Album Reviews

The name Sun Ra and the term “free jazz” can conjure up all manner of strange musical imagery, especially amongst those unfamiliar with his music. Alternate identifiers such as “free improvisation” and the more umbrella-like “modern jazz” might ease those anxieties, but the reality is, a lot of Ra’s spirited music is not as random and difficult as some might think. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review that focuses on five new and recent 180g Sun Ra-centric vinyl releases that we hope will intrigue listeners to explore this fascinating artist’s music with fresh ears and open minds. . .

The 67th Grammy Awards — sorry, I meant the all-caps GRAMMY Awards — were handed out in Los Angeles last night, February 2, 2025, and we applaud the wide range of actual, great-sounding winning recordings, as evidenced by what we’ve heard of their vinyl incarnations. Over the past year(ish), we’ve indeed reviewed some of those key, Grammy-winning LPs and songs here on AP, so if you’re keen on finding out if they make the grade on vinyl and are worthy of your hard-earned dollars and/or valuable listening time, then read on. . .

As noted in our coverage of the press event that happened in NYC back in December 2024, Miles Davis’ Birth of the Blue assembles, “in a single release, music recorded in 1958, one year prior to the landmark Kind of Blue.” Read Ken Micallef’s review to see if this AAA 180g 1LP release from Analogue Productions lives up to its advance billing. . .

Our first Short Cuts combo-review entry of 2025 covers six recent blues reissues — five from the Bluesville Series from Craft Recordings, plus one archival release issued on RSD 2024 by Deep Digs/Elemental Music. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review to see how many of these fine 180g LP offerings from Albert King, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Skip James, Blind Gary Davis, and B.B. King belong in your collection. . .

Another year of LP acquiring, cleaning, listening, archiving, and spinning, and archiving has come and gone — and not necessarily always in that order, either! — so, naturally, before the big holiday week takes hold of our respective calendars, we here at AP feel it’s the exact right time to determine the best of what we’ve heard on vinyl during the past 12 months. Between the two of us — i.e., 1) Mike Mettler, your intrepid AP editor, and 2) chief LP reviewer, Mark Smotroff — we have listened to multiple-hundreds’ worth of albums on vinyl in 2024 apiece, so read on to see what our 20-plus favorite reissues and new LPs of the year are. . .

In the Beatleverse, it is generally well known and quite accepted that the mono mixes of the early Beatles recordings are considered superior to the stereo counterparts for many reasons. Thus, a new box set assembling 21st century recreations of the U.S. Beatles albums in their original monaural sound has a special sort of appeal — and that’s where the 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono 180g 8LP box set, which was released by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe on November 22, 2024, comes into play. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if The Beatles’ 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono 180g 8LP box set is fab enough to put on your holiday-purchase list, or if you should buy each album individually. . .

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ November 1982 LP Long After Dark was not exactly everyone’s immediate favorite back in the day, for various reasons. Thankfully, a newly expanded 180g 2LP set dubbed Long After Dark – Deluxe Edition goes a long way to improve on the core album as a listening experience, start to finish, with powerful bonus tracks and more sympathetic mastering. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see why this new Long After Dark – Deluxe Edition has reignited our passion for this album, especially in its newly expanded form. . .