Reed initially composed the long, luminous and thoroughly mesmerizing drones that make up “Hudson River Wind Meditations” for his personal use, to soundtrack his tai chi practice, acupuncture treatments or meditation sessions. When enough acquaintances started asking him for copies, he decided to release it in 2007. It would be Reed’s final album, and a surprisingly tranquil if suitably uncompromising coda to his discography. Earlier in 2024, the archival label Light in the Attic gave “Hudson River Wind Meditations” a reverential reissue, which features a remaster of the original release by engineer John Baldwin, prints of Reed’s contemplative photographs of the Hudson and a booklet that contains, among other things, a new conversation about the album between Reed’s widow, Laurie Anderson, and writer Jonathan Cott. “In my place, I have it going all day,” Reed says in a typically terse 2007 interview included in the set, “which is better than listening to traffic.”

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Talking Heads, “Talking Heads: 77 (Super Deluxe Edition)” (Rhino)

The bare-bones, wide-eyed, brilliantly gawky sound of Talking Heads was fully formed on “Talking Heads: 77,” the band’s debut album. Its expanded reissue also gathers B-sides and outtakes, including a version of “Psycho Killer” with Arthur Russell cutting loose on cello and a (wisely shelved) version of “Pulled Up” with a horn arrangement. The big reveal is the band’s full 1977 live set from its last show at CBGB in New York City. A high-voiced David Byrne sounds nervous in his between-song patter. But he’s absolutely unbridled from the moment the band kicks in, yelping and growling and barking and babbling over arrangements that had been honed to perfection over years of gigs on that same club stage.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Alice Coltrane, ‘The Carnegie Hall Concert’ (Impulse!)

In early 2024, the surviving family of Alice Coltrane, along with the John & Alice Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island, inaugurated “The Year of Alice,” a sweeping program of events and releases honoring the harpist and pianist. The centerpiece: this illuminating 1971 live set, previously only available as a fragmentary bootleg, which helpfully fleshes out a portrait of Coltrane that, in recent years, has begun to seem reductive. Much of Coltrane’s rediscovery has centered on “Journey in Satchidananda,” an album dedicated to her spiritual adviser at the time that is given over to a gently swirling serenity. Two pieces from that release open this performance, part of a benefit for Swami Satchidananda’s Integral Yoga Institute, but it’s in the second half, when Coltrane switches from harp to piano, that the fireworks really commence. During a near-30-minute performance of her husband John’s “Africa,” she stokes a wave of ever-cresting energy, powering a mighty ensemble featuring two bassists, two drummers and on saxophones, a pair of John’s most accomplished disciples, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp.

HANK SHTEAMER, New York Times