New Wax Wednesday

In our seemingly endlessly perpetual multitasking modern world, sometimes it’s worth just taking a beat to slow everything down. Ambient music pioneer Brian Eno must have been reading our mind, because his latest multimedia collaboration with Dutch author/activist Bette A. may just be the literal aural elixir needed to fit that bill. The result of their multimedia mindmeld, 2 Slow Stories, is a two-sided, two-song companion to Bette A.’s collection of short stories dubbed (naturally) Slow Stories. Read AP editor Mike Mettler’s report to see why Bette and Brian’s forthcoming, extremely limited-edition bundle fits that requisite slow-rolling bill. . .

Progressive music and classically trained orchestras go together like, well, progressive music and classically trained orchestras. Truth is, the marriage of music made by forward-thinking artists with widely expanded symphonic arrangements has always appealed to our own open-minded compositional sensitivities. Though sometimes it’s a union that perhaps works better on staff paper, when the prog/orchestral sonic matrimony works, it really works — and that was clearly the idea behind Yes’ Symphonic Live, a 180g 4LP set that documents a full 14-song set from the band’s 2001 Symphonic Tour that was released via Mercury Studios/UMG on January 23, 2026. Read AP editor Mike Mettler’s review to see if the half-speed-remastered Symphonic Live conducts itself in a manner worthy of immediate acquisition. . .

When it comes to the King of Rock & Roll, nothing is too EPiC (acronym-derived case sensitivity specifics very much intended) for director Baz Luhrmann to tackle. Relative to the theatrical premiere of Luhrmann’s latest visual ode the King, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert — which hits theaters with a one-week exclusive IMAX engagement on February 20, 2026, followed by a global theatrical release from NEON and Universal Pictures International a week later on February 27, 2026 — RCA/Legacy will be releasing a companion 2LP soundtrack on April 24, 2026. Read AP editor Mike Mettler’s EPiC report to see if this hunk o’ double-Elvis vinyl-to-come belongs in your collection. . .

Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat it on, as the saying goes — at least that’s how the mid-’80s supergroup dubbed The Power Station put it in their February 1985 hit single of a mostly similar name. The album that housed that incendiary lead single, March 1985’s eponymously dubbed The Power Station, is seeing a well-deserved, expanded 40th anniversary 2LP set that’s duly been subtitled DLX via Parlophone on January 23, 2026. Read AP editor Mike Mettler’s review to see just how fiery this newly upgraded edition of The Power Station is on wax. . .

Welcome to Part 2 of our annual, year-end Best LPs extravaganza! As we noted at the outset of Part 1 yesterday (December 23), it’s never been easy paring down our favorite LPs to the final selections for these best-of listings, but we do feel we’ve done our measured best after sifting through the multiple hundreds of LPs we spun throughout the course of 2025 in order to represent the top-tier of what we’ve heard on vinyl this year. In the aforementioned Part 1, we — and by “we,” we mean a) Mike Mettler, our ever-faithful AP editor, and b) our chief LP reviewer, Mark Smotroff — covered our Top 10 favorite archival/reissues LPs. And now, read Part 2 to see what our Top 10 new LPs of the year are. . .

Tori Amos is the type of artist who relishes pushing the creative envelope at practically every turn, and she went all-in by creating 12 separate character identities/personas for how she approached interpreting the dozen, male-penned covers she tackled on her September 2001 release on Atlantic, Strange Little Girls. The album has never been officially released on vinyl, but Rhino plans to rectify that ill by dropping a 2LP Strange Little Girls (Expanded Edition) on February 20, 2026, that will also feature a pair of B-side rarities along with an additional pair of previously unreleased recordings. Read AP editor Mike Mettler’s Strange Little assessment, in addition to some exclusive, vinyl-centric comments he got directly from Amos herself. . .

Before we all drive and/or fly off to our respective Thanksgiving festivities for the long weekend ahead, we want to share the full aural bounty that comprises today’s New Wax Wednesday column. This one is all about Wings, a self-titled 180g 3LP compilation of 32 tracks culled from the better-than-you-may-think output of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles 1970s band that was released on November 7, 2025, via MPL/Capitol/UMe. Read AP editor Mike Mettler review to see if the Wings box is indeed fab enough for you to add to your collection (plus, you’ll get his firsthand impressions of seeing Macca’s just-completed Got Back tour). . .