The Human League — set to release an expanded 2CD edition of its 1981 synthpop classic ‘Dare’ this March — this week announced XXXV: The 2012 Tour, a 14-date U.K. trek planned for this November and December that will commemorate the 35th anniversary of the band’s formation in Sheffield, England.

This week’s new releases include new albums from Gary Numan (‘Dead Son Rising’) and Blondie (‘Panic of Girls’), plus reissue from the Art of Noise (‘Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise’) and The Raincoats (‘Odyshape’), plus the first-ever DVD release of Sonic Youth’s ‘1991: The Year Punk Broke.’

This week’s round-up of links includes an interview with The Human League’s Philip Oakey, an essay by Billy Bragg, a look at Kate Bush’s lack of success in the U.S. and recollections of the Sonic Youth’s and Nirvana’s infamous 1991 tour of Europe.

The Human League has set a belated U.S. release date next month for its first album in a decade — ‘Credo,’ which arrived in the U.K. this past spring — and has announced a 17-date North American tour this September that will see the act pairing up with Men Without Hats and The B-52s.

British record producer Martin Rushent — who helmed The Human League’s genre-defining 1981 album ‘Dare,’ as well as beloved post-punk/New Wave-era records and singles by The Stranglers, Buzzcocks, XTC, The Go-Go’s and more — died Saturday. He was 63.

The latest installment of the AV Club’s ‘Undercover’ series finds Rocky Votolato and the members of Matt Pond PA doing a stripped-down take on The Human League’s 1981 synthpop classic ‘Don’t You Want Me.’ Check out the video here.

This week’s new releases include the belated physical release of Duran Duran’s ‘All You Need Is Now,’ new albums from The Human League and John Foxx, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘The Most Incredible Thing’ ballet score, a Soundgarden live album and a new Aztec Camera best-of.

Synthpop vets The Human League — leader Philip Oakey and singers Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley — deliver their first album in a decade next week, and to promote it, they’ve just released the second single off the disc, album opener “Never Let Me Go.”

The expanded 2CD/1DVD reissue of Heaven 17’s synthpop classic ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ will pair the remastered 1981 album with 20 previously unreleased ‘demos, instrumentals and experimentation’ from that era, plus a DVD featuring the hour-long documentary ‘The Story of Penthouse and Pavement.’

Twenty years ago tonight, Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure — aided by a pair of American DJs and shadowed by MTV and the music press — set up a pirate radio station at the headquarters of Fiction Records with plans to illicitly premiere their soon-to-released remix album ‘Mixed Up’ over the London airwaves.

Slicing Up Eyeballs got a chance to talk to Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware last week about the making of the band’s landmark debut, ‘Penthouse and Pavement,’ as well as the forthcoming 30th anniversary tour for the album and plans for a new box set.

Classic synthpop group Heaven 17 will reissue its celebrated 1981 debut ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ this November as a multi-disc ‘super luxury box set’ that will include a full CD of newly unearthed eight-track demos, band co-founder Martyn Ware tells Slicing Up Eyeballs.

Record Rack: A weekly round-up of the pertinent new releases hitting stores this Tuesday: ARTIST: Pet Shop Boys ALBUM: Yes BACKSTORY: PSB’s 10th studio album […]