The Evolution Underground

Light in the Attic Records (LITA) proudly announces The Power Of The Heart: A Tribute To Lou Reed. The star-studded album celebrates the pioneering singer-songwriter’s enduring influence—as well as the timeless appeal of his songs—through performances by Reed’s closest friends and biggest fans, including Keith Richards, Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Afghan Whigs, Bobby Rush, Maxim Ludwig & Angel Olsen, Mary Gauthier, and Automatic. Blending generation-defining hits (“I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Perfect Day”) with lesser-known gems, the collection spans the artist’s five-decade-long career: from his earliest days with The Velvet Underground to his groundbreaking solo work.

Rare 1991 French-only 12-CD set, comprising all their albums from Three Imaginary Boys to Disintegration in individual card wallet picture sleeves, plus 68-page deluxe illustrated booklet [all text in French], housed in a picture box with pull-out tray and die-cut band logo section with rotating wheel insert!

This dynamic visual history of the world's largest transit system — in all its intriguing, colorful, and even seedy glory — is packed with fascinating facts and hundreds of compelling photographs.

British Folk-Rock Post-Punk duo, The Waeve, return with their latest guitar driven romp, City Lights. Graham Coxon (Blur) and Rose Elinor Dougall return with the follow-up to last year's acclaimed eponymous debut. Produced by James Ford (Fontaines DC, Arctic Monkeys), the record features both artists on vocal duties in addition to playing a host of instruments including saxophone, keyboards and drums. The WAEVE have established themselves as a songwriting partnership to watch and with City Lights they further push the boundaries of their collaborative creativity, using this album to chronicle the evolution of their relationship and forays into parenthood.

Four CD set. Emerging from the ashes of Southend-based late '60s psych-pop crew Cardboard Orchestra, heavy rock band ZIOR were one of the first acts to attach themselves at the turn of the decade to the occult-themed heavy rock element of the British underground scene. Although ZIOR never really threatened to replicate the commercial success of brand leaders Black Sabbath, their live shows were hugely theatrical events involving mock-sacrifices, staged fights and diabolic costumes and masks that terrified their young audiences and apparently freaked out other bands as well! They also left behind three albums that have been wildly collectable for many years. Their self-titled debut set ZIOR was issued in 1971 by the Nepentha label in a highly atmospheric gatefold sleeve design by the legendary Keef. A year or so later, Nepentha boss Larry Page put out the German-only release Every Inch A Man, an equally thrilling collection. Sandwiched between those two albums, ZIOR also pseudonymously recorded the LP The First Monument, which was promoted as the work of members of a witches' coven in downtown Essex. All three albums, plus ZIOR's 2018 reunion album Spirit Of The Gods, are now collected for the first time on Before My Eyes Go Blind, a 4-CD set that's presented in a clamshell box with replica album sleeve wallets, a lengthy new essay on the band and a number of evocative, previously unpublished photos.

Now-Again Records, in conjunction with Jazzman Records, presents an expanded version of the compilation that introduced many listeners to the sound of the unsung musicians who, in the midst of the Vietnam War and the fallout of the Civil Rights struggle, created some of the most beautiful spiritual and meditative music of the era. The music was at times funky, at times contemplative, but it always strived to say something about the world in which the musicians lived.