Photographer Simon Larbalestier’s iconic Pixies album artwork — created during the college-rock kingpins’ original 1986-1993 run as well as the band’s ongoing reunion — will be the subject of a six-week retrospective at a U.K. art gallery beginning next month.

A group of Israeli human rights activists have asked the Pixies to cancel their June 9 concert in Tel Aviv to protest ‘the military occupation the Palestinian people have been living under,’ urging the reunited band to ‘refuse to perform in Israel until there is freedom here.’

The Pixies have licensed “Isla de Encanta,” off the band’s 1987 debut EP ‘Come On Pilgrim,’ to Visa for a (admittedly quite clever) World Cup-themed TV commercial called “Football Evolution.”

The Pet Shop Boys not only released their new Pandemonium live CD/DVD package in the UK this week — just two months after it was filmed in London — but the duo also announced the concert film’s namesake tour will play a five-date encore in England this summer.

Black Francis has released his long-in-the-works project The Golem, a 4CD/1DVD set and 50-page book chronicling the score to the silent 1920 German expressionist film “Der Golem” that the Pixies frontman wrote for the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2008.

This week’s new releases include Peter Gabriel’s new orchestral covers album, a live Pet Shop Boys CD/DVD, Niter Ebb’s first new record in 15 years and new reissues from Pixies, Bomb the Bass and 808 State.

Bad Lieutenant, the new band from New Order’s Bernard Sumner, will make its belated U.S. debut this April with an appearance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and club dates in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, the group announced Monday.

While U.S. fans await word of Bad Lieutenant’s stateside debut — following last fall’s aborted showcase concerts in New York and Chicago — Bernard Sumner’s New Order spinoff on Wednesday announced five new live dates in the U.K. next month.

The canonization of the Pixies’ beloved Doolittle continues with Beggars Archives’ just-announced plans to release an “Omnibus Edition” of the 1989 album, with a new surround mix, the record’s demos and possibly a Blu-ray included in the expanded box set.

[tweetmeme]Pixies frontman Black Francis will delve into the recording of1989’s Doolittle during a “classic album dissection” on this week’s “Sound Opinions” radio show, aka “the world’s only rock ‘n’ roll talk show.” The episode featuring the rocker also known as Frank Black — hosted by Chicago music critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis — [...]