Emeli Sandé - Live at the Royal Albert Hall (U.S.) Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action The Beach Boys - Made In California (50th Anniv. Box) The Rides (Stephen Stills/Kenny Wayne Shepherd/Barry Goldberg - Can't Get Enough
Eclectic singer and songwriter Julia Holter will release Love City Song, her third full-length album, on August 20 via Domino Records. Holter released her debut album Tragedy in 2011 and followed up with Ekstasis last year. The new project is described as "her first studio album proper." Watch the first video "World" and check out the full album tracklisting below.
Pioneering British punk band The Clash have announced the September 16 (U.K.) release of Sound System, an expansive boombox-shaped box set that gathers up remastered versions of their first five studio albums as well as three full discs of singles, rarities and B-sides and a DVD of previously unseen performances (plus "newly commissioned Clash fanzines, exclusive poster, dog tags, stickers, badges and more"). See pic below.
"The concept of the whole thing is: best box set ever," Clash guitarist Mick Jones – who oversaw the remastering – tells the Guardian. "Remastering's a really amazing thing. That was the musical point of it all, because there's so much there that you wouldn't have heard before. It was like discovering stuff, because the advances in mastering are so immense since the last time [the Clash catalogue] was remastered in the 90s."
The Beatles' 1965 full-length movie Help becomes the latest film from the Fab Four to get go high def with the June 25 release of Help! on Blu-ray. The Richard Lester-directed musical spy spoof follows up last year's Blu-ray releases Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour and word is that the band's final film Let It Be will also see a Blu-ray release by the end of the year. No word yet on any bonus material. The film was digitally restored and released on DVD with added features in 2007.
The movie featured seven Beatles songs including the title track, "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "The Night Before", "Another Girl", "Ticket to Ride", "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" and the George Harrison-composed "I Need You".
British alt-rock band Editors have announced the July 1 (UK) release of their fourth album The Weight of Your Love. The new proect follows their two previous albums -- both #1 sellers in the U.K. - 2007's An End Has A Start and 2009's In This Light And On This Evening. Lead single "A Ton of Love" is set to drop June 25 (watch video below).
True to the title of the new song (and album), frontman Tom Smith describes the new project as filled with "ยlove songs...that don'ยt adhere to the traditional love song typeย." Smith also described The Weight of Your Loveas "having a foot in that alt rock/Americana world" and "feeling untouchable at times."
San Francisco-based singer and songwriter Matt Nathanson will release his new album Last of the Great Pretenders on July 16. The new album -- see artwork below -- is the successor to his 2011 release Modern Love. Nathanson broke through with his 2007 release Some Mad Hope, a project that spawned the radio hit "Come On Get Higher" and went on to sell more than 300,000 copies.
Nathanson on the cover art for Last of the Great Pretenders: "The photograph has been a favorite of mine for years. It was done by an incredible artist called Mr. Toledano. I was over the moon when he gave us the go ahead to use it."
Ryan Adam's eagerly anticipated follow up to his 2011 "comeback" album Ashes and Fire will be released October 15 via Capitol, according to a posted release schedule from the label. The new album -- as yet untitled -- is again produced by legendary studio man Glyn Johns (Who, Clash, Stones) who also handled Adam's Ashes and Fire. Producer/guitarist Ethan Johns, who worked with Adams on his Heartbreaker and Gold,albums is a member of Adams' post-Cardinals studio and stage band joining Tom Petty sideman Benmont Tench on keyboards, Don Was on bass, Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar, Jeremy Stacey on drums.
The new album is said to continue Ashes and Fire's lush and mellow folk/rock tone withBillboardhinting that the new songs have "more orchestral flourishes." New tracks are said to include "When I Meet You In My Mind" and "In the Shadows", two new songs Adams and band premiered at a London charity concert this past March.
Portland, OR, singer/songwriter Alela Diane will release her new album About Farewell on June 25 via her own Rusted Blue Records label. The new project is Diane's first new recordings since her 2011 album Alela Diane & Wild Divine. See the track listing and stream new song "The Way We Fall" below.
Michael Franti his eighth studio album, All People on July 30 via Capitol Records. The new project is Franti's first new music since his 2010 release The Sound of Sunshine, an album that was the highest Billboard debut of his career. Franti broke through to mainstream success with his album All Rebel Rockers and the double platinum-selling hit single "Say Hey (I Love You)." The lead single from All People, "I'm Alive (Life Sounds Like)," was released April 30.
“I’m excited that ‘I’m Alive’ is finally hitting the streets and the ear drums of our fans,” Franti says. “The song is about being your own weird self with the person you love the most and being grateful for every last precious drop of life. It has rocked at our shows and it feels like we recorded a version that puts you right there in the first ten rows.”
The Grammy-winning duo of Joy Williams and John Paul White -- aka Nashville-based duo The Civil Wars -- have announced that their long-awaited new album is being wrapped up now for a projected late summer release via new label home Columbia. The new self-titled project, their first since the indie-released Barton Hollow, follows months of speculation over the future of The Civil Wars after the announcement that the band had canceled a European tour due to “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition.” The cover of the new album is a black and white photo depicting billows of smoke. See below...
Scottish band Travis will release their first album in five years -- Where You Stand -- on August 19 with the new project's title track dropping August 30. New track "Another Guy" is streaming below (and available as a free download at the band's site). This is the band's seventh album since releasing their successful 1994 debut album "Good Feeling" and breakout hit "All I Want toDo Is Rock." Travis went on hiatus following the release of their album Ode to J. Smith and frontman and chief songwriter Fran Healy released a solo album Wreckorder in 2010.
Where You Stand was produced by Michael Ilbert The Hives/The Cardigans) and recorded Hansa Studios in Berlin best known for recording site of the David Bowie albums Low and Heroes and U2's Achtung Baby.
Steve Earle has announced the release of a new box set that focuses on three albums recorded in the mid-'90s for Warner Brothers. These three reissues, along with Live at the Polk Theater, a Nashville concert recording from 1995, and a live DVD To Hell and Back taped in 1996 make up Steve Earle: The Warner Brothers Years due June 25 via Shout Factory. The three studio albums -- Train A Comin’, I Feel Alright, and El Corazon -- began a new period in Earle's long career and followed up a period of jail time served for drugs and weapons possession. The starkand acoustic Train A Comin' was nominated for a Grammy award. Emmylou Harris and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe guest on the Live at the Polk Theater recordings.
Brothers and Sisters, the classic bestselling 1973 album from The Allman Brothers Band will be rereleased in an expanded 40th anniversary edition as well as a deluxe 4-CD box set on June 25 via Mercury/Universal. The specific bonus tracks have not been announced but we do know that the box set will include 2 CD's of a September 1973 concert recorded at The Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. (See the live tracklisting below).
Blue-eyed soul singer and songwriter Eli "Paperboy" Reed will release his third studio -- as yet untitled -- later this year via a new a label signing with Warner Brothers. A limited edition of Reed's new song "WooHoo" will be released for Record Store Day, Saturday, April 20. Reed produced the new album with his guitarist Ryan Spraker and, according to a press release, "represents a sonic evolution beyond the singer's soulful roots, taking his affinity for classic Chicago R&B and blending it with the ebullience of modern pop music."
Ben Folds Five will release their first-ever live album Ben Folds Five Live on June 4 via ImaVeePee Records/Sony Music. The fifteen-track in-concert collection chronicles the 2012-2013 international tour of the trio's first tour in a decade and was launched in support of their latest studio album The Sound of the Life of Your Mind released September, 2012. Ben Folds Five -- (Ben Folds - piano, DarrenJessee - drums, Robert Sledge - bass) -- will join Barenaked Ladies and Guster on the "Last Summer on Earth 2013" tour beginning June 17 and running through the end of July.
Piano-pop songstress Sara Bareilles will release her fourth studio album The Blessed Unrest in July (exact date TBA). The new LP is her first new full-length since 2010's Kaleidoscope Heart and the follow up to her 2012 EP Once Upon Another Time. Lead single "Brave" will be available for digital purchase on April 23 (stream below). The singer will embark on a month-long solo concert tour beginning April 25 in Washington, DC and conclude on May 23 in New York.
"2012 was a year of deconstruction for me personally", Bareilles writes, "I have been through a series of profound life changes that have been heartbreaking, terrifying and breathtaking all at once..."
Of the new album's title: "I went through about 5 dozen names for my record and after all my searching, I came back to where I started. Poetic, isn't it? These latest songs are born out of a rumbling in my soul that has moved me in more ways than I can mention, and I am humbled that I get to put them out there in the universe for you all to hear. I feel open and excited to keep moving, and even though I can't see the turns in the road, I trust I will know what to do when I get there. This motion, this unsettled feeling that keeps me racing forward is a gift that I am grateful for every day."
Sara Bareilles - 'Brave' (from The Blessed Unrest)
"It's going to come out August 27th," Graham Nash tells Rolling Stone. "It's going to fuckin' stun people. We only multi-tracked eight or nine shows from the tour, and we've chosen the best from those gigs. We've had to do a little tuning, but not that much . . . But the spirit of the band! If I take myself out the band and look at it, it was a fuckin' great band."
Acclaimed Americana singer-songwriter Darden Smith will release his new album Love Calling on August 27 via new label Compass Records. The new album was co-produced by Gary Paczosa and John Randall Stewart and, according to the label, represents the culmination of his work as an artist and global philanthropist. Check out upcoming tour dates with Kim Richey and stream the album's fine opening track "Angel Flight" below.
Singer-songwriter KT Tunstall will release her fourth studio album Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon on August 6 in the U.S. on Blue Note Records and onJune 10 in the U.K. on Virgin Records.
IECM represents both a return to the delicate simplicity of the multi-platinum artist’s early work and an evolution of her sound. IECM’s country-folk tinged undercurrents grew out of KT’s decision to travel to Tucson, Arizona to record with producer and alt-country leading light Howe Gelb (aka Giant Sand). KT describes the album as “full of songs from the heart,” adding “I followed my path of truth and ended up in a different place.”
Wings Over America, the full-length 1976 live album from Paul McCartney and Wings, will be reissued in an expanded box set format on May 28 while the band's 1980 Rockshow concert video will finally be released on DVD on June 11.
From the Press Release: Wings Over America, the historic live album, which documented the band’s triumphant 1976 tour across North America, will be reissued in a range of formats. Fans and hardcore devotees alike will be especially thrilled with the stunning four-book, four-disc (3CD, 1DVD) Deluxe Edition Box Set. The box set’s superior audio and video include the two-disc Wings Over America album remastered at Abbey Road, a bonus audio disc recorded live at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, a bonus DVD containing the rarely seen 75-minute television special “Wings over the World’’ and the photo gallery montage entitled “Photographer’s Pass.”
From the Press Release: Said The Whale announces the first new music from the Vancouver-based quintet since last year’s critically-acclaimed full-length, Little Mountain. Today, the 2011 JUNO Award winners for New Group Of The Year reveal a little taste from their soon-to-be-instant-classic new track "I Love You" (teaser video below). The new track, a chugging, 70’s flavored, harmony rich, pop-rock tune is the title track from their new EP, produced by Tom Dobrzanski (The Zolas, We Are The City) and mixed by Gus Van Go and Werner F (The Stills, Rah Rah) which will be available to fans on June 18.