humans and technology. Thrashing against what humans have left behind, ultimately the pure beauty of nature wins out.” Wanting to bring different perspectives into her songwriting with this record – informed by both her travels and the tumultuous times we find ourselves in – she’s also brought about a progression in her sound with these new songs somehow sounding larger, with undeniable harmonies and more orchestration.
“Jana Bahrich seems too young for this tremendous debut’s ambitious anthems…” Uncut, 8/10 ‘Lighthouse’ Album Review
“Capturing a similar melancholy sparkle to indie favourites such as Japanese Breakfast and Snail Mail, Lighthouse’s 11 tracks encapsulate both bittersweet, desperate yearning and a breathless new romance; throughout, the golden-hour world they live in is astonishingly vivid. Bahrich’s choruses, almost every one, are lump-in-your-throat gorgeous.” NME
“There’s a bit of Pixies and Snail Mail and the Beths in there, and maybe some Lomelda and Lucy Dacus and Built To Spill. You know, that really f*cking good shit.” Stereogum
“In a time when the world often feels fragmented, Francis of Delirium offers a message of hope and unity.” Dork
The second volume of this highly collectable series, covering the pivotal years of 1969-70.
The Island Book of Records Volume II documents the years 1969-70, during which Island sought to build on its success with the Spencer Davis Group by seeking out new British rock talent. By the end of the period, Island was emerging as a major British label, one that could boast releases from Jethro Tull, Nick Drake, King Crimson, John and Beverley Martyn, Fairport Convention and Cat Stevens.
Featuring material from recent interviews and from media interviews of the time, and including a comprehensive discography of 45s, The Island Book of Records Volume II is lavishly illustrated with gig adverts (very many at venues that no longer exist), concert tickets, flyers, international LP variants, labels, LP and 45 adverts and other ephemera collector’s dream.
‘In a word this is perfection in print’ Grahame Bent, Shindig! magazine
‘I could spend hours poring over Neil Storey’s handsomely designed Island Book of Records Volume II, the continuing story of one of Britain’s greatest independent record labels.’ Neil McCormick, The Telegraph ‘best music books of 2024’
‘Packed with new interviews, artefacts and delicious details’ Jim Wirth, MOJO
‘A rich and lovingly curated look at a particularly prolific year in Island Records history.’ Roisin O’Connor, The Independent
The Fat Angel Sings 