Back catalogue: Rock (All)

Review: With the recently announced news of a final "new" track from The Beatles set to imminently drop, reissues of both the iconic/infamous Red and Blue compilations are set to be delivered on a gatefold 180 gram vinyl 3xLP half-speed remaster, with the blue spanning their output from 1967 to 1970, this version exclusively bears the highly anticipated last original recording 'Now & Then'. Running from The Magic Mystery Tour EP all the way up to Let It Be (with a bevvy of essential non-album cuts such as 'Hey Jude' and 'Don't Let Me Down'), the compilation offers a detailed insight into the artistic abandon the members felt during the final years of their tenure once touring, radioplay and listener expectation had become moot points.

Review: Capturing the era of Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio on vocals following Ozzy Osborne's departure, Live Evil was the first officially sanctioned live album from Birmingham's foremost heavy metal pioneers. The album came together in 1982, drawing on shows from Seattle, San Antonio and Dallas on the Mob Rules tour, and now it has been given the deluxe reissue treatment. As well as the original mix of the album, there's an entirely new mix of the album from the original analogue master tapes by long time band associate Wyn Daivs, complete with a 40-page hardback book featuring new liner notes and replicas of the original concert book and poster form the Mob Rules tour.

Review: The Black Sabbath Hand Of Doom box set provides the ultimate collection for fans who opt to live in a world where the group never had any other vocalist apart from Ozzy Osbourne. Providing picture disc represses of all eight LPs released during the original frontman's tenure from 1970 to 1978 (2013's reunion album 13 is not included), the collection boasts the self-titled 1970 debut, the same-year follow up Paranoid, as well as the iconic slew of Master Of Reality (1971), Vol 4 (1972), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973), Sabotage (1975), Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978). Limited to 3000 copies (which isn't a large amount when considering how vital Sabbath's early material still is to this day) and complete with a large coloured poster, fan service rarely gets as ideal or essential as Hand Of Doom.

Review: One of the most successful British bands of the last 3 decades, Blur are back with their first new album in over 8 years: The Ballad of Darren. The album was produced by James Ford and recorded in Studio 13, London and Devon, and is the sound of a band at the very top of their game.

The Ballad of Darren is the band's ninth studio album, their first since the chart-topping The Magic Whip in 2015, with artwork featuring an image by British photographer Martin Parr.

Region code: ABC (universal)

Review: While David Bowie's talents were many, it was his skills as a musician, a composer and a performer which were, and indeed remain, the most celebrated of the great man's gifts. But Bowie was a self-taught intellectual too, a thinker of unparalleled originality and, quite probably, the best-read rock star of all time. He was also a talented speaker, an enormously absorbing conversationalist and someone you just know you could have had a damn good chat with, if only the opportunity had arisen. When these faculties are combined, as they are throughout the recordings here, some of the most stimulating archive film available on the boy from Beckenham is revealed. This double DVD set concentrates on David Bowie's spoken word video recordings, collating as it does more than 3 hours of the Thin White Duke in interview, in conversation, in conference and when simply having a bit of a natter! Intriguing and enthralling throughout, this set features both classic and rare footage, which all at once make it a must-have compilation for Bowie fans the world across.

Notes: Beautiful People "If 60's Were 90's" Box Set Consisting of over 50 sampled Guitar Riffs, Lead Vocals & Word Raps From Guitar God Jimi Hendrix. Commissioned by legendary record producer and former creative head of the Jimi Hendrix Estate Alan Douglas in 1990, the cleverly titled "If 60's Were 90's" by the band Beautiful People, is a truly unique and seminal record. "Beautiful People are a bunch of movers and shakers from London's Acid House Scene, who have a highly developed fascination with the music of Jimi Hendrix, emphatically not a 'Tribute' band in the style of the Bootleg Beatles or the Australian Doors, Beautiful People have used sampling technology to virtually recruit Hendrix into the groups line up." - David Sinclair, Billboard Magazine.

Consisting of over fifty guitar riffs, vocal cut outs, out- take lead breaks, and word raps from guitar god Jimi Hendrix, "If 60's Were 90's" also features spoken steals from Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, 60's blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield and a party called the "Milky Way Express" that included the one and only Frank Zappa.

Like some Groovy Psychedelic time-machine cruising the Hendrixphere, Beautiful People pluck from over 30 different Hendrix recordings, writing nine new songs creating an... "Ambient Dance Dream Tribute" (Kris Needs, NME)... of ... "Super Psychedelic Baggy Indie dance with Orb like overtones.." (Ian McCan, VOX) creating a sound that arguably helped kick off the rock dance crossover phenomenon of the early 90's, bringing guitars back into dance music, while still retaining the psychedelic rock majesty of one of the greatest guitarists of the 20th Century.

Region code: 0 (universal)

Notes: Zakk Wylde shines with his Black Label Society in this concert recorded in Paris by big sound, good editing and sharp image. The directior is extremely creative with tools such as zoom, split screen and optical alienations, including tracking shots from the ceiling of the location. The band itself additionally gives everything in its committed and agile performance. As a plus there are four songs from a gig in London. With almost four hours of total playing time, this Blu-ray is filled to the brim and should be an essential part of any BLS collection!

Region code: 2

Notes: The book project "M_Dokumente" focuses on the explicitly female perspective of the all-female bands Mania D., Malaria! and Matador on the West Berlin music and art scene from the late 1970s on.

The three bands around Bartel, Koster and Gut played concerts, released records and toured around the world in different formations from 1979 on. What stood out and was new was the self-determined appearance of the musicians, which was reflected in their music and lyrics as well as in their unique style and the genre-crossing approach of "more art in the music, more music in the art". To this day, the three M_Bands are considered visionary, they shaped a new image of women in pop culture and are pioneers and role models for important and necessary emancipatory movements in the music industry.

With oral history documentary by and with Beate Bartel, Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koster as well as contributions by Nick Cave, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christine Hahn, Peter Bommels, Mark Reeder, Scumeck Sabottka, and Annett Scheffel.

In German and English.

Notes: Crass was the anarcho-punk face of a revolutionary movement founded by radical thinkers and artists Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, and Steve Ignorant. When punk ruled the waves, Crass waived the rules and took it further, putting out their own records, films, and magazines and setting up a series of situationist pranks that were dutifully covered by the world's press. Not just another iconoclastic band, Crass was a musical, social, and political phenomenon.

Commune dwellers who were rarely photographed and remained contemptuous of conventional pop stardom; their members explored and finally exhausted the possibilities of punk-led anarchy. They have at last collaborated on telling the whole Crass story, giving access to many never-before-seen photos and interviews.

Praise:

"Lucid in recounting their dealings with freaks, coppers, and punks the band's voices predominate, and that's for the best."
The Guardian UK

"Thoroughly researched...chockful of fascinating revelations...it is, surprisingly, the first real history of the pioneers of anarcho-punk."
Classic Rock

"They (Crass) sowed the ground for the return of serious anarchism in the early eighties."
Jon Savage, England's Dreaming

About the Author:

George Berger has written for Sounds, Melody Maker and Amnesty International amongst others. His previous book was a biography of the Levellers: State Education/No University.

Author: George Berger
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 9/2009
Format: Paperback
Page count: 304
Size: 6 x 9
Subjects: Punk Rock, Anarchism