Universal Music reissued The Jam‘s fourth album Setting Sons as a 3CD+DVD super deluxe box set in November 2014. The 1979 album is remastered from the original analogue tapes and the first disc adds single edits and B-sides. Amongst the 22-tracks on the second audio disc are 14 previously unreleased demos and alternates, along with 4 tracks from the 1979 John Peel session. CD 3 brings Live in Brighton 1979, a live performance that has never been previously issued. The 20-song set features Setting Sons in almost its entirety.
Always aware of the import of even their slightest movement, Manic Street Preachers place a lot of weight on their album titles and 2014's Futurology is designed as a conscious counterpoint to 2013's Rewind the Film. That record wound up closing an era where the Manics looked back toward their own history as a way of moving forward, but Futurology definitively opens a new chapter for the Welsh trio, one where they're pushing into uncharted territory. Never mind that, by most standards this charge toward the future is also predicated on the past, with the group finding fuel within the robotic rhythms of Krautrock and the arty fallout of punk; within the context of the Manics, this is a bracing, necessary shift in direction. All the death disco, free-range electronics, Low homages, and Teutonic grooves, suit the situational politics of the Manics, perhaps even better than the AOR-inspired anthems that have been their stock in trade, but the words – crafted, as ever, by Nicky Wire, who remains obsessed with self-recriminations, injustice and rallying cries – aren't the focus here. Unique among Manics albums, Futurology is primarily about the music, with the surging synthesizers and jagged arrangements providing not an emotional blood-letting or call to arms, but rather an internal journey.
THE SALSOUL ORCHESTRA was the brainchild of once MFSB member and legendary vibraphonist, Vince Montana Jr. Formed in 1974, THE SALSOUL ORCHESTRA, house band for the remarkable Salsoul Records, sometimes featured up to 50 members amongst its ranks including a number of former musicians from MFSB, and fused elements of Funk, Latin, Disco and Philly Soul into their compositions. Conducted and arranged by Montana, THE SALSOUL ORCHESTRA began an eight-year recording period in 1975 releasing eleven sensational albums during that time featuring production input from, Stan Lucas, Patrick Adams and Bunny Sigler through the years.