Music News

Weekly Round-Up: Friday 29th November

Friday 29th November, 2013 1:04PM

Well here we are, at the end of November already and what a tumultuous week it has been with Blur's cancellation of their Big Day Out 2014 appearances kick starting the week's touring news. Festival organisers have been working on a replacement all week with an announcement due any moment now (stay tuned). The best tour news of the week though was of course Arctic Monkeys' announcement of two headline shows next May on the back of new album AM. Other tours news of note included the final lineup announce from Splore which includes the debut New Zealand appearance from pioneering electronic musicians The Orb and this morning Ska originals The English Beat were announced to return for four shows.

To release news, and things have been pretty quiet this week as things start to wind down for the year but a few exciting tidbits did roll in including news of Shihad's reunion with Jaz Coleman for their, as yet untitled, ninth studio album due out next year, new local label Pyramid Power revealed their first vinyl release due out this weekend, a previously unreleased Velvet Underground track accompanied news of a 45th anniversary deluxe reissue of White Light/White Heat, Guided by Voices announced the release of new album Motivational Jumpsuit next year and shared the first single, locals The Shocking and Stunning, Team Ugly and Esher released new EPs that are available to stream and we had the great pleasure of talking with Buzz from the Melvins about their latest album Tres Cabrones ahead of their one-off Auckland show this next week.

Our video of the week couldn't be anything other than James Franco and Seth Rogen's hilarious parody of Kanye West's ridiculous video for Yeezus track 'Bound 2' that has no doubt taken over your social media feeds at some point this week, and rightfully so. If you're over it though and are keen for a funny, check out Superchunk's new video over here instead.