To listen to every box set released in 2017 would require the ability to stop time, so this list is in no way definitive. However, regarding what was heard, these are the best.
Find them all for purchase from our friends at Discogs at the links below, or at your local mom and pop, indie record shops via The Vinyl District Record Store Locator app—free for your iPhone here, free for your Android here.
10. Bert Jansch, Living in the Shadows + Living in the Shadows Part Two: On the Edge of a Dream (Earth) Over the last few years, most of the recordings from this defining Brit folk guitarist’s first decade have been easy to obtain in reissue form. This circumstance is fully deserved and not a bit surprising, as Jansch’s early albums for Transatlantic, especially his ’65 self-titled debut, are considered the essential stuff, and the subsequent discs for Reprise and Charisma do nothing to besmirch his standing. Additionally, there’s his membership in Pentangle to consider.
That’s all a swell situation, but Earth Recordings’ recent activity is even cooler. Beginning with 2015’s Live at the 12 Bar, the label began making some of Jansch’s harder to find and less celebrated later material widely available. These 4LP/4CD sets, the first covering the ’90s (The Ornament Tree, When the Circus Comes to Town, and Toy Balloon) and the second the ’00s (Crimson Moon, Edge of a Dream, and The Black Swan), and each with a full platter of unreleased cuts, stand as Earth’s strongest Jansch-related achievement thus far. Considering their reissue of Avocet, that’s saying something.
9. Genius/GZA, Liquid Swords Singles Collection (UMG – Urban Legends) Concerning the physical qualities of vinyl, I’ve noticed quite a few enthusiastic testimonials over the years, and a rise of them recently, that flirt with or occasionally plunge head-first into the realms of the mystical. And hey, I can dig it. But really, at its core, the physical appeal of vinyl (and other tangible containers of art, of course, books foremost amongst them) is relatively straightforward; you can hold it in your hands and interact with it.
Box sets can provide years of appreciation, often by offering multiple CDs that are stuffed to the maximum, but Liquid Swords Singles Collection takes the opposite approach, grabbing just a handful of tracks (plus a pair of instrumental versions and a RZA remix featuring D’Angelo), grooving them into 7-inch vinyl, tucking them into attractive picture sleeves, adding art prints by Andrew Hem, and placing it all in an oversized, easel-backed art box. As Liquid Swords is one of the ’90s defining hip-hop albums, the music here is built to last, but the enduring appeal will surely derive from the physicality of it all.