The career-spanning box set from James — ‘The Gathering Sound,’ featuring three CDs, a DVD, a 12-inch record and 8GB of digital music — finally is set for release this fall, and will come with all of the band’s albums plus 32 previously unreleased recordings, 12 of which are completely unreleased songs.

Eagle Rock Entertainment this fall will release a DVD compiling Talking Heads live performances from across the band’s touring career, an 18-track set called ‘Chronology’ that spans the years 1975 to 1983 — and includes the quartet performing “Life During Wartime” during its brief reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Twenty years ago today, first-time director Samuel Bayer gathered several dozen fans and three young musicians on a Culver City, Calif., soundstage to film the video for Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ a soon-to-be iconic clip — the infamous high school pep rally from hell — that ultimately would be as era-defining as the song itself.

Just eight months after a-ha’s farewell concert in Oslo, the Norwegian pop trio — saying they were ‘shaken to the soul’ — have announced they will reunite later this month to perform at the national memorial service honoring the victims of last month’s mass killings in that country.

In December 1988, when Dinosaur Jr entered Boston’s famed Fort Apache Studios, to record a track for ‘The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young,’ they cut not one but two songs: ‘Lotta Love,’ which would be included on the disc alongside covers by the Pixies, The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth, and ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You.’

Much has been made about the loss of album art in the download age, but pop-culture maven Matthew Chojnacki argues that even more endangered are the 7- and 12-inch single sleeves of the 1980s — ephemeral splashes of music history that he’s compiled in the new book ‘Put the Needle on the Record: The 1980s at 45 Revolutions Per Minute.’

Members of long-lost Boston college-radio favorites Scruffy the Cat — part of the so-called late-’80s cowpunk scene that helped spawn the alt-country movement — have reunited around cancer-stricken frontman Charlie Chesterman after two decades apart and will play two headlining shows in their hometown this October.

The folks over at the U.K. arm of Rhino Records continue to dig through the video archive of material by The Smiths, and now they’ve unearthed this 17-minute ‘lost’ documentary about the band, which they believe was commissioned by the label in 1992 in support of the ‘Best…’ compilation.

As promised, the Throwing Muses will support the release of the 4AD band’s forthcoming best-of set ‘Anthology’ — which initially will be released in a deluxe package with a second disc of B-sides and rare cuts — with live dates, including a just-announced 15-date tour of Europe and the United Kingdom this fall.

Synthpop faves Erasure this morning debuted the first single, ‘When I Start To (Break It All Down),’ off their upcoming album ‘Tomorrow’s World’ on BBC Radio 2, and now have made the 3:34-long track available for streaming on their website. The single will be released digitally Aug. 29 and on CD on Sept. 26.

This week’s new releases include a tribute to the British guitarist/songwriter John Martyn featuring The Cure’s Robert Smith, a reissue on 10-inch vinyl of The Clash’s ‘Black Market Clash’ and a 3CD compilation of extended remixes by the likes of New Order and The Jesus and Mary Chain called 12″/80s Alternative.’

Our latest link round-up includes a Q&A with Thomas Dolby, news of a comic-book series inspired by The Smiths, an essay on whether MTV’s ‘120 Minutes’ is still necessary, news of the return of Washington, D.C.’s WHFS and a review and excerpt of Simon Reynolds’ new book ‘Retromania.’

Today we get another glimpse of synth pioneer Gary Numan’s upcoming album ‘Dead Son Rising’ thanks to The Quietus, which posted the track ‘Dead Sun Rising’ — and yes, that’s not a typo. Numan says, “I do appreciate that it’s a little bit confusing — I’m waiting for all the e-mails to come in saying ‘there’s a misprint on the album.'”