The best music in any given year doesn’t have to be new. There is plenty of room to reconnect with old favorites or discover something you had no idea ever existed. With that in mind, here is a list of some of the best reissues and box set collections that were released in 2024, running the gamut from new vinyl pressings to years-long archival passion projects.
The American Analog Set: New Drifters
The American Analog Set returned last year with For Forever, their first studio album since 2005. If you’re looking to catch up on the Austin, Texas, indie-rock band’s work, look no further than the New Drifters box set, a 5xLP collection featuring the group’s first three albums—1996’s The Fun of Watching Fireworks, 1997’s From Our Living Room to Yours, and 1999’s The Golden Band—with B-sides, outtakes, and other extras.
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Black Rain
California’s young, humble Smiling C label has been putting out some of the most fascinating hauntological AOR music on their compilations, like the exceptional 2022 America Dream Reserve. This year’s Black Rain is a sequel of sorts—though, as the name might suggest, through a slightly darker lens. Curated once again by collector Charles Bals—who accurately describes the overall sound as “sigh-chedelic”—this set features dusty private press treasures, soft rock guitar solos played into a swirling void, country-western songs at the end of the world, three chords and the bitter truth.
Bob Dylan & The Band: The 1974 Live Recordings
Bob Dylan and the Band played 40 arena shows together in the winter of 1974. A great deal of the tour is captured with this new 27-disc, 431-song box set.
Dettinger: Intershop (Remastered 2024) / Oasis (Remastered 2024)
German electronic music producer Dettinger’s only two studio albums—1999’s Intershop and 2000’s Oasis—had been long out of print, so Kompakt rectified that with new vinyl reissues. Jörg Burger remastered the two albums, which Philip Sherburne wrote, “invented a new vocabulary for ambient techno.”
Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996
There are lovingly assembled compilations and then there’s this, a years-long, painstakingly acquired collection of folk, funk, rock, and otherwise singular Soviet music from Ukraine that resonates anew with power and resilience. A collaboration between the Kyiv reissue label Shukai and Light in the Attic, the anthology gathers long-lost songs from Ukrainian artists who, as Maria Sonevytsky wrote, “operated in the murky spaces between official and unofficial culture in the last decades of the Soviet Union.”
Fang Island: Doesn’t Exist II: The Complete Recordings
Fang Island don’t have the biggest catalog, but they’re gathering all of their music in one place on the 3xLP Doesn’t Exist II: The Complete Recordings. The box set, of course, includes the Providence, Rhode Island, band’s self-titled album, which Ian Cohen called “joyous” in a 2010 Best New Music review.
The Get Up Kids: Something to Write Home About (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Joe LaPorta remastered Something to Write Home About at Sterling Sound to mark the 25th anniversary of the Get Up Kids’ sophomore album. The reissue includes 12 bonus demos and is available on vinyl.
Hugo Largo: Huge, Large and Electric: Hugo Largo 1984-1991
Missing Piece Records is behind the 3xLP Hugo Largo box set Huge, Large and Electric. The collection features the New York art-rock band’s two studio albums—1988’s Drum and 1989’s Mettle—plus an album’s worth of previously unreleased material. Brian Eno, whose Opal label initially released Hugo Largo’s music, remarked, “When I heard this band for the first time, I thought this is going to be historic. I know it will affect other artists and that’s what some music does. When I heard Hugo Largo, I knew that they were this kind of band. That they had taken a position that would open up all sorts of possibilities for other musicians.”
Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul
Craft’s Small Batch “One-Step” reissues are for the audiophiles in your family or the one hidden deep within your heart. They are remastered from the original analog tapes using a lacquer master that is directly used to create the stamper for pressing records. If those words make your UV meter shake, you need to hear Isaac Hayes’ 1969 psych-soul masterpiece, Hot Buttered Soul, in its purest form.
John Abercrombie, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette: Gateway
Launched in 2023, the Luminescence series is ECM’s little plot of land in the vast acreage of audiophile remaster series, putting long out-of-print records from the progressively minimalist German jazz label back into rotation. This year’s hidden gem is the 1975 guitar trio set Gateway, a fiery psychedelic-jazz excursion that features some of the best interplay and sickest shredding you’ll hear this side of a Jimi Hendrix Experience record.
Joe Henderson: Power to the People (Remastered 2024)
When the heads at Jazz Dispensary are not going mad viral with dank jazz fusion memes on Instagram, they’re reissuing some of the best 1970s jazz records ever slapped down on tape. Joe Henderson’s blazing, spiritual 1969 album with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette is an essential reissue of a long out-of-print masterpiece. Put this on and it feels like you are standing at the crossroads of the past and future of jazz. You can hear Carter’s fingers on the bass and Henderson’s breath through his tenor sax—the pressing is so alive.
John Cale: Paris 1919 (Deluxe Edition)
Out of print for many years with original pressings going for way too much, this new reissue of John Cale’s 1973 baroque pop masterpiece Paris 1919 comes courtesy of Domino and is an essential cornerstone to any 1970s art-rock fans, Velvet Underground completists, honestly any record collection worth being proud of. It’s remastered from the original tapes and features a whole second record of unreleased outtakes and new recordings.
Keith Hudson: Playing It Cool & Playing It Right
For the organic dub spring-reverb heads comes Week-End’s essential reissue of 1981’s Playing It Cool & Playing It Right. Dub pioneer Keith Hudson—who briefly worked as a dentist in the ghettos of Kingston— lays it down clear, deep, and wild for a late-career highlight with heavy use of studio FX and mixing board sorcery. This new pressing, long out of print, includes liner notes by co-producer Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes in conversation with Olaf Karnik and Jan Lankisch.
Lou Reed: Hudson River Wind Meditations
The last solo studio album of Lou Reed’s lifetime was the ambient Hudson River Wind Meditations. The album was remastered by John Baldwin at Infrasonic Sound, and Light in the Attic made it available on vinyl for the very first time.
MF Doom: Mm..Food (20th Anniversary Edition)
Rhymesayers Entertainment’s reissue of MF Doom’s Mm..Food comes with rare remixes by Madlib, Jake One, and Atmosphere’s Ant, plus previously unreleased interview clips with the late masked rapper himself. In his review of the new edition, Paul A. Thompson called Mm..Food “a consistently playful record,” while also noting that it “punctuated one of the great madcap runs in rap history.”
Neil Young: Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976-1987)
There’s a version of Neil Young’s third official Archives collection on digital stream platforms that’s called Takes and features 16 songs—about 74 minutes of music. That’s the introductory edition, to say the least, because the full collection features from 198 tracks made between 1976 and 1987. As a press release playfully suggests, “With over 28 hours of total content, you could drive from New York to Denver, listening the entire time, and still have hours left to enjoy when you arrive!”
New Order: Brotherhood (Definitive Edition)
The new edition of New Order’s 1986 album, Brotherhood, features a new mastering of the album, done by Frank Arkwright at London’s Abbey Road Studios, along with previously unreleased demos and other rarities. The most expansive box set edition includes one vinyl LP, a CD, and two DVDs—the latter two discs featuring various live performances.
Pavement: Cautionary Tales: Jukebox Classiques
Pavement spent 2024 looking back on their career. They premiered the quasi-biopic Pavements and also released a 56-song collection featuring all of their singles. The physical edition of Cautionary Tales: Jukebox Classiques boasts reproductions of the original 7″ singles and a 24-page booklet.
Raphael Rogiński: Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes
Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński made his 2015 album Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes widely available with a new reissue that includes four newly recorded bonus songs. In his review of the album, Philip Sherburne called Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes “Rogiński’s first major solo statement” and he also said it’s “a perfect encapsulation of his music’s mystical, spiritual energies.”
Televison: Marquee Moon
Rhino’s relatively new “Hi-Fi” reissue series is its catalog’s version of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab or Blue Note’s Tone Poet series and it’s punching well above its MSRP. The toast of this year’s reissues is Television’s indispensable New York boho-punk indie-jam masterpiece Marquee Moon. It comes alive on any record player and is an incantatory process by which you’ll summon the spirit of the late Tom Verlaine.
TV on the Radio: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (20th Anniversary Edition)
TV on the Radio added five songs to Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes to celebrate the 2004 album’s 20th anniversary. The new edition is available digitally and as a 2xLP set. Writing about the album for Pitchfork, Sadie Sartini Garner said, “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is an album in which extremes—of sound, of emotion, of thought—are tamed and normalized, even beautified, until their extremity becomes so routine you can take it for granted.”
Virtual Dreams, Vol. II – Ambient Explorations in the House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999
Four years after Music From Memory’s blockbuster Virtual Dreams compilation comes a new entry in the series that focuses exclusively on the downtempo ambient electronic music coming out of Japan. The meticulously curated compilation brings forth the “listening techno” that was taking shape out of nascent rave culture in the early 1990s, revealing hidden connections to scenes and artists who were previously languishing in CD bins and old websites for decades.
Ween: Chocolate and Cheese (Deluxe Edition)
Ween are taking a break from the road, so a new anniversary edition of Chocolate and Cheese is a great way to hear one of their classic albums. The deluxe reissue includes audio engineer Bernie Grundman’s remastering of the original album, paired with 15 bonus songs.
Weezer: Weezer 30 (Anniversary Super Deluxe)
Weezer added 40 songs to their 1994 debut (affectionately known as “The Blue Album”) to mark its 30th anniversary. The box set edition includes the remastered album, a 10″ of BBC recordings, two LPs of demos, another LP of early live recordings, and a 7″ featuring the band’s 1993 live show at Loyola Marymount University.
90 Day Men: We Blame Chicago
The Numero Group’s Grammy-nominated 90 Day Men box set, We Blame Chicago, compiles the art-rock band’s full discography and more. Heba Kadry did the mastering on the 5xLP collection, which tracks “90 Day Men’s evolution from a math-rock band straining for originality into a jazzier, more cryptic outfit that eventually found it,” as Evan Rytlewski wrote in his review.
