Grant Hart returns this summer with his long-in-the-works The Argument, a double album based on John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost,” on which Domino Record Co. says Hart “distills its essence into pop and rock concoctions that nimbly flit through the history of 20th century music.”
The release of the 5-disc box set Scared To Get Happy: A Story of Indie-Pop 1980-1989 is still nearly two months away, but Cherry Red Records has begun teasing fans with some of the music that will appear on the set, including this rare 1982 flexidisc recording by The Bluebells of “Happy Birthday.”
Metropolis Records is offering up the first taste of Weapon, the upcoming 12th studio album from Skinny Puppy, in the form of lead single “paragUn” — which you can now stream in full. Weapon is due out May 24 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, May 27 in the “rest of the world” and May 28 in North America.
Röyksopp on Saturday will release a red-vinyl 10-inch for Record Store Day in the U.K. that features a live cover of Depeche Mode’s “Ice Machine,” the B-side to the band’s 1981 debut single “Dreaming of Me.” The Röyksopp cover is part of the band’s upcoming installment of the compilation series Late Night Tales.
Peter Hook announced this week that he’ll release a digital live album capturing his performance of New Order’s first two albums with his band The Light in Manchester earlier this year, then took the opportunity today to swipe at his ex-bandmates’ performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last night.
Ex-Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins re-teams with The Heartbreaks for a 7-inch single to be released in the U.K. for Record Store Day this Saturday — and you can stream both tracks. Side A is a new song by Collins and the band while the B side is a new version of the Orange Juice’s “Untitled Melody.”
It’s a nearly unparalleled landmark in the history of ’80s college rock: R.E.M.’s peerless debut album, Murmur, was released on April 12, 1983 — exactly 30 years ago today. Today we celebrate this milestone by looking back at the building blocks of the album we know and love.
Former Miracle Legion frontman Mark Mulcahy returns this summer with Dear Mark J Mulcahy I Love You, his fifth solo album and first 2005′s In Pursuit of Your Happiness — and he’s previewing the Fire Records release with the brand-new song “She Makes the World Turn Backwards.”
Visage — best remembered for its classic 1980 single “Fade to Grey” — return next month with Hearts and Knives, the band’s fourth album and first in 29 years. The record is preceded by lead single “Shameless Fashion,” which you can download for free on the group’s Facebook page and/or stream here.
Ian McCulloch later this month will release a new live/studio 2CD set called Holy Ghosts, and the singer is letting fans download one of the studio tracks, album closer “Somewhere in My Dreams — but only until 5 p.m. BST, which is noon EDT for those of us here in the U.S.
The 1991 self-titled debut from indie supergroup Electronic — featuring New Order frontman Bernard Sumner and guitarist Johnny Marr of The Smiths, with the occasional assist from Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant — will be reissued in the U.K. next week in a 2CD expanded edition.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark next week will release ‘English Electric’ — their second post-reunion album and 12th studio set overall — and, as is increasingly the case these days, you can now listen to the full record in advance of its actual release. Check it out via Pitchfork Advance.
Wire this week released their 13th studio album ‘Changes Becomes Us,’ and instead of offering the increasingly popular pre-release stream, the band is going for post-release: the full album, billed as an “exploration of unrecorded material originally written in 1979-80,” is now streaming over at Pitchfork.
The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — is due to release The Journey, the band’s first new album in 14 years, next month, and is previewing the disc with first single “Hurt.”
Primal Scream today debuted the second single off the band’s upcoming 10th studio album ‘More Light,’ a song called “It’s Alright, It’s OK” that rides along on a ‘Screamadelica’-like groove and stands in stark contrast to the dark, honking rocker “2013″ that preceded it. The album itself is due out May 13 in the U.K.
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.
A newly revealed cassette recording of The Smiths rehearsing in a Manchester warehouse in May 1983 prior to signing their first record deal has surfaced online in what the band’s drummer today called “an early recording you’ve probably never heard before.”
The Dead Milkmen have released the third in their new series of limited-edition 7-inch singles — “The Boston Molasses Flood” — and you can now stream both songs off the vinyl single plus the digital-only bonus track. Below, check out the two songs off the 7-inch plus digital-only bonus track “Anthropology Days.”
Phoenix returns next month with their fifth studio album Bankrupt!, and they’ve just released what they’re billing as a “remix” of lead single “Entertainment” by none other than Dinosaur Jr. But it’s actually a straight-up cover of what had been a fairly upbeat, poppy number.
