Johnny Marr returns this October with what’s being billed as his sophomore solo album, the 11-song Playland, a collection of new music built “around a common theme of ‘songs that move at the speed of life’” that arrives just 18 months after the release of his first official solo record, The Messenger.
We’re still two months away from the arrival of Erasure’s 16th studio album, The Violet Flame, but the duo has just offered up the first taste of the record in the form of first single “Elevation,” which you can stream here. Vince Clarke and Andy Bell also revealed the full tracklist for the album,
Omnivore Recordings will launch a new Game Theory reissue campaign this September with the first release of the band’s debut Blaze of Glory in its original form since the album’s original issue in 1982, supplementing the 12-track record with 15 bonus tracks,
Like Mission of Burma, Scottish indie-pop faves The Vaselines are on their way to becoming more prolific post-reunion than in their original incarnation, this week announcing their second post-reunion album, and only their third overall, called V for Vaselines.
Robyn Hitchcock this August will release a brand-new, Joe Boyd-produced album titled The Man Upstairs that will be “part well-known favorites, part personal discoveries, and part originals,” according to Yep Roc Records. The first offering off the record is an acoustic take on the Psychedelic Furs’ classic “The Ghost in You.”
The Mission is following up last year’s reunion album The Brightest Light with a brand-new EP that will feature four new songs that each are sung by a different member of the band — plus, for those who purchase the digital version, a bonus fifth track in the form of a cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
A new 50-song compilation of early R.E.M. material called Complete Rarities: I.R.S. 1982-1987 is due out digitally next month, but appears to be largely, if not completely, comprised of tracks previously assembled on 1987′s out-of-print Dead Letter Office, a more recent I.R.S. years best-of and singles.
Paul Weller this June will follow up 1998′s Modern Classics compilation with a new companion best-of — cleverly titled More Modern Classics — that will pick up where the previous set left off, collecting 20 favorites by the former Jam leader recorded over the past 15 years, including a brand-new single.
The 1983 debut from The The — Soul Mining, featuring the singles “Uncertain Smile” and “This is the Day” — will receive a 30th anniversary reissue this summer in the former of a deluxe 2LP set that will include the remastered album on one 180-gram vinyl platter and six remixes and B-sides on the other.
Morrissey’s previously announced 20th anniversary reissue of his fourth solo album, 1994′s Vauxhall and I, will not feature a tweaked tracklist — as some of the singer’s re-releases have included — but will come with a bonus CD or download of a concert recorded in London on Feb. 27, 1995.
The Pixies today announced the release of the third in their series of self-released vinyl-and-digital EPs over the last seven months, and now will compile all 12 new songs released since last summer’s “Bagboy” digital single as a full-length album that will make the band’s new music available on CD.
Peter Murphy returns with brand-new music late this spring as he releases his much-anticipated 10th album Lion, an 11-track collection produced by Killing Joke bassist Youth that the former Bauhaus frontman previewed in rough form over the PA before concerts on his 2013 tour.
Acclaimed if overlooked U.K. postpunk act The Sound will be the subject of a new box set next month from Demon Music Group that will collect expanded editions of the band’s first three albums, released between 1980 and 1982, along with a fourth disc featuring two BBC live concerts recorded in 1981 and 1985.
R.E.M. will release a limited-edition 4LP set on Record Store Day that collects the audio from the band’s two appearances, in 1991 and 2001, on MTV’s “Unplugged” series, featuring all 33 songs the band performed at the two tapings, including 11 that never aired on either broadcast.
U.K. postpunk act Ski Patrol next month will release a new anthology collecting the group’s recorded output from 1979 to 1981, a 14-track collection that will include their singles, previously unreleased mixes and songs from their final studio session, their John Peel radio session and more.
Cherry Red Records this week revealed the final tracklist for its deluxe-edition reissue of the NME’s legendary C86 cassette, which finds the original 22-song indie-pop compilation now expanded into a 3CD set — up from a planned two-disc collection — that will feature 72 total tracks.
Siouxsie and the Banshees will commemorate “Hong Kong Garden” next month with a double 7-inch reissue of the single that will include the original A- and B-sides and the version from Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” film and the recording of “Voices” from 1984′s The Thorn EP.
Manchester-bred rockers James today announced they’ll release their next album — La Petite Mort, the first taste of which, “Frozen Britain,” you can stream below — this June, a record that bassist Jim Glennie says “stretched us and the songs and pushed us to new heights in craftsmanship and intensity.”
Cherry Red Records this spring will dig into The Mighty Lemon Drops’ early years with a new 24-track compilation of material culled from the indie-pop favorites’ early singles, demos, BBC radio sessions and recordings made for the NME’s legendary C86 tape and more.
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