Matador Records today announced that the tastemaking independent label will now oversee the early catalog of the Butthole Surfers.

Matador Records’ delayed Gang of Four vinyl box set has received a new release date — March 12 — and now also will be released as a CD edition, the label announced Tuesday, teasing the release with the premiere of a previously unreleased demo. Hear a previously unreleased track right here.

Matador Records will release a new limited-edition Gang of Four vinyl box set in December called 77-81 that will collect the band’s first two albums, singles, a previously unreleased live set from 1980 and 26 never-before-issued outtakes, demos and rarities from the era. Full details and tracklist right here.

It’s still two weeks until once and future(?) Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore releases the self-titled debut album from his new band Chelsea Light Moving, but you can go ahead and listen to the whole thing now after it premiered late last night on NPR Music. Check out the full stream via the player here.

Once and future(?) Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore will release the self-titled debut album from his new band Chelsea Light Moving on March 5, Matador Records announced this morning, and will follow that release with a 20-date U.S. tour that has a conspicuous South By Southwest-sized gap in the schedule.

Wednesday was Thurston Moore’s birthday, and the Sonic Youth frontman saw fit to give fans another gift: ‘Frank O’Hara Hit,’ the third free track from his new band Chelsea Light Moving — which you can stream and/or download below, via Matador Records, which will put out the group’s debut album at some point in the future.

Dennis Flemion, who co-founded the cult indie-pop act The Frogs with his younger brother Jimmy in Milwaukee in 1980 and rose to minor alt-rock celebrity in the ’90s, is missing and presumed dead in a Wisconsin lake, Matador Records co-owner Gerard Cosloy announced on the label’s blog tonight.

News this week of Thurston Moore’s new collaboration with (former?) wife Kim Gordon and Yoko Ono didn’t help answer questions about the future of Sonic Youth, nor does Matador Records’ announcement this morning — complete with debut MP3 — that Moore has started a new band called Chelsea Light Moving.

Boston post-punk masters Mission of Burma this summer will release ‘Unsound,’ their fourth post-reunion album (that’s three more records than they put out during their original run in the ’80s), and this week premiered the first track from that effort, called ‘Dust Devil.’

Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo next week will release his new solo album ‘Between the Times and the Tides,’ but he’s decided to preview the record by streaming it online in full beginning this week. The record, a more traditional song-oriented effort than his more experimental solo material, will be released March 20 in the U.S.

Lee Ranaldo may have an excellent new solo album to promote — ‘Between the Times and the Tides,’ due out March 20 on Matador Records — but he’s invariably going to be asked at every turn about the future of Sonic Youth, given last year’s break-up of bandmates and spouses Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon.

Matador Records today debuted the first track off Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo’s forthcoming solo album ‘Between the Times and the Tides.’ The 3-minute ‘Off the Wall’ — a gentle, mid-tempo rocker that mixes acoustic and shimmering electric guitars — can be streamed or downloaded here.

Sonic Youth wrapped up a short South American tour last night with a 70-minute set at the SWU Music & Arts Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil — something that normally wouldn’t be particularly newsworthy, except that it might have been the legendary noise-rockers’ final performance after 30 years together.