Music News

Weekly Round-Up: Friday 28th February

Friday 28th February, 2014 1:39PM

Well here we are at the end of summer already and while the tour announcements have nearly ground to halt, the amount of amazing album releases coming up in the next few months certainly leaves us hopeful for some great tours ahead. While they were few, a particularly good tour announcement did come through this week with Gary Numan announced to return for a one-off Auckland show in May and 95bFM's famed Summer Series returns next weekend.

To release news and many of the aforementioned releases where announced this week with the return of Trans Am who have announced the release of new album Volume X due out in May; The Horrors too are back confirming the release of a new album this year - titled Luminous, it's also out in May; trip hop originals Portishead are apparently working on their fourth LP; Echo and The Bunnymen released official details of their new album - titled Metorites it's out in April; Sweedish songstress Lykke Li has announced the release of her third album, I Never Learn, in May and shared a trailer; The Faint are back announcing the release of their first new album since 2008, Doom Abuse; Animal Collective's Noah Lennox announced the impending release of a new Panda Bear record tentatively titled Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper; Pains of Being Pure at Heart have a new album out in April titled Days of Abandon and have shared the first single; Damon Albarn shared a second single from his debut solo album Everyday Robots and has told NME that Blur have recorded 15 new songs; Soundgarden will release special 20th anniversary editions of seminal album Superunknown on Record Store Day; Sharon Van Etten announced the release of new album Are We There in May; Brian Eno will release a new record with Karl Hyde from Underworld in May titled Someday World and finally Leeds based punks, Eagulls' much anticipated debut album is streaming via Pitchfork Advance until next Wednesday (our time)

In other news of interest, James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem, DFA) has announced his interest in creating a soundtrack to the New York subway system; music intelligence platform The Echo Nest have released a map of the US which indicates the artist most distinctive to each State with local band The Naked and Famous, who are returning home for a one-off show in May, a particular favourite in Colorado and we were also recently alerted to a great visualisation of rock/alternative music over the past 100 years - definitely a good way to waste a few hours.

Caught live this week we have Sky Ferreira performing 'You're Not The One' for her excellent debut album Night Time, My Time on Jimmy Kimmel. We got to chat to Sky Ferreira recently, read our interview here, and she has also just been announced to be headed to Sydney for one show with no other dates on the cards at this time...