Friday, July 24, 2026 • Vinyl Finds from Around the World
Tutu (Picture Disc)
Miles Davis's first album for Warner in 1986, and his first collaboration with bassist/producer Marcus Miller, a partnership that would last for years. Named in tribute to anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, this limited picture disc, part of a centenary project, prints Irving Penn's legendary portrait directly onto the vinyl itself. Fusing the era's newest drum machines and synthesizers, it folds funk, R&B and electronic pop into jazz, and won Miles his fourth Grammy.
Northern Exposure
Long out of print and fetching €285 and up secondhand, this mythical DJ mix compilation finally gets a complete reissue. Sasha and John Digweed's 1996 'Northern Exposure' is widely regarded as one of the greatest DJ mixes ever made, chosen by Rolling Stone among its 30 best EDM albums. The 30th-anniversary edition is fully remastered and, for the first time, presses both mixes complete across double LP, on midnight-blue (North) and sky-blue (South) vinyl, limited to 5,000 numbered copies.
Whatchu Bringing?
The third proper album from the supergroup of Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington and 9th Wonder. Four players, eight hands, each laying their signature strengths on the table, nothing needs preparing; they show up and it's a masterpiece, made just by jamming. Might well be album of the year.
Piano Collections: CHRONO TRIGGER
Pianist Trevor Alan Gomes pays tribute to one of gaming's most important scores, Yasunori Mitsuda's Chrono Trigger, reimagining the originals through classical, jazz, rock and J-pop idioms. The limited edition features cover art by Nora Kristiansen, design by Isa Alcántara, and a 12-page illustrated booklet.
Casiopea
The self-titled debut from Japanese fusion titans Casiopea, guitar-led jazz fusion and funk whose tones and mixing shaped countless later City Pop and AOR records. Reissued here on orange vinyl, it sells out on sight every year it returns.
Mint Jams
Casiopea's 1982 career peak 'Mint Jams' brings their guitar-led live fusion and funk to its summit, a milestone of Japanese fusion whose tones and mixing influenced countless City Pop and AOR records to come. Reissued here on green vinyl.
最悪最愛
The fourth album from singer-songwriter Higuchi Ai, on vinyl for the first time. She writes love and pain as two faces of one thing with candor and intensity, her piano and voice weaving a tension both fragile and searing, embodied by the lone silhouette standing before a vast orange sun.
未成線上
Higuchi Ai's fifth album, on vinyl for the first time. Its title evokes an unfinished line, and across it she sketches selves and relationships not yet arrived at, her sound moving between the fragmentary and the explosive. The blue-toned sliced-face collage mirrors that sense of the unsettled and in-flux.
John Williams Legacy
A Deutsche Grammophon anthology of John Williams's classic film scores, conducted by the composer himself leading the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles. From the Star Wars main title and Harry Potter's 'Hedwig's Theme' to 'Schindler's List,' the beloved themes are gathered here, with a gold-vinyl edition also available.
World Circuit founder Nick Gold first heard this record from a cassette Ali Farka Touré handed him in Bamako, where the whole city seemed to be singing it. Recorded 1989 and released 1991, it is Oumou Sangaré's debut; 'Moussolou' means 'women,' and its lyrics speak frankly of love, marriage and independence in a polygamous society. Built on traditional Wassoulou rhythms around Bénogo Diakité's kamalengoni, it remains a landmark of African and world music. Reissued on transparent turquoise vinyl for World Circuit's 40th anniversary with a bilingual lyric booklet.