New releases of note. Click the links to order from ImportCDs.
Bob Dylan - The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings
39-disc box set captures all professionally recorded shows from the 1976 second leg of the legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour, all from original tape sources. The box includes 381 tracks, 371 of which have never been released, plus a booklet with liner notes by Mikal Gilmore and rare photographs.
The second leg of the legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour saw Dylan welcome old friends and collaborators to his troupe. Dylan reunited with Joan Baez to perform a moving set of duets across many dates, including performances of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Railroad Boy.” Dylan’s band included bassist Rob Stoner, violinist Scarlet Rivera, drummer Howie Wyeth (who had all worked on the chart-topping album Desire), guitarists Mick Ronson (of David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars), Steven Soles, David Mansfield and T Bone Burnett.
Soft Machine - Slightly All The Time: Recordings 1970-1974 17-Disc Box Set
Limited 17 CD set. Packaged in a sturdy 12" x 12" slipcase, with a hardback book featuring many rare photographs and extensive notes by journalist and author Sid Smith, progressive rock fans (who buy detailed boxed sets like this in large quantities), will delight in this comprehensive examination of one the great names in the genre.
One of the most influential progressive rock bands of the late '60s / early '70s, Soft Machine's initial line-up was Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (organ).
They emerged from the UK underground in 1967, featuring prominently at epoch-making London venues such as the UFO Club and Middle Earth to establish a powerful reputation over the next decade with a series of accomplished albums and some innovative concert performances (notably in the UK and France) and with a support slot on the Jimi Hendrix Experience US tours throughout 1968. After two albums for ABC/Probe - The Soft Machine and Volume Two - they signed to CBS/Columbia with a line-up consisting of Wyatt, Ratledge, saxophonist Elton Dean and bassist Hugh Hopper, releasing their most successful long player, Third, in 1970. This was followed by four more albums during a period of significant acclaim across Europe, and a frequently evolving line-up.
Soft Machine disbanded in 1978, apart from the occasional reunion, before being relaunched as Soft Machine Legacy in 2004, touring extensively and making many more albums. Since 2016 they have been known simply as Soft Machine and in March this year the current line-up issued their latest album, Thirteen. They will be playing live across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year and well into 2027, including festivals and club dates in Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Hungary.
This extensive boxed set presents the story of the most vital, influential period in the Soft Machine story. Centred around their five CBS albums, all remastered from the original ¼" tapes and including the discovery of an entirely different and previously unreleased set of recordings of their Fifth album, it also contains all of their extant BBC sessions (some have been released before, decades ago, these are the complete performances for the first time) and a significant amount of previously unavailable audio-visual, full concert recordings from Europe (UK/France/Belgium/Germany).
John Coltrane - The Tiberi Tapes
The Tiberi Tapes opens a door long-whispered about among Coltrane fans: intimate, previously unheard live recordings made by saxophonist Frank Tiberi as he followed John Coltrane through Philadelphia and New York clubs in the early 1960s.
Captured on modest reel-to-reel equipment, these performances trade Polish for presence, placing the listener close to the bandstand as Coltrane and his bandmates test, stretch and transform the music in real time. The sound bears the immediacy of it's origins: raw, direct and alive with discovery. For Tiberi, these tapes were study materials, a private archive of harmonic information and musical inspiration.
More than 60 years later, they emerge as something larger: a vital chapter in the Coltrane story, preserving the feeling, risk and relentless searching that made the bandstand his truest laboratory. Heard now, the music feels not archival but immediate, a living document of curiosity, discipline and ecstatic momentum. 3-CD set, 4-LP set
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