David McAlmont and Bernard Butler’s collaborative 1995 album The Sound of McAlmont & Butler will be reissued in September in vinyl and CD anniversary editions.
The album will now be available as a 2LP set with a view to offering enhanced audio with mastering handled by Bernard Butler’s longtime studio partner, George Shilling. The double is actually a blue/green coloured vinyl offering and 1000 units are available signed across various retailers.
2LP set pressed on blue/green vinyl
A 2CD expanded edition is also available (with the remastered album) and it includes a bonus disc of demos, single versions and sessions, including multiple versions of the singles ‘Yes’ and ‘You Do’. This is also available as a limited signed edition (500-only).
The bonus disc on the 2026 double CD is identical to the bonus CD in the out-of-print 20th anniversary 2LP+2CD+DVD set from 2015 except for the fact that the new disc is missing the two BBC Radio 1 Simon Mayo Sessions (‘You Do’ and ‘Walk On’). However this new 2CD set is very well priced.
The Sound of McAlmont & Butler is reissued on 18 September 2026 via Demon Music.
SIGNED EDITIONS
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McAlmont & Butler
The Sound of McAlmont and Butler - Signed 2CD deluxe edition
Bryan Ferry’s 1987 studio album Bête Noire and its follow-up, 1993’s Taxi, are now available to pre-order – for a limited time only – on SDE exclusive blu-ray audio.
Both releases feature Bob Clearmountain Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes alongside hi-res original stereo mixes. Additionally, each offers a generous selection of bonus tracks (stereo-only) including remixes of the various singles.
Bête Noire was Ferry’s seventh studio album and it’s a masterclass in moody sophistication, blending art-pop, jazz-tinged balladry and late-’80s electronic textures into a rich, cinematic whole. It features collaborations with some of the era’s finest musicians, including guitarist Johnny Marr (who co-wrote lead single ‘The Right Stuff’). Other highlights include the sultry ‘Kiss and Tell’ and the atmospheric ‘Limbo’, both of which showcase Ferry’s ability to fuse romance and intrigue with sonic elegance.
Patrick Leonard (known for his work with Madonna and, later, Roger Waters) co-produced and penned five songs with Ferry. Curiously, the singles from the album rather underperformed in the UK at the time, although ‘Kiss and Tell’ reached No 31 in the US charts and remains Bryan’s only top 40 hit, Stateside.
This region-free blu-ray audio of Bête Noire features the following audio streams:
Bête Noire 2025 Dolby Atmos Mix (48/24)
Bête Noire 20255.1 Mix (48/24)
Bête Noire 1987 Original Stereo Mix (Bob Ludwig 1999 remaster) (48/24)
Additionally, it features 12 bonus tracks (stereo-only) comprising remixes and edits from the original singles
Limbo – Brooklyn Mix 3.59
The Right Stuff – 12″ Dance Mix 6.37
Bête Noire – Instrumental 5.06
Kiss And Tell – 7″ Edit 4.08
Limbo – Latin Mix 4.23
The Right Stuff – Brooklyn Mix 4.29
Limbo – Latin Mix 12″ Version 6.41
Kiss And Tell – Dance Mix 7.09
The Right Stuff – Dub Mix 6.08
Limbo – Brooklyn Mix 12″ Version 8.40
Kiss And Tell – Dub Mix 5.41
The Right Stuff – Johnson Somerset Mix 8.54
Bête Noire is #63 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series and comes packaged in the same deluxe hardcover media-book packaging used for the Roxy Music’sAvalon and as ever, it ships with a free, collectible SDE Surround Series slipcase.
Taxi on SDE exclusive blu-ray
Bryan Ferry’seighth solo album, Taxi, was originally released in 1993, and saw Ferry continue in his rich vein of sophisticated and contemporary cover versions of classic rock, pop and soul songs, forging his reputation as a superb interpreter of the popular song.
Co-produced with Robin Trower, the album peaked at No 2 in the UK and contains the top 20 single ‘I Put a Spell On You’. Two further singles – ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ and ‘Girl of My Best Friend’ were released.
As with Bête Noire, the region-free blu-ray audio features a Dolby Atmos Mix by Bob Clearmountain. It also includes a 5.1 Mix and the original 1993 mix in hi-res stereo.
Audio streams on the Taxi SDE exclusive blu-ray:
Taxi 2025 Dolby Atmos Mix (48/24)
Taxi 20255.1 Mix (48/24)
Taxi 1993 Original Stereo Mix (Bob Ludwig 1999 remaster)(48/24)
Additionally, it features 11 bonus tracks (stereo-only) comprising remixes and edits from the original singles. These remixes are actually very good and it’s worth noting that the ‘Sub Aqua Mix’ and instrumental version of ‘I Put A Spell On You’ are released physically, for the first time, on this blu-ray. ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ was featured on the soundtrack of Honeymoon in Vegas (and was a Japan bonus track on the original album). This blu-ray is effectively the only expanded version of Taxi ever released!
I Put A Spell On You (Single Mix) – 3.55
I Put A Spell On You (Single Mix Long Version) 5.11
I Put A Spell On You (Sub Aqua Mix) 5.47
I Put A Spell On You (Yage Mix) 5.18
I Put A Spell On You (Haunted House Mix) 7.27
I Put A Spell On You (Yage Mix Long Version) 10.00
I Put A Spell On You (Council House Mix) 5.54
I Put A Spell On You (Instrumental) 5.09
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Single Mix Long Version) 6.07
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Single Mix Edit) 4.12
Are You Lonesome Tonight? 5.09
The blu-ray is #64 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series and comes packaged in the same deluxe hardcover mediabook packaging used for the Roxy Music’s Avalon and ships with a free, collectible SDE Surround Series slipcase.
Remember, Dolby Atmos Mixes on blu-ray offer much higher quality than their streaming counterparts – they are not compressed as on streaming platforms. Encoded in Dolby TrueHD Atmos it has a bit rate 10 times higher (up to 8000 kbits/s) than streaming’s Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s).
Bête Noire and Taxi will released on blu-ray on 17 July 2026, via BMG (there are no other formats being released). This opportunity is TIME LIMITED; It available to pre-order until midnight GMT on 12 May 2026. Availability after that point cannot be guaranteed.
Secure your copies of bothtitles by ordering the specially priced bundle. Despite the challenges with US Tariffs and the increasing costs of international shipping, we are doing our best to make this affordable to our friends and customers Stateside and so have tweaked postage so that there is no shipping premium for ordering the bundle – it’s a £10 flat fee (approximately $13.50).
Order only via the SDE shop using via this link or the buttons below.
Joan As Police Woman is releasing Real Life Evolution in June, a studio album that features ‘re-imagined’ versions of every song from Real Life, her 2006 debut.
These new versions have been developed over the years and decades through “countless nights on stage” and Joan Wasser (who is Joan As Police Woman) says “Music has saved my life. I am a devotee. It’s not something I can even choose or not choose, it’s just what it is. The album Real Life holds the key to my whole life. At the time I felt compelled to get it all into one record because I couldn’t imagine a world where I’d make another. Now twenty years later (and twelve albums into my career) the dream continues to unfold”.
Real Life Evolution is available on vinyl and CD and you can head to Joan’s Bandcamp page for an exclusive red marble vinyl version. Joan As Police Woman has a couple of dates in Joe’s Pub in NYC in the middle of June and will be touring the UK/Europe in November, to mark the album’s 20th anniversary (details here).
Real Life Evolution is released on 12 June 2026, via Reveal Records. I interviewed Joan back in 2018 when the Damned Devotion was released.
Watch, as SDEtv unboxes the new 2CD deluxe edition of Eg and Alice’s 1991 album 24 Years Of Hunger. Last copies available via the SDE shop using this link or the button below.
Tracklisting
24 Years of HungerEg and Alice/2CD deluxe edition
CD 1: 24 Years of Hunger
Rockets
In A Cold Way
Mystery man
And I Have Seen Myself
So High, So Low
New Year’s Eve
Indian
Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me
Crosstown
IOU
I Wish
CD 2: Lonely Road: Demos & Remixes
Here Come The Rockets (Demo)*
Highway (Demo 1)*†
Lonely For Too Long (See What I Mean) (Demo)* †
Indian (Demo)*
Bobby & Holly
Shadow (Demo)* †
New Year’s Eve (Demo)*
Lazy Woman
Under My Spell (Demo)* †
Running To America (Demo)* †
Crazy Bastard (Demo)* †
Teenage Cinema Problem (Demo)* †
Highway (Demo 2)* †
It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (7” Version)
It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (Jesus Loves You Mix)
As previously reported, Duran Duran are releasing a new single called ‘Free to Love’, and it’s out today!
The track features Nile Rodgers and was originally recorded during the Danse Macabre sessions. Nick Rhodes told Classic Pop that the song “just sat on ice for maybe a year-and-a-half. I finally said: ‘I really want to finish that track”. I made a shape for the song, sent it to everyone and they all came back going: ‘Let’s do it’.”
Nick added: “Simon really nailed that song. His lyrics are spot on for the times we’re going through. We need something to lift people’s spirits and that’s ‘Free to Love’s intention”.
It is 10 years to the day that we lost Prince and to mark the occasion NPG Records (in partnership with Sony’s Legacy Recordings) is making available an unreleased vault track called ‘With This Tear’.
The song was recorded in November 1991 (just over a month after Diamonds and Pearls was released) and has been newly mixed and mastered by Chris James, the former Prince engineer who has been creating new stereo and Atmos mixes in the last few years (SDE spoke to Chris last year about his Purple Rain Atmos Mix).
The song is all Prince: Produced, arranged, composed by him and he plays all the instruments. He offered the song to Céline Dion, who recorded and released her own version in 1992.
The Estate say that this track “is the beginning of a number of unreleased Prince recordings scheduled for release this year, as part of a never before released Prince album project”.
What do you think of ‘With This Tear’? Leave a comment.
SDE is giving away a series of 2026 Record Store Day releases, all of which were featured in the recent unboxing video.
Titles up for grabs are as follows:
Pink Floyd / Live from the Los Angeles Sports Arena 4LP clear vinyl
John Lennon / Love Meditation Mixes 3LP iridescent vinyl
Cream / Wheels Of Fire 3LP black vinyl
Badfinger / No Dice orange vinyl
Thin Lizzy / Live in Cleveland 2LP clear vinyl
OMD / Archive Vol 1: 1981-1990 2LP black vinyl
Marc Bolan/T. Rex : Songs From Marc orange vinyl
Status Quo / Live at Hammersmith ’89 2LP red vinyl
Rainbow / In Concert 1976 3LP coloured vinyl
Ian Dury & The Blockheads / Live in London 1980 orange vinyl
Def Leppard 2LP violet vinyl
These are all unplayed, but were the actual ones used in the unboxing so all have been handled and are unsealed. They also may have had the hype stickers stuck on the rear or perhaps on an inner sleeve (or discarded completely). Just FYI!
To be in with a chance of winning, simply leave a comment below, naming the artist/title you would like to win. ONE title per person, please. The competition is open to all and will end at midnight BST on Sunday 26 April 2026. Eleven winners will be selected randomly and contacted for delivery details. We’ll send out your prize next week. Good luck!
Heaven 17/Penthouse and Pavement & The Luxury GapBlu-ray
The SDE Surround Series moves back to the 1980s with Heaven 17’s first two albums, Penthouse and Pavement (1981) and The Luxury Gap (1983), a pair of the most celebrated and influential albums from the early part of the decade. David Kosten has remixed both albums in Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and Stereo. Pre-orders ship this week and the remaining contingency stock is now available.
As people from the UK of a certain age may recall, ‘Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Bizzy’ was the phrase that made the magic wand of glove puppet Sooty (from The Sooty Show) cast its spells (or something like that). The programme ran from 1955 to 1992 fronted initially by Harry Corbett and later his son, Matthew.
Anyway, much like Haines’ 2011 album 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & Early ’80s which was concerned with wrestling, and wrestlers, on UK TV in the ’70s, this new album has a fascination with magic and magicians of British children’s TV of the 1960s and ’70s. It features 14 songs “that conjure up everyone from Mama Cass to Tommy Cooper, and Graham Bond to Mick Robertson via Magic Shops and The Omen 2”.
That’s all we know for now, but the wrestling album was great, so this sounds promising, and I like the cover. Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Bizzy is out on 10 July 2026 via Cherry Red and Haines is touring the UK in September.
NOW That’s What I Call Music continue with their Yearbook Vault releases of ‘lesser compiled’ tracks with a look at 1985.
4CD and 3LP coloured vinyl collections dig deep into the year’s musical landscape – with 78 tracks on the CD editions and 45 songs across three coloured (green) vinyl LPs.
The 4CD set – which comes in the usual deluxe hardcover book and card sleeve editions opens with Bruce Springsteen’s ‘My Hometown’ – the last single from the mega-selling Born in the USA before moving on to Bryan Ferry and Sting with ‘Windswept’ and ‘Love is the Seventh Wave’. Both of those songs are classic Vault tracks: great tracks off classic albums (Boys and Girls and The Dream of the Blue Turtles, respectively) that peaked WAY short of where many assume they did (neither cracked the UK top 40). Go West’s ‘Eye to Eye’ was only a single in the US, while ABC’s ‘Be Near Me’ was released both sides of the Atlantic, but fared much better Stateside. This disc continues with offerings from Fine Young Cannibals, China Crisis, Simply Red, Thompson Twins and the Art of Noise.
Deluxe hardcover book 4CD set
The second disc has an ‘alternative’ flavour, at least initially, with songs from Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Dream Academy and New Model Army before widening it’s net and scoping up minor hits from the likes of Tina Turner, Matt Bianco, Chris Rea and Squeeze.
CD3 has a dance floor slant with tracks including Cameo’s brilliant ‘She’s Strange’, Sheryl Lee Ralph’s ‘In The Evening’, the Stock Aitken Waterman produced ‘The Heaven I Need’ by The Three Degrees and Divine’s cover of ‘Twisting The Night Away’. Elton John & Millie Jackson’s ‘Act of War’ is a very popular 12-inch at Den Bosch record fair (I’m always seeing it) but it was a minor hit a few years before ‘Nikita’ revived Reg’s commercial fortunes here in the UK.
CD 4 has the kind of artists you’d find on a compilation called ‘American Highway Dreams’ (Pat Benetar, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Kim Carnes, Dio, The Cars, Rick Springfield etc.), but since this is a Vault compilation it’s not all the usual big hits which at least means it’s not predictable
NOW Yearbook Vault ’85 will be released on 15 May 2026.
Madonna’s new studio album will be Confessions ll a follow-up to Confessions on a Dance Floor, which was released in late 2005.
Like its predecessor, this record is produced by Stuart Price and Madonna says “When Stuart Price and I first started working on this record, this was our manifesto”:
We must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies. These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect
—with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It’s about pushing your limits andconnecting to a community of like-minded people.
Sound, light, and vibration Reshape our perceptions Pulling us into a trance-like state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it.Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.
Quite. There’s a teaser trailer, which you can checkout below.
In terms of formats, the album will be available on single CD and single red vinyl editions which feature 12 tracks and are “non-stop mix” editions (which presumably means the tracks all segue). The CDs here are in a jewel case and the vinyl comes with a double-sided poster.
Then there are 16 track 2LP on pink vinyl and ‘softpack’ CDs which both feature 4 bonus tracks. It appears that these versions offer “12 individual songs” rather than the “non-stop mix” on the single discs. Certainly that’s how the spec reads to SDE at this point in time. The double vinyl includes a double-sided poster and an “exclusive numbered coat check” (which we think is a card ticket).
2LP pink vinyl features 16 tracks and comes with a poster and an exclusive ‘numbered coat check’
There is also a 16-track deluxe CD pocketed in a “unique 7 x 10.25 inch soft cover photo-book featuring exclusive images from the album’s photoshoot”. Additionally, a 16-track translucent pink cassette tape is being made available.
Most of the formats have different/alternate covers, making you wonder which, if any, is the ‘proper’ cover of the album. The main image on the post shows the cover of the 2LP and deluxe CD editions. Inevitably, there will be a plethora of coloured vinyl exclusives, most likely based on the single vinyl LP variant with the 12-track version of the album.
No tracklisting has yet been released and Confessions II will be released on 3 July via Warner Records. The pre-order links in the widgets below a very slow in coming through, but will update automatically.
Duran Duran will release a new single later this month, called Free to Love.
The song features their old mucker Nile Rodgers and will be released on 23 April on the eve of the band’s US/European/UK spring-summer tour which includes a 5 July headline at BST Hyde Park with the Scissor Sisters in support.
‘Free to Love’ appears to be a standalone single (most likely recorded a few years ago during the Danse Macabre sessions) and there’s no word of any physical release (Duran haven’t issued a CD single since 2007’s ‘Falling Down’).
Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris/All The RoadrunningBlu-ray
Mark Knoplfer and Emmylou Harris’ rather wonderful collaborative 2006 album All The Roadrunning is reissued for its 20th anniversary on SDE exclusive blu-ray. As usual, there’s a small amount available on the week of release.
A 3CD+blu-rayMotörhead deluxe set with brand new Steven Wilson remix of the original album, extensive recording session outtakes remixed by Richard Digby Smith and blu-ray with an Atmos Mix.
I’m in the Netherlands this weekend – the city of Den Bosch to be precise – to attend the 62nd “Mega Record & CD Fair“. There won’t be updates here, but if you follow SDE on instagram I’ll be posting there showing off some of what’s available and at what prices and hopefully giving you a flavour of the event. If you are there and you see me, come and say hello!
Pink Floyd will release a new ‘best of’ compilation in June, called 8-Tracks.
As the title suggests, this collection features eight songs, all selected from the band’s 1971 – 1979 era. These include ‘Money’, ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2’, ‘Time’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’, alongside earlier cuts in ‘One Of These Days’ and ‘Wot’s… Uh The Deal’. There is one rarity: the full version of ‘Pigs On The Wing’, with the Snowy White guitar solo, previously only available on the 8-track cartridge version of Animals, released in 1977.
Also, the track sequence has been edited by Steven Wilson using sound effects sourced from the original multitracks to make for a continuous listening experience in “classic Floydian style”. To allow for this Wilson accessed the original multitracks to lift out some of the sound effects to create crossfades between the tracks. This approach may or may not prove controversial, but at least they are doing something a bit different.
8-Tracks will be released on black vinyl, blue vinyl and CD (but not 8-track cartridge, unless we have a ‘surprise’ D2C product coming later) on 5 June 2026, via Sony.
The pre-order window for the Roxy MusicFlesh + Blood SDE exclusive blu-ray closes today. It’s #62 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series.
The band’s seventh studio album was a significant commercial success, reaching No 1 on the UK albums chart and enjoying two top 10 hit singles in ‘Over You‘ and ‘Oh Yeah‘. Third single ‘Same Old Scene‘ reached No 12 in Britain and Wilson Pickett cover ‘In The Midnight Hour’ was released as a single in the US.
This region-free blu-ray audio features a brand new 2026Dolby Atmos Mix, by Bob Clearmountain, who worked alongside original album co-producer Rhett Davies to create this immersive mix. It also includes a 5.1 Mix and the entire album in instrumental form, in Dolby Atmos, the first time Roxy Music have made available an instrumental version of any of their albums to be released. The original 1980 mix also features, remastered for 2026.
Audio streams on the Flesh + Blood SDE exclusive blu-ray:
The blu-ray comes packaged in the same deluxe hardcover mediabook packaging used for the Roxy Music’s Avalon and as ever, Flesh + Blood ships with a free, collectible SDE Surround Series slipcase.
Dolby Atmos Mixes on blu-ray offer much higher quality than their streaming counterparts – they are not compressed as on streaming platforms. Encoded in Dolby TrueHD Atmos it has a bit rate 10 times higher (up to 8000 kbits/s) than streaming’s Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s).
Flesh + Blood will released on blu-ray on 10 July 2026 (was 19 June), via UMR. The pre-order window closes at midnight GMT tonight – 8 April 2026. Availability after today cannot be guaranteed.
Secure your copy of this SDE exclusive blu-ray of Flesh + Blood by using this SDE shop link or the button below.
Tracklisting
Flesh + BloodRoxy Music/SDE exclusive blu-ray audio
Sony are releasing Bruce Springsteen’s ‘homecoming’ performance in Asbury Park that formed part of the Sea.Hear.Now festival back in 2024.
The set runs for over three hours and is presented across three CDs as Live From Asbury Park 2024. There are no other physical formats, apart from a 5LP RSD edition. Springsteen performed to 35,000 fans with the E-Street Band and played 29 songs that spanned his entire catalogue.
Live From Asbury Park 2024 will be released on 29 May 2026, via Sony Music.
