Pink Floyd, photo courtesy of Sony Music

Every Friday, Relix surveys the wealth of new music released over the past seven days and selects dozens of standouts for the Relix Staff Picks playlist. Read on for the highlights from this week’s batch.

50 years ago, Pink Floyd emerged from the total blackout in the wake of Dark Side of the Moon with an immortal document of their evolution, arguably their magnum opus, and indisputably one of the greatest albums of all time. Wish You Were Here, the foundational progressive rock band’s ninth studio album and second stab at a concept record, realized their narrative ambition with some of their most daring and transportive compositions, from the bleak, empty promises of “Have a Cigar” to the moving and dignified tribute to Syd Barrett on “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.” At the height of their powers and influence, the band tore down the cold and callous king-making machine to find loss, hope, acceptance and change.

To celebrate this landmark anniversary, Pink Floyd have released Wish You Were Here 50, a massive reissue coupling the legendary record with a wealth of unheard material. Alongside a new Dolby Atmos mix of the album by James Guthrie, these coveted rarities are split into two bonus discs. The first compiles nine unreleased studio rarities, alternate versions and demos, including Roger Waters’ home take on “The Machine Song” and an early treatment of “Wish You Were Here” featuring pedal steel from David Gilmour. The second is an unprecedented bootleg tape from the Wish You Were Here Tour, captured by legendary taper Mike Millard at the Los Angeles Sports Arena concert on April 26, 1975.

“Mike dug his dad’s wheelchair out of his garage,” Miller’s taping partner Jim Reinstein recalled in a Rolling Stone interview. “We stuffed the recorder into the seat cushion. And in the bathroom of the arena, I’d wire him from head to toe, with two microphones sticking out of his hat. The wires went down his shirt, through his pants, down to his boots.” Read more about the Miller method here.

In new music, the Sam Grisman Project have finally released their self-titled debut album, and the torehcbearing Americana ensemble’s formal introduction was well worth the wait. In the company of friends and collaborators like Victor Furtado, Dominick Leslie, John Mailander, Nat Smith, Alex Hargreaves and Max Flansburg, Grisman brings new life to old favorites from the likes of Bob Dylan, Bonnie Dobson and Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. “While pre-existing associations with these songs might linger for listeners,” Hana Gustafson, Relix’s resident expert on all things SGP, wrote in her review, “the classics have never been presented like this:”

“The piano pressed entry and lightness of Dylan’s telling of the late-day Las Vegas-living Elvis on “Went to See the Gypsy” has been replaced by a twin fiddle awakening from two of the best to do it, Mailander and Hargreaves. Led by Hot Rize’s [Tim] O’Brien, his vocals shift the New Morning cover into the bluegrass ether, with a sense of profound reverence to traditional folk practices.

Similarly, O’Brien lends his voice to the nuclear wreckage of an Adam-and-Eve archetype and what remains in post-apocalyptic “Morning Dew.” Fans of Sam’s dad and Jerry Garcia’s Not For Kids Only album will be thrilled with the addition of “When First Unto This Country,” expanding upon the original with more instruments, the rich tone of Sam’s bass coalescing with the guitar, mando, double fiddle, cello, and Dobro–provided by Tod Livingston.”

Elsewhere, there’s This Is Lorelei’s sophomore album Holo Boy, which shows indie singer-songwriter Nate Amos (also of Water From Your Eyes) returning to songs from his earlier Bandcamp era with a wry, shaggy and placid integrity. Fuzz, the garage-psych and proto-metal project of Ty Segall, Charles Moothart and Chad Ubovich, show their roots with unreleased demos and singles – and a “21st Century Schizoid Man” cover – on Fuzz’s Fourth Dream. Juliana Hatfield continues to excel beyond the standard of her beloved releases from the ‘90s and ‘00s alt-rock heyday with Lightning May Strike, her bright and vulnerable 21st solo album. Fat White Family build on the belligerent brilliance of 2024’s Forgiveness Is Yours with the magnetically confrontational live set Konk If You’re Lonely. Alternative hip-hop hitmaker MIKE’s Showbiz! gets a deluxe treatment, complete with audio from his 8-piece band Tiny Desk concert.

This week’s batch of Relix Staff Picks also includes new music from Pavement, Julian Lage (with John Medeski, Kenny Wolleson and Jorge Roeder), Soulive, The Afghan Whigs, Hand Habits, Dorothy, Sugar Cherry, Kitty Craft, Nas & DJ Premier and many more gems. Tune in here.