As is mentioned every December when the time comes to unveil these Best of the Year lists, please keep in mind that these rankings are in no way attempt to represent the exhaustive, particularly in regard to expanded releases and box sets, which naturally take more time to absorb in the midst of slimmer reissues and archival material and the deluge of high quality new music. With this said, here’s our top ten expanded releases and box sets of 2023.
10. Superchunk – Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-sides & Strays 2007-2023 (Merge) When Superchunk returned to activity in the mid-’00s, they scaled back stylistically, ramping up the classic power pop in their sound while maintaining the punk punch that’s been a constant across the band’s run. This 4LP set roughly coincides with said comeback and rounds up all (or nearly all) of their material that didn’t originate on their full-length releases. This level of late-career prolificacy is striking and rather surprising, even as I already own a bunch of this stuff. The emphasis on cover material remains, and to fine effect.
9. Telex – S/T (Mute) The remastering and rounding up of this enduringly underrated Belgian techno pop outfit’s six albums is few of frills but still a wholly worthwhile gesture, as Telex’s albums were remarkably solid and consistent over time. Eccentric experimenters inside the realms of pop, Telex flexed a sense of humor without cracking jokes and against the odds, their cover versions always worked. The group’s disinterest in rock moves is well documented (no guitars here), which remains refreshing, and to get an idea of the shrewdness on display, check out the Martin Denny moves in “Café de la Jungle.”
8. Eddie Lockjaw Davis & Shirley Scott – Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen (Craft Recordings) The Prestige catalog is deep, and Craft Recordings handling of the reissues has been impeccable and inspiring. Organ jazz records often can’t escape getting ranked as likeable but ultimately minor in the scheme of things, but in the case of Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen, the sheer quantity of high quality ensures that Scott and Davis’ achievement can’t be denied. Davis blows with confidence and deep feeling, and Scott is soulful without succumbing to overabundant note spillage. When they play the blues it’s an utter treat.
7. Soft Machine – The Dutch Lesson (Cuneiform) It’s always struck me just how good Soft Machine remained for so long through so many personnel changes. This is the four-piece band that recorded Seven, featuring Roy Babbington on 6-string bass, Karl Jenkins on horns and electric piano, John Marshall on drums, and sole founding member Mike Ratledge on electric piano and organ, live in performance at De Lantaren, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 26, 1973. The 15 tracks document a band in transition, often heavy but never ponderous and very much in control of its direction.
6. Neutral Milk Hotel – Collected Works (Merge) In 2022 Merge Records’ Unravelled threw a deserving multi-album spotlight onto one of the underground’s finest acts, namely Tall Dwarfs, and then earlier this year this deep dive into a flagship Merge band arrived, a smart follow-up to Unravelled as Jeff Mangum has been vocal in his admiration of the Kiwi duo. Collected Works reinforces Merge’s diligence in historical documentation and magnifies a cornerstone achievement of the late indie era. There’s a lot to digest across numerous sides, but Neutral Milk Hotel never sullied their reputation with superfluousness.
5. Allen Lowe and the Constant Sorrow Orchestra – In the Dark + America: The Rough Cut (ESP-Disk) Prior to listening, the 3CD In the Dark can give off the impression of a formidable experience. Saxophonist-guitarist-composer-music historian Lowe has described the compositions on In the Dark as pouring out of him as he struggled with physical ailments post-cancer surgery that left him feeling “blank and near death.” But if rigorous in thematic conception, Lowe’s compositions are thoroughly engaging as they range from blues and bop structures to free improvisation.
America: The Rough Cut is a single disc, but Lowe’s designates it as a companion to In the Dark, and it’s hard to imagine any fan of one not wanting both. And so America makes its appearance here. There is some overlap of personnel, but what bonds these releases together most strongly is the combination of historical focus, homage across a large swath of that history, and a deeper sense of ruminative remembrance. Composer Lowe unsurprisingly gravitates toward structure, so dabblers in free jazz need not worry. And Lowe clearly disdains hearing antiseptic expressions of the tradition.
4. Wes Montgomery – The Complete Full House Recordings: Recorded ‘live’ at Tsubo – Berkeley, California (Craft Recordings) & Wes Montgomery Wynton Kelly Trio Maximum Swing: The Unissued 1965 Half Note Recordings (Resonance Records) Full House is the byproduct of a 1962 hybrid live date/ recording session where Montgomery, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb played numerous takes of the tunes with an audience. The original album’s six tracks have incrementally grown with each reissue, and we’re now up to 14 across three LPs.
Maximum Swing nixes saxophone as it expands upon the long string of dates where Mongomery rejoined Kelly’s trio with Chambers and Cobb heard on the masterful Smokin’ at the Half Note. Unlike that album, this is all live but with bassists Ron Carter, Herman Wright, and Larry Ridley joining when Chambers couldn’t. What Maximum Swing lacks in Griffin’s wonderfully expressive blowing is more than made up for by the increased assurance of interaction (the top-rank bassists execute impeccably). For fans of the guitarist and pianist, it’s difficult to imagine picking up one of these and not the other.
3. Steve Swell’s Fire Into Music – For Jemeel – Fire From the Road (Rogue Art) Foremost, credit to this most excellent quartet featuring Swell on trombone, Jemeel Moondoc on alto sax, William Parker on bass, and Hamid Drake on drums, recorded on tour in Texas and Ontario, Canada in 2004-’05. The seven pieces filling three CDs illuminate the band’s collective prowess but in homage to Moondoc, who passed in ’21 with an extensive discography, much of it on the Eremite label, that’s poised to impress ears amenable to Fire Music. For Jemeel- Fire From the Road would make a fine intro to the saxophonist’s work.
2. Dionne Warwick – The Complete Scepter Singles 1962-1973 (Real Gone) As someone old enough that my introduction to Dionne Warwick was as a “personality” rather than as an exceptionally talented singer and song interpreter, this set is very welcome as it sheds overdue light not just on Warwick’s abilities across this stretch (a long time in terms of commercial viability), but also an era when unabashedly mainstream, often orchestral pop could be exceptional. Of course, it helps that during these years Burt Bacharach was writing the majority of his songs for Warwick. An overload of brilliance.
1. The Dream Syndicate – History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days of Wine and Roses – 40th Anniversary Edition (Fire) Of course, vinyl collectors will want to seek out Fire America’s concurrent 2LP release that pairs The Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1982 by Slash subsidiary Ruby, with the never easy to find 4-song self-titled EP, the band’s debut, released by Syndicate guitarist-vocalist Steve Wynn’s Down There Records, also in 1982. And I’m also guessing many listeners have concluded that this 2LP, a massive combo punch in the architecture of the Paisley Underground, is all they need to acquire.
But in its distillation of The Velvet Underground, Crazy Horse, Television, and lingering traces of everything that was great about Los Angelino punk rock, The Days of Wine and Roses is a perfect record, as flawless in construction and execution as The Feelies’ Crazy Rhythms. Released on four CDs tucked into a 40-pg digi-book, History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned adds two songs from Wynn’s pre-Syndicate band 15 Minutes (including a significantly different “That’s What You Always Say”) and a slew of live sets, a radio session, and rehearsals, all from ’81-’82.
It’s a wildly illuminating dive into the captured moments that surround one of the ’80s very best albums, and while many songs are heard two or more times, the journey never feels repetitive. After spinning the whole set multiple times, the magnitude of The Days of Wine and Roses’ achievement has only increased.
