VIA PRESS RELEASE | Demon Records are proud to be releasing a live version of Teenager Of The Year, the incredible second album released by Frank Black, on 27 November 2026.

Released exclusively for Record Store Day Black Friday 2026, Teenager Of The Year – Live will be available at participating stores as a stunning 3LP set pressed on gold, green, and red vinyl, as well as a 2CD edition.

“In 2025 I toured with my 1994 band, the same group who were the principal players on a record called Teenager Of The Year . This record documents that tour, which was a kind of 30-year birthday for the original double LP. Each of the 22 tracks is, to my mind, quite different from each other; but I think rather than a lack of cohesiveness, they are joined beautifully in a crown of royalty, each retaining its individual charm while contributing to a sum that is greater, almost perfect, like 10 toes and 10 fingers and also an extra finger.

Teenager Of The Year was the only award I’ve ever received (back in high school), and you can smell that teen spirit resurrection on TOTY, and I hope 30 years later some of that funk remains.” —Frank Black, September, 2026, Los Angeles

The album originally released in 1994 is often described as “The best album the Pixies never made,” Teenager Of The Year is captured here in a thrilling live performance recorded during Frank Black and his band’s 2025 30th anniversary tour, which saw them perform the album across the USA and Europe. The tour culminated in a spectacular final show at the London Palladium, which was recorded for this release.

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Remembering Bert Jansch, born on this day in 1943. —Ed.

By its very nature, instrumental music is a study in form, and frequently to such an extent that listeners nurturing vocally focused comfort zones can feel left out in the cold. Bert Jansch’s non-vocal debut Avocet is well-poised to overcome this obstacle; a trio effort of welcoming beauty devoted to the glory of British birds, the whole stands amongst the lauded Scottish guitarist’s most fully realized achievements. 

The making of Bert Jansch’s twelfth LP transpired in February of 1978, a point on the calendar roughly coinciding with the nasty storm of punk rock, and wherever the eye of the squall traveled across the landscape of the UK, it can be safely surmised Avocet was elsewhere. Over time, the guitarist would come to be revered by a heaping dogpile of alternative-indie figures with creative DNA directly traceable to the punk upheaval, but it’s well established that the late ‘70s proved to be a tough stretch for practitioners of non-clamorous sounds, not limited to veterans of the Brit-folk scene.

Of course, it’s not all so simple. As related in Colin Harper’s excellent notes for Avocet’s reissue, Jansch’s prior set A Rare Conundrum, released in the UK in ’77 on Charisma, had been well-received by the Brit music press in part because it was viewed as a sort of homecoming affair after two full-lengths cut out California way (those would be ‘74’s L.A. Turnaround and ‘75’s Santa Barbara Honeymoon).

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Pianist Matthew Shipp and double bassist William Parker are among the most vital musicians to have hit the scene in any genre in the last half century. It is easy to argue that, on their respective instruments, there is no one better. On November 6, two releases by this duo make the case for their exceptional qualities. One is Zo, an explosive set originally released in 1994 and reissued by ESP-Disk on vinyl for the first time, along with compact disc and digital. The other is the astoundingly communicative A Whole System Of, a brand-spanking-new encounter available through TAO Forms, also on LP, CD, and digital.

Over 30 years have passed since Matthew Shipp and William Parker first entered a studio to record Zo as a duo, and if so much of the world has changed during that period, and not for the better, with the arrival of A Whole System Of, there is at least the reliability of Shipp and Parker’s creative cyclone stirring things up with so much dexterity. That’s not to infer that the partnership is static. Recognizable, most certainly, but predictable, no.

Shipp and Parker had played together a fair amount prior to Zo. There is a pair of earlier Shipp LPs, Points (a quartet) and Circular Temple (a trio), both recorded in 1990 and released in ’92 by the Silkheart and Quinton labels respectively. They were also in the band of saxophonist David S. Ware for four discs on Silkheart and DIW issued between 1991 and ’93.

The association exploded after Zo, but there were only two more duo recordings in the stretch leading up to A Whole System Of. The first was DNA, released in 1999 by Thirsty Ear, and the third Re-Union, released by Rogueart in 2021. Those two other duo sessions were documented: DNA five years after Zo, and Re-Union five years before A Whole System Of, reducing much of the aura of special occasion that might surround the latest duo team-up and replacing it with the reality of perseverance and growth.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | UK synth-pop outfit Blancmange’s first three studio albums: Happy Families (1982), Mange Tout (1984) and Believe You Me (1985) are to be reissued by London Records on LP and CD, revisiting a landmark period in the history of British electronic pop. Each album features freshly restored artwork and will be available on vinyl (new 2026 vinyl cuts, faithfully following the original track listings), and on CD, each featuring bonus tracks including B-sides, extended versions and remixes.

Originally released within a remarkably prolific run of four years, the three first Blancmange albums capture Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe at their most inventive, combining infectious synth-pop melodies with restless experimentation, distinctive rhythms and influences that reached well beyond the conventions of mainstream pop, and would go on to inspire a slew of artists including the likes of Moby, John Grant, and Honey Dijon.

Blancmange signed with London Records in February 1982 and, with their first flush of early global success of “Living On The Ceiling,” embarked on one of the great Imperial Phases of synth-pop. Their singles were Radio One hits secretly nourished by the likes of Can and Captain Beefheart, buoyed by off-the-wall videos and wrapped up in surreal sleeve iconography.

Described by Classic Pop as “a fine record featuring razor-sharp production, whose impressiveness only improves with age,” 1982’sHappy Families is reissued on transparent orange vinyl. The CD version features studio B-sides, some BBC session tracks and contemporary remixes of “Living On The Ceiling” by Roman Flügel and Richard Norris, both available on CD for the first time.

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Celebrating Bobby Dall, born on this date in 1963. —Ed.

I finished this review only to discover–much to my chagrin-that I wrote one 3 years ago. Just more proof, as any was needed, that I have the memory of a house fly. In any event, this new review is 150 times better than the old one. Besides, all self-respecting music critics should return to this hair metal masterpiece every couple of years. It’s that great.

Judging by the Punky Meadows look-alike on the cover of their 1986 debut and the twin sister of Gene Simmons on their second, these Mechanicsburg chest waxers couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be Angel or Kiss, so they went ahead and bested both of ‘em. Glam metal idols in the days before Kurt Cobain placed former hairdresser Rikki Rockett’s skyscraper ‘do on the endangered species list, Poison packed enough hair to stuff a mattress into their metal and by so doing lubed the loins of a million girls itching to steal their makeup.

Had Poison been nothing more than a pretty pooch, they’d have gone the way of Cats in Boots, and poor C.C. DeVille would have had to scuttle back to Three Mile Island with his poison blue Flying V guitar beneath his legs. But Poison had the skills to pay their thousand-dollar spandex bills and come Open Up and Say… Ahh! only Guns ‘N’ Roses had more powder in their pistol.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | It can be said that Eva Cassidy could sing the phone book. Her song choices ranged from conventional pop to R&B to blues to country to the classic American songbook. The breadth of genres that populate the finite recordings she made during her short lifetime explain why she could never be categorized as any one thing, and perhaps to her detriment, marketed to a mass audience in a way that would truly define her.

Since her passing at 33, Cassidy has stood out not only for her ethereal voice but for her incredible ability to re-imagine a well-known song and make it her personal property. Now Blix Street Records, the label that has curated the small catalogue of material she left behind into more than a dozen posthumous Eva Cassidy compilations, zeroes in on her penchant and acumen for delivering stellar jazz vocal performances with a new collection called Jazzed.

Aided by 21st century technology that allows for Cassidy’s singular vocals to be backed by a combination of entirely new jazz band arrangements and re-mixed versions of her original band accompaniments, this new 10 song collection of familiar tunes is a bittersweet reminder of what might have been had Cassidy lived to fully explore her musical potential. Jazzed arrives in stores on November 13 and is now available for pre-order.

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It must have come as quite a shock. I’m talking about the moment fans of super-sensitive singer-songwriter and cult artist Tim Buckley—a folky introvert with jazz/avant garde leanings—rushed to the record store to buy 1972’s Greetings from L.A., only to discover that it wasn’t the next Starsailor. It was a full-blown funk and R&B SEX record, complete with whips and chains and some Buckley imposter (it had to be!) singing “Get on top of me woman!” and “Well like a bitch dog in heat we had those bed springs a squeakin’ all night long.”

Cue up gasps of shock from every sensitive soul in America! James Taylor and Carole King would never have gone the raunch route! THIS was obscenity, perversion, trash! What happened to the gentle and ethereal soul who gave us “Song to the Siren,” with its immortal line “I’m as troubled as the oyster”?

Well, it seems Buckley was tired of being Mr. Cosmic Ethereal. The Sexual Revolution was in, and fey and introspective bullshit like “Phantasmagoria in Two” was out. Fuck navel-gazing—Tim Buckley wanted to fuck!

Buckley’s shocking metamorphosis positively gobsmacked Chrissie Hynde (then freelancing for New Musical Express): “I trotted dutifully,” she wrote, “to some bowling alley dive to see him and felt my brains drip outta my ears when the virginal innocent of my dreams got on stage and started belting out “Get on top of me, darlin’ woo-man! Let me see what you learned!”

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We’ve sent the TVD team home early this week so they can visit their own local record stores. Who does this? We do.

While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores? Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up, and we’ll see you back here on Monday, 11/2.