This week’s new releases include a pair of EPs from Killing Joke and the Peter Hook-led Freebass that already were issued online earlier this year, plus a new digital single from Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith.

Andy Rourke of The Smiths is no longer part of the Manchester triple-bass supergroup Freebass, which also features Peter Hook of New Order and Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield of The Stone Roses, according to a note posted on the band’s website.

Less than a month after dropping its debut EP, Peter Hook’s triple-bass supergroup Freebass — which also features The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream — today released its five-years-in-the-making album, ‘It’s a Beautiful Life.’

Ex-New Order bassist Peter Hook’s long-gestating Freebass — a triple-bass supergroup featuring The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Gary “Mani” Mounfield of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream — today released its debut EP and will make its official live debut in London and Manchester in June.

The Smiths’ classic second album, ‘Meat is Murder,’ was released Feb. 14, 1985 — exactly 25 years ago today. To mark the occasion, we’ve assembled live video of nearly every track on the album (”Well I Wonder” being the missing link).

Peter Hook last night christened his new Manchester club FAC251 — housed in the former headquarters of Factory Records — with members of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays helping perform a career-spanning set that included the live debuts of an unfinished Joy Division song and a New Order outtake.

Former New Order bassist Peter Hook’s long-gestating Freebass project — which also features the four-stringed talents of The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Gary “Mani” Mounfield of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream — is poised to release its debut EP, dubbed Two Worlds Collide.
The four-track collection will be released “soon” by Hook’s just-launched — and [...]

Although most of Morrissey’s Smiths-related rancor is reserved for litigious drummer Mike Joyce, the singer today lashed out at bassist Andy Rourke for claiming once again that he was fired from the legendary band via a postcard.
Rourke, who was briefly dismissed from the Smiths over alleged heroin addiction in 1986 following the recording of The [...]

With Peter Hook having acrimoniously split from New Order, the rest of the legendary synthrock act has enlisted Blur bassist Alex James for a new project dubbed Bad Lieutenant.
The BBC reports the new band — featuring Joy Division/New Order members Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris, along with late-era New Order guitarist Phil Cunningham and singer-guitarist [...]