It’s been less than two years since Al Jourgensen reunited his iconic industrial/metal act Ministry, but after a mid-tour health scare and the loss of sideman and best friend Mike Scaccia late last year, Uncle Al his putting an end to the band once and for all with a final album, ‘From Beer to Eternity,’ and an autobiography.
After working on solo projects for the last couple years, Echo & The Bunnymen braintrust Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant will reconvene in the studio this summer to record the band’s 12th album, McCulloch tells The Quietus in a new interview, saying the record will be called The Garden of Meedin.’”
Simple Minds fans living in North America have been a patient lot, as the band hasn’t toured here in more than a decade. But there is renewed hope today, thanks to a message that reveals the group plans to record music this summer and “hopefully” will tour the U.S. and Canada this fall.
The Stranglers — singer-bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, drummer Jet Black and keyboard player Dave Greenfield, plus former Toy Dolls guitarist Baz Warne — this week announced a belated U.S. release for the band’s 2012 album Giants, plus initial dates in late May and June for a planned North American tour.
Having just released their 11th album ‘Elysium’ six months ago, the Pet Shop Boys surprised fans this morning by announcing they already have another new studio album ready to go, and that they’ll release the record — titled ‘Electric’ — this June via Kobalt Label Services.
Ian McCulloch next month will release a new 2CD set called ‘Holy Ghosts’ that combines the fan-funded studio album ‘Pro Patria Mori’ he released in limited quantities last year with an unreleased 15-track live set of “orchestral reworkings” of solo tracks and Bunnymen classics recorded last May.
Gang of Four today premiered a brand-new song and a brand-new lineup, with vocalist John “Gaoler” taking the place of founding member Jon King, who had participated in the group’s mid-2000s reunion and 2011 studio album Content. Stream the new song “Broken Talk,” which premiered today on Pitchfork.
Dead Can Dance will commemorate its ongoing reunion with a new live CD called ‘In Concert’ that also will be released in expanded digital and triple-vinyl formats, capturing performances from the band’s 2012 U.S. tour. You can preview the set through a free download of the live version of “Children of the Sun.”
Sparks — aka brothers Ron and Russell Mael — this month will release their first-ever live album, a 2CD set called Two Hands One Mouth recorded on their European tour last year that found the duo performing for the first time without a full band or computers — a show they’re bringing to Los Angeles and San Francisco this spring.
The double-disc, 26-track best-of set from Australian rockers Midnight Oil that was released Down Under last fall will receive a belated American release April 30 via Columbia/Legacy, the label announced today. Essential Oils offers a career-spanning overview of the band’s catalog.
Ultravox frontman and solo artist Midge Ure will be the subject of a new 2CD, 32-track best-of dubbed ‘The Works’ this spring as he puts the finishing touches on a new live album that was recorded in Chicago earlier this year during his rare North American solo tour.
While neither side has officially announced anything, it appears that Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli may have begun work in Australia on the new musical project that Kilbey first hinted at last July after he jumped on stage with the reunited Whigs in Sydney to help perform “One Day.”
Former Yazoo frontwoman Alison Moyet today announced that her upcoming eighth solo album will be called the minutes, and then proceeded to debut the first track off the largely electronic collection — a song called “Changeling,” which can be downloaded for free via the widget below in exchange for an e-mail address.
The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late Stuart Adamson and the new addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will release a new album titled ‘The Journey’ this spring and embark on a world tour that will hit the U.K., Europe and North America.
Meat Puppets returns this spring with their 14th studio album — the 12-track Rat Farm, which Curt Kirkwood dubs “real blown-up folk music” — and will support the release with a spring U.S. tour that will include as-yet-unannounced appearances at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
Simple Minds today revealed the tracklist for the new best-of collection it first announced last fall, confirming that the band’s career-spanning ‘Celebrate — The Greatest Hits+’ will be released this spring in a 2CD, 36-song format as well as a 3CD, 50-song edition with each version featuring a pair of new songs.
So it appears “maybe two or three days” meant closer to a week, but Kevin Shields has kept good to his word as My Bloody Valentine tonight released the band’s 22-years-in-the-making follow-up to Loveless, a 9-track album called mbv that, upon news of its release, crashed the MBV site preventing anyone from hearing it for hours.
U.K. imprint Cooking Vinyl today announced it has signed Alison Moyet to a worldwide deal with plans to release the former Yazoo singer’s eighth studio album this May, an electronic-based collection that signer describes both as “prog-pop” and “born of reconstructed improvisation.”
It’s been a few years since former Siouxsie and the Banshees bassist Steven Severin expressed hope that he could one day work with The Cure’s Robert Smith on new music together as The Glove, and while it’s unclear whether that ever happened, it appears there’s something on the horizon from the short-lived side project.
