Sport Bild 13 2014 (26.03.2014)

As the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) had done a year earlier, Super Session (1968) initially ushered in several new phases in rock & roll's concurrent transformation. In the space of months, the soundscape of rock shifted radically from short, danceable pop songs to comparatively longer works with more attention to technical and musical subtleties. Enter the unlikely all-star triumvirate of Al Kooper (piano/organ/ondioline/vocals/guitars), Mike Bloomfield (guitar), and Stephen Stills (guitar) – all of whom were concurrently "on hiatus" from their most recent engagements. Kooper had just split after masterminding the groundbreaking Child Is Father to the Man (1968) version of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Bloomfield was fresh from a stint with the likewise brass-driven Electric Flag, while Stills was late of Buffalo Springfield and still a few weeks away from a full-time commitment to David Crosby and Graham Nash. Although the trio never actually performed together, the long-player was notable for idiosyncratically featuring one side led by the team of Kooper/Bloomfield and the other by Kooper/Stills.

In the works for years, the Small Faces 2014 box set Here Come the Nice is unapologetically one for the devoted. Spanning four discs, the first containing newly remastered Immediate mono single mixes from the original masters, the rest rounding up tracking sessions, alternate mixes, backing tracks, Italian versions, live cuts, and other assorted ephemera, the box's allure lies in its packaging…

Kirsty MacColl first emerged on the British pop scene as something of a novelty – her first single was the girl group pastiche "They Don't Know," which became a hit when covered by comic Tracey Ullman, and her first chart success on her own was the witty country-styled number "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis." But in 1989, MacColl released the album Kite, which revealed she was one of the best and most insightful U.K. songwriters of her generation, with a body of work that was witty, disarmingly honest, eclectic, and adventurous. A motorboat accident claimed MacColl's life in 2000, cutting short a career that was still in motion. All I Ever Wanted: The Anthology is a two-disc collection that brings together highlights from MacColl's albums Kite, Electric Landlady (1991), Titanic Days (1993), and the posthumous Tropical Brainstorm (2001), as well as early singles, 12" remixes, and BBC radio performances.