Kate Bush Announces New Works

There's big news from Kate Bush. Well, any news from the reclusive Bush is big, but it's particularly exciting when she announces a new album.

Bush is preparing to release Director's Cut on May 16 on her own label, FIsh People, in conjunction with EMI. She'll be revisiting selections from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

The press release explains that she has re-recorded some elements while keeping the best musical performances of the songs.

A new version of “Deeper Understanding” will be released as a single in April.

Director’s Cut will be released in the following formats: digital album, standard CD in a case-bound book, deluxe CD (three disc package, including Director’s Cut, The Sensual World and re-mastered The Red Shoes) in a case-bound book and two-disc vinyl. Other digital and vinyl formats will be made available on katebush.com.

Bush also reports that she is working on new material for a later release.

Oh please, oh please, let there be a tour.

March Releases

Hey Vinyl Fans,

If the rest of 2011 is as strong as the first two months have been, this is going to be an amazing year in music. We've already had some remarkable releases, notably new music from The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, Adele, Low Anthem, and The Dirtbombs. Fantastic stuff.

It looks like the trend will continue in March. I'm looking forward to several big releases.

Lucinda Williams—Lu returns with Blessed on the Lost Highway label on March 1. It's her first album since 2008's Little Honey.

Alexander—Alexander Ebert releases a self-titled solo album on Community Music. He's the lead singer of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. This is also expected to come out March 1.

REM—There's much anticipation surrounding the latest REM album, Collapse Into Now (Warner/WEA). In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Peter Buck called it "the best thing we've ever done." That's a bold statement. This looks to be REM's last record for Warner. It comes out March 8.

The Strokes—Angles has a March 22 street date.

Radiohead—With little notice, the band delivers The King of Limbs on March 29.

Dirty Beaches—I can't wait to check out Dirty Beaches' Badlands. Dirty Beaches is Alex Zhang Hungtai, who makes moody, dark, beautiful, lo-fi music. The vinyl is available for pre-sale at insound. If you want something new and different, check him out. The album also has a March 29 release.

Clem Snide Gets Vinyl Treatment

I somehow missed Clem Snide's Your Favorite Music when it came out in 2000.

Lucky for me and others, the album has been released on vinyl for the first time. It's a gorgeous, melancholy album that gets under your skin with its beautiful melodies and Eef Barzelay's sad voice singing his funny, tender lyrics.

The LP is the second release from the Microfiche Records label, which is working hard to bring some older albums to vinyl.

The Clem Snide album is pressed on either lime green or light blue vinyl. The blue is exclusive to indie record stores.

Here's a vide of the record being pressed:

Radiohead Pre-sale Announced

Surprise! Radiohead has announced the pre-sale of its forthcoming "newspaper album," The King of Limbs.

The package sounds incredible. It includes:

Two clear 10" vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve.
A compact disc.
Many large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold it all together.
The album comes with a digital download that is compatible with all good digital media players.

The King of Limbs will be shipped on Monday 9th May 2011 you can, however, enjoy the download on Feb. 19.
Shipping is included in the prices shown.
One lucky owner of the digital version of The King Of Limbs, purchased from this website, will receive a signed 2 track 12" vinyl.

The cost is about $48.

For more information, visit the band's Web site.

The Duke And The King

I'm diggin' this song by The Duke and The King. The lead vocalist is Simone Felice of The Felice Brothers.

The band's album has yet to be released in the U.S. Fingers crossed it's coming soon.

Big January Releases

Hey Vinyl Fans:

There's a strong lineup of new releases coming in the next few weeks from Pearl Jam, Wanda Jackson, Iron & Wine, and many more.

Here are some highlights:

Pearl Jam—Live On Ten Legs on Monkeywrench features 18 live tracks recorded from 2003 to 2010. It has a Jan. 18 release.

The Decemberists—The Portland, Ore. folk-rockers deliver The King Is Dead (EMI) on Jan. 18. The vinyl package features a 180-gram lp in a gatefold sleeve.

Iron & Wine—Iron & Wine leaps to a major label (Warner) for its latest effort, Kiss Each Other Clean, which has a Jan. 25 release date. Despite the switch from indie labels, I have faith Sam Beam will deliver another stellar album.

Wanda Jackson—Rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson unveils The Party Ain't Over on Jan. 25. The album is produced by Jack White of the White Stripes. If you recall, he got Loretta Lynn back into the studio in 2004, and the result was the Grammy-winning Van Lear Rose, one of Lynn's finest album. He and Jackson hope for similar magic here. Jackson's single, "Shakin' All Over" came out a while ago and is terrific.

Elton John—The Covers Record features Sir Elton singing songs by Nick Drake, John Fogerty, Cat Stevens, and others before he became famous. Should be interesting. This double album is an import on the Lilith label. It is expected to come out Jan. 31, but that seems to be tentative.

And, there's no slowing down in February. A few of the releases we are looking forward to next month are Bright Eyes' The People's Key and The Drive-By Truckers' Go-Go Boots, which both come out on Feb. 11. Adele's sophomore release, 21, is set to come out Feb. 22.

Vinyl Sales Increase in 2010

Hey Vinyl Fans:

There's an interesting report out of Nielsen SoundScan that reveals that although overall album sales took a 13 percent dive last year, vinyl sales rose 14 percent over 2009 figures, with about 2.8 million unit sold. That's the highest vinyl sales have been since 1991.

The top selling new albums on vinyl were the Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, the
Black Keys' Brothers, Vampire Weekend's Contra and the National's High
Violet. The overall best-selling vinyl album in 2010 was the Beatles' Abbey
Road, some 41 years after its original release.

But overall, the music industry's sales trends are troubling. Overall music sales, which includes albums, singles, music videos, and digital tracks, were down 2.4 percent from 2009. Total album sales, which includes CDs, cassettes, vinyl, and digital albums, were down 12.7 percent.