Iconoclassic Adds Three Titles to Reissue Slate (UPDATED)

The Iconoclassic label kicks off their year in reissues with some exciting surprise expansions of some great ’70s and ’80s titles. The three titles, which have no street dates or official track lists as of yet, are nonetheless tantalizing.

The label has handled a good portion of expanding and remastering the catalogue of Canadian rockers The Guess Who; this campaign’s latest installment will see the reissue of Flavours (1975) for its 35th anniversary. The album, which included the last Guess Who Top 40 hit, “Dancin’ Fool,” will feature unreleased outtakes, new liner notes, and remastering by Vic Anesini.

Next up is a 30th anniversary edition of Raise!, the hit album by Earth, Wind and Fire which spawned a huge pop hit in “Let’s Groove” and the Grammy-winning “Wanna Be with You.” Several vinyl-only mixes will be included as bonus tracks.

And finally, another 30th anniversary edition, this time for the first Capitol album by The Tubes, The Completion Backward Principle. This was the band’s first album produced by David Foster, who’d put them on the path to success with “She’s a Beauty” later in the decade. Non-LP tracks, including singles and B-sides, will be included as bonus cuts.

Track lists and order links are now live over at the label’s Web site. Hit the jump to check ’em out!

Soundtracks Round-Up: New Releases from FSM and Perseverance

We’ve got some soundtrack news from all over the place to share with you today.

Film Score Monthly has prepped its latest release, a double-premiere of dramatic scores by Lalo Schifrin (for the 1977 Charles Bronson thriller Telefon) and Leonard Rosenman (for the 1980 James Caan vehicle Hide in Plain Sight). Rosenman’s score is particularly notable on this disc, as almost none of it ended up in the final film. This set is limited to 2,000 copies.

The label has also announced their next few planned titles; label head Lukas Kendall promises the complete score to the 1964 sci-fi cult classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars in stereo later this month, and April will see a release of two TV-movie scores on one disc: Jerry Goldsmith’s score to the The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971) (which was the pilot for the classic series The Waltons) and 1982’s Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, scored by James Horner.

La-La Land has also discussed their next couple of titles: their next batch on March 15 is just one score, but a two-disc set (rumors are running high that it might be the long-promised scores to The Storyteller (1988) and Greek Myths (1990), two Emmy and BAFTA-winning programs created and produced by Jim Henson). Subsequent releases will include the promised Medal of Honor video game score box set (either slated for March 29 or April 12, pending artwork approval) and the long-awaited box set of music from The X-Files (slated for May).

Last, but certainly not least, the Perseverance label has scored a major soundtrack coup with the first legitimate release of Elmer Bernstein’s score to Slipstream (1989), a sci-fi film directed by Steven Lisberger (TRON) and produced by Gary Kurtz (Star Wars). The disc presents the music as Bernstein personally edited and sequenced it for an intended but shelved soundtrack LP. This disc tops out at 3,000 units.

Track listing and order info for the FSM and Perseverance sets are after the jump!

Legendary Lost Love LP to Be Unearthed in June

One of the more legendary lost albums of the 1970s – Love’s Black Beauty – is getting its first legitimate release this summer.

Love remains one of the great unsung bands of the 1960s. Known for its racially diverse lineup – black singer/songwriter/guitarist Arthur Lee is arguably the best-known member of the group – and the psych-folk-rock style of their critically acclaimed 1967 LPs Da Capo and Forever Changes, Love left a legacy that has outlived most of its members (including Lee, who died in 2006).

Fans of the band know there was a period between 1970 and 1975 – after a pair of albums for Blue Thumb Records and before one for RSO – where the line-up shifted (Lee recruited an all-black ensemble) and the band jumped through several contracts. One album was recorded for Columbia in 1971 and released as Love Lost by Sundazed in 2009. Another, Black Beauty, was intended for release on Lee’s own Buffalo Records, but the label folded before anything was released, leaving bootleggers to revive the album.

Now, a new reissue label, High Moon Records, is planning the first-ever official release of Black Beauty, according to Rolling Stone. All ten of the original tracks will be remastered and will appear alongside bonus content and new liner notes. Though the track list has yet to be finalized, a High Moon researcher posting on a Love message board said, “We have been working closely with input from Diane Lee, the surviving members of the Black Beauty band and many other friends and associates of Arthur’s to make sure that this record lives up to it’s [sic] outstanding potential. Re-mastered audio, extensive liner notes, a 180g gatefold vinyl version, etc. – this is truly a ‘labor of love’ and we think everyone is going to be very happy with the final product.”

The set is due out June 7. Keep it here for more info as it comes in!

Barry Manilow Revisits His Classic “Duets” on New Collection

While Barry Manilow’s fans patiently wait for 15 Minutes, his first album of all original material since 2001’s Here at the Mayflower, Arista and Legacy will offer a chance to look back at some past moments in Manilow’s long career. Duets compiles fifteen teamings, some more difficult to find than others, spanning the period between 1980 (“The Last Duet” with Lily Tomlin, from Barry) and 2008 (“Islands in the Stream” with Reba McEntire, from The Greatest Songs of the Eighties.) This 15-track collection is due on April 5.

Duets covers all of the eclectic bases in Manilow’s lengthy career. His work as a film score composer is represented by two tracks from Don Bluth’s animated films (“Let Me Be Your Wings,” a duet from Thumbelina with Debra Byrd, now an American Idol vocal coach, and “Now and Forever,” a Sheena Easton duet from The Pebble and the Penguin) while his explorations into jazz and swing are covered by collaborations with a legendary and now-deceased group – Mel Torme, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan – as well as the very-much-alive and still active Diane Schuur. A trip to Broadway on Showstoppers yielded “Look to the Rainbow” from Finian’s Rainbow with the renowned Barbara Cook. Songs not released on Manilow’s own albums or soundtracks are present, too, including 2003’s reunion with Bette Midler on the Frank Loesser classic “On a Slow Boat to China” and 2002’s “I Don’t Want to Be the One to Let Go” which joined Manilow with fellow Brooklynite Barbra Streisand for the first time on disc. (This song is actually a duet in more ways than one, as it was co-written with none other than Richard Marx!) Among the most underrated tracks present (other than the delicious and all-too-unknown “Last Duet” in which Manilow spoofs a number of hit songs) is the 1985 teaming with Dionne Warwick on The Bee Gees’ “Run to Me.” For more details as well as the full track listing with discographical information, hit the jump, won’t you?

Prince Comes Back 2 Vinyl

It’s perhaps the second-best Prince news next to CD remasters: Prince’s three albums of the 1980s are being repressed on vinyl.

Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981) and the double-album 1999 (1982) are all being repressed on 180-gram vinyl. While they don’t seem to (and likely will not) boast new remastering, it’s particularly interesting to see Prince’s Warner Bros. catalogue getting any kind of attention by Rhino – especially some of the earlier, bawdier works that the devout Jehovah’s Witness has sort of renounced.

Of course, it could mean nothing, also. Order the discs here (they’re set for release on April 19), hit the jump to reacquaint yourself with track lists and let’s hope for some expanded editions on CD in, oh, let’s say the next few decades.

Back to the Grid: “TRON: Legacy” Remixes Coming in April

It’s not often here at The Second Disc that we get to report on a reissue project devoted to a release that’s only three months old.  But that’s just the case of Daft Punk’s acclaimed score to Tron: Legacy. The novice film composers deftly paid homage to Wendy Carlos’ score to the original TRON, judiciously incorporating it into their work while carving out their own territory with a mix of ambient sounds, techno-style synthpop and traditional orchestral motifs. While the Academy Awards overlooked the duo’s hybrid electronic/orchestral score, it became the first soundtrack in five years to crack Billboard’s pop Top 10, and sold over 70,000 copies in its first week of release, which is none too shabby a number these days. Fans of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, a.k.a. Daft Punk, might have hoped that any catalogue news relating to the TRON: Legacy soundtrack would involve a wide release of the two-CD limited edition briefly available in the U.K. which contained five bonus cues. (Frustratingly, to compile all of the existing TRON: Legacy content involves getting not only the U.K. set, but one track from Amazon.com, two from iTunes and one from Nokia.) Instead, Walt Disney Records will on April 5 release TRON: Legacy R3c0nf1gur3d, a 15-track remix project. Unlike so many remix albums, though, this one sounds like a no-brainer given Daft Punk’s roots as DJs and great innovations in that field.

Paul Oakenfold, The Crystal Method and Moby are among the top-tier artists enlisted to remix Daft Punk’s tracks on R3c0nf1gur3d. The album will be released to traditional retail, but will also be available in an array of packages with bonus material. Intrigued? Hit the jump for full details plus pre-order information and the track listing!