VIA PRESS RELEASE | George Michael Entertainment has announced in partnership with Mercury Studios, plans for a worldwide theatrical release of a brand-new, never-before-seen film titled George Michael: The Faith Tour, set for release this year.

Shot at the iconic Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy during the European leg of the Faith Tour in 1988, the film captures a turning point that transformed George Michael from a global superstar into a singular, era-defining artist, whose influence continues to reverberate across music, fashion, and culture today. George Michael: The Faith Tour invites audiences to experience the tour as it was meant to be seen and heard.

Directed by longtime collaborators Andy Morahan and David Austin, this once lost film has been meticulously restored and remastered, revealing George’s original vision with breathtaking clarity and power. The result is an intimate yet explosive glimpse of an artist in complete command of his voice and stagecraft.

A triumph in archival filmmaking, the film transforms rare footage assembled from a 14-camera shoot captured on 35mm film over two nights, into an extraordinary cinematic event. George Michael: The Faith Tour is a celebration of ambition and fearless artistry at its peak, and a moment when the then 24-year-old George Michael changed the course of his career. This global theatrical event invites audiences to rediscover the power and joy of George Michael in full flight.

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It would take several volumes of a biography to detail Don Was’s extensive and celebrated career in music.

Highlights include his band Was Not Was, the countless sessions he’s played on, and the high-profile albums he’s produced. If that wasn’t enough, he has been the president of Blue Note Records since 2012. In an industry where lawyers, agents, accountants, and executives who couldn’t even carry a tune in their shower head labels, Was brings a wealth of musical knowledge and experience to a historic label, and his tenure there has been nothing short of successful on every level.

Not content to just run one of the most esteemed record labels in the world, Was has continued to perform, produce, and stay involved in day-to-day music-making. Somehow, amidst all that activity, he has a new album out: the debut album of his new group, Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble Groove in the Face of Adversity, on the Michigan-based Mack Avenue Records, is a heady stew of soul, funk, and jazz with touches of reggae, pop, rock, and R&B. This is no solo album and is truly a group project. Was anchors the affair with his stand-up bass playing, but this large, nine-piece ensemble is an all-star lineup.

The opening track, with subtle dub reggae grooves, features lead vocalist Steffanie Christi’an. “Nubian Lady,” a sprawling soul-funk epic written by jazz keyboardist Kenny Barron that features Dave McMurray, has the kind of spiritual flute feel of vintage Yusef Lateef mixed with the groove of the Brian Jackson, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Midnight Band recordings. “I Ain’t Got Nothing But Mine,” surprisingly a cover of a Hank Williams song, is a powerful jazz workout that, like “Nubian Lady,” was recorded live.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | After breaking through in 1985 with Listen Like Thieves, the Australian group INXS—Michael Hutchence, Andrew Farriss, Tim Farriss, Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, and Garry ‘Gary’ Beers—set out to raise the stakes with the follow-up, Kick. Today unveils the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees’ audiophile-vinyl edition of the band’s global blockbuster Kick, arriving May 1.

Kick (Rhino High Fidelity) was cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal in Germany. It features glossy gatefold packaging with newly written liner notes by music journalist David Fricke. The album is limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively at Rhino.com. Pre-order HERE.

Working with producer Chris Thomas, the band delivered the definitive INXS album, a potent mix of new wave, danceable funk, and Stones-styled rock. In the liner notes, Tim Farriss recalls: “Chris understood the band… He said, ‘My goal is to make you come across on record the way you do live. Which’—and these were his exact words—‘you haven’t done yet.’” Bob Clearmountain was on a hot run—engineering David Bowie’s Let’s Dance (1983); mixing Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. (1984); co-producing the Pretenders’ Get Close (1986)—when INXS asked him to mix Kick. He recalls “sitting there, listening to the rough mixes” for the first time at AIR Studios in London, “Chris played me the whole album, and I was overwhelmed: ‘My God, this is fantastic.’”

Kick sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was certified 6x Platinum in the US and Diamond in Canada. The Atlantic album included no less than four U.S. Top 10 singles: “Need You Tonight” (#1), “Devil Inside” (#2), “New Sensation” (#3), and “Never Tear Us Apart” (#7).

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Sam Snitchy is the newest moniker employed by the Swiss gent once known as Maniporno. Also known as Melker, a handle slapped on the cover of two full-length releases, a recurring characteristic of his current sound is the blending of punk scuzz with electronics of assorted stylistic stripes. 2 Horse Forse, the third release as Sam Snitchy, is a wild ride, hitting stores on March 13 through the Voodoo Rhythm label.

As Maniporno, the man now known as Sam Snitchy, has been described as a street poet. Recordings under that name are pretty scarce. As Mani Porno, there’s one cut, “Fuchs,” included on the compilation Reitschule Beatet Mehr, which was released on CD in 2010 by the Swiss label Endorphin Entertainment.

Notably, that comp also included a track by Reverend Beat-Man, aka Beat Zeller, the musician who is additionally responsible for the increasingly copious discography of Voodoo Rhythm, including his own work. All three Sam Snitchy albums have been released by Voodoo Rhythm, beginning with Got Me Wrong in 2022, continuing with Talking Talking in 2024, and now 2 Horse Force.

But before the association with Voodoo Rhythm, two albums were released under the Melker name, first “2-10” in 2017 and then Roc the following year. These are both solid releases, but as Sam Snitchy, there’s been a deeper commitment to combining punk with strains of technology as the artist has really come into his own.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Legendary post punk band mekons announced today that they will be re-releasing their 2025 album HORROR on June 12 in conjunction with an entire new album of Dub remixes, entitled HORRORble (mekons Vs. Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) by Pere Ubu’s Tony Maimone via Fire Records as a 2xCD, white vinyl and digital configurations and can be ordered here. The first single “Mudcrawlers featuring Benji Webbe (Version)” is out today as well. In support of the new HORROR/HORRORble (mekons Vs. Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) album, mekons will be hitting the road in the United States and elsewhere beginning May 30.

Last year, mekons released their first new album in five years titled HORROR. It was also their first album to be released by Fire Records. The mekons have a long history, and we could talk about these two albums all day. So, here’s succinct, yet poignant view. Formed in Leeds UK long, long ago in the olden days of ye punke the good ship mekon has sailed the seven seas of musical mishaps releasing 40 or 50 albums and countless singles on one fantastic record label after another.

The mekons maintain a collective approach to their art. They are not beholden to the whims and niceties of fashion or even nice sounding tunes—they do what they want to do and mostly have a good time doing it and encourage you to have a good time too. With band members currently spread thinly across the imperial core they are planning to relocate to Greenland in 2027. Back in the day “The personal is political” was their motto and while that still holds true it morphed into “The political is political.” Now along with everyone else it’s: “organize and resist.”

When the mekons went into Elephante Studios in Valencia, Spain in August of ’22 to record what would become HORROR, they didn’t need to bring their crystal balls … mene mene tekel upharsin … the runes were carved—it was obvious which way the wind was blowing but a more apposite title would be hard to find to describe the live-streamed slaughtered gaslit erased criminal senile perverted present moment.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A quarter of a century to the day since its release, rap icon Eve celebrates her era-defining platinum-selling album Scorpion with a special 25th-anniversary edition available on limited-edition red-and-black splatter 2LP, featuring an autographed insert, out now. Order HERE. The news comes ahead of Eve co-hosting the 2026 MOBO Awards in Manchester later this month.

Containing some of the most celebrated hip hop tracks of all time, including “Who’s That Girl” and the Grammy-winning “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” Scorpion raided album charts around the world, going on to be certified Platinum in her native USA and Canada, and Gold in the UK and France. From Eve’s whipsmart lyrics and impeccable flow to its bold artwork and legendary videos, Scorpion marked a hugely impressive statement of skill, intent, and independence.

Her second album cemented Ruff Ryder’s first lady’s place as one of the greats and saw her bring in an impressive raft of featured artists to accompany her across its 16 tracks, including Gwen Stefani, DMX, Damian, and Stephen Marley. 25 years on, it remains as hard-hitting and vital as ever and has been streamed over a billion times.

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Celebrating Tom Scholz on his 79th birthday. —Ed.

The finest band to ever escape Planet Earth on a mammoth guitar-shaped spaceship topped with a snow globe of the Boston skyline, Boston took the solar system by storm with their eponymous 1976 debut, which boasted more hits than Joe DiMaggio. With songwriter, guitarist and MIT-trained musical inventor Tom Scholz at the helm, Boston was the epitome of corporate rock—buffed to a fine sheen, overblown, but catchy as a Red Sox center fielder.

Two long years passed before Boston released Don’t Look Back, amidst legal squabbles with Epic Records and Scholz’s legendary perfectionism. One gets the sense that, had he had his way, Don’t Look Back wouldn’t have seen the light of day until 2078. Anything less than one hundred years, in Tom’s view, and you were listening to a demo. As it was, the follow-up to Don’t Look Back, Third Stage, wouldn’t see the light of day until 1986, and something tells me the LP had to be pried from his fingers as he screamed, “There’s a note on track three I’ve been working on for two years and still can’t get right!”

But Scholz’s perfectionism cost the band plenty. Two years were a long time in an era that saw the advent of punk, and by 1978 many of the band’s fans had moved on to newer, edgier sounds. I loved Boston, but come Don’t Look Back I’d forgotten all about them. They may as well have been a fossil in a natural history museum.

And it’s not as if Scholz’s fussiness paid off in a masterpiece. Sure, the title track is as good, or better, than just about every song on Boston, but it failed to distract listeners from the fact that the songs on Don’t Look Back simply aren’t as good as the ones on the band’s debut. But lately I’ve been wondering—is Don’t Look Back as great a disappointment as I’ve always thought? Or rather a top of the line slab of vinyl with zero chance of surpassing the band’s unsurpassable debut?

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The Primitive Art Group was formed in 1981 and lasted until 1986. The locale: Wellington, New Zealand. In the midst of the burgeoning Flying Nun scene, this collective stood far apart stylistically, taking influence from the titans of avant jazz and specializing in a wild and varied strain of often Euro-tinged free improvisation on their two studio albums along with dishing impressively inspired interpretations of Fire Music classics in a live setting.

The group’s studio records are paired with one bonus live track on the 2LP set 1981–1986. A sweet batch of performance stuff gets compiled on the cassette Live Cuts 1981–1983. Both collections are available now through Amish Records separately and in a Bandcamp bundle. The retrieval and wide dissemination of this material is, simply put, cause for celebration.

To shed light on this situation of immense and unexpected excellence, these reissues aren’t brand-spankin’ new. 1981-1986 came out in late October 2024, and Live Cuts 1981–1983 was released in February of last year. But this is a time where the lurching ugliness of fascism overtakes good news discoveries such as these beautiful bursts of freedom on a regular basis. And so, spreading the word is imperative.

There is also a book, Future Jaw-Clap: The Primitive Art Group and Braille Collective Story, that will provide a fuller historical picture for anyone interested. This writer has yet to read it but is eager, indeed positively salivating, to inhale its contents. The author is Daniel Beban, and it was published by Te Herenga Waka Press in November 2024.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | WaterTower Music is proud to announce the release of The Bride! (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), featuring original music by Academy Award®, Golden Globe®, Emmy®, two-time Grammy® and BAFTA®-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, with additional contributions by Fever Ray and cast members. The soundtrack is available everywhere now via streaming platforms.

Waxwork Records proudly unveils the premiere vinyl release as a deluxe double LP, designed to reflect the film’s striking visual identity and emotional intensity. Housed in heavyweight gatefold packaging, the release is offered in two distinct variants, including an iridescent Molten edition and a Waxwork Records exclusive “Inkblot” pressing, in which deep black vinyl is threaded with smoky white veining to create a one-of-a-kind visual effect unique to each pressing. An exclusive 12″ x 12″ art print completes the package, offering collectors an immersive introduction to the film’s visual and sonic world. The release is available for preorder now at www.waxworkrecords.com.

Composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir, delivers a bold and emotionally charged score that blends orchestral grandeur with raw punk energy, capturing the film’s sweeping romance, dangerous sensuality, and unflinching humanity.

Hildur Guðnadóttir shares: “We wanted the Wedding March for The Bride! to be monstrous and intimate. Punk and classical. Romantic and roaring. All at once. A sonic rollercoaster. It was an absolute dream to record with some of my guitar heroes—to be in a punk band with them. And to have a classical orchestra playing live through thunderous amps and distortion. What a blast! Here comes The Bride!”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ringo Starr has released “It’s Been Too Long,” featuring the lush vocals of Molly Tuttle and Sarah Jarosz. This is the first single from his forthcoming album Long Long Road, co-written and produced by T Bone Burnett, the 10-song album also includes collaborations with Billy Strings, Sheryl Crow, and St Vincent and is the highly anticipated follow-up to last year’s chart topping Look Up. Pre-Order HERE.

“I’m blessed to have T Bone in my life right now and working with me on these records,” Ringo stated. “After we did the last record, which I love listening to, this one just sort of happened. I like to say sometimes I make the right moves, like you can go left or right at any point, and one of the right moves was hooking up with T Bone for Look Up, and now for this one, which I’m calling Long Long Road, because I’ve been on a long long road.”

As the title implies, and like Ringo’s own journey, Long Long Road has solid roots in Country and Americana, and evolved into something broader, creating an aural mosaic of Starr’s musical legacy and influences, including Carl Perkins. “I recorded two Carl Perkins songs with The Beatles, and both T Bone and I wanted one on this record,” Ringo explained, “and he found this beautiful track I’d never heard before, ‘I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore’.”

Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, this record sees the return of many of the Look Up musicians including the core band (that T Bone affectionately dubs The Texans after the 1959 band Ringo played with in Liverpool) featuring Paul Franklin, David Mansfield, Dennis Crouch, Daniel Tashian, Rory Hoffman, Patrick Warren, and Colin Linden.

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Remembering Ornette Coleman, born on this date in 1930. —Ed.

Ornette Coleman is most often associated with his numerous quartets, but his Blue Note debut found him exploring the possibilities of the trio configuration. At the Golden Circle Stockholm Volume One is the first half of that journey into addition by subtraction; it not only inaugurates the highpoint of Coleman’s Blue Note run, it also stands amongst the very greatest work the trailblazing saxophonist has recorded.

The end of the 1980s was swiftly approaching, and the jury was still out on the music of Ornette Coleman. The temporary reign of compact discs was well underway, and it gradually became easier to actually hear (instead of just read about) the sounds that so divided jazz at the dawn of its most tumultuous decade. However, for my first two Coleman purchases I had to settle for cassettes. Until the CD reissues of Ornette’s Atlantic efforts began showing up in the racks (or more appropriately put, started getting listed in catalogs as being available for purchase), hearing the man’s groundbreaking early material was a struggle. Even the ‘70s fusion work with Prime Time and his ‘80s albums were difficult to locate.

What’s more, none of the meager number of older jazz heads I’d become acquainted with at that point appreciated him; when the subject arose a few were downright dismissive. And dialing the handful of jazz radio programs that my stereo tuner managed to pick up in the wee hours of the AM proved just as futile.

I’ll never forget the short but pleasant conversation I had with one of those DJs, the voice of the gent on the other end of the line informing me that he loved Coleman but had sworn off playing him due to the swarm of angry calls he’d receive in response. So deep was the animosity over a divergence from and perceived threat to the post-bop standard that nearly 30 years later merely offering it on the radio brought an influx of opprobrium via the telephone.

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There is a particular kind of courage in a man who once set dancefloors ablaze, deciding at 60 years old, to sit down at a piano and simply stop moving. Moby has never been easy to categorize—rave architect, punk misfit, vegan provocateur, accidental pop deity—and that stubbornness to defy expectation is precisely why he remains essential. Twenty-three albums in, with Play still echoing across every coffee shop and car commercial that came after it, he has earned every right to follow the silence.

Future Quiet, released February 20 via BMG, is not a surrender. It’s a deliberate act of subtraction—and in 2026, with the world screaming at full volume, that restraint is its own kind is truly radical.

Strip out the beats, the samples, the euphoric drops. What you get here is Moby alone at the keys, augmented by strings, the occasional ambient synth wash, and a handful of guest vocalists deployed like brushstrokes rather than centerpieces. The production is hushed and deliberate throughout—pianist first, composer second, electronic artist a distant third. This isn’t ambient wallpaper. It breathes differently.

“When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die,” reworked from his 1995 Everything Is Wrong and freshly unearthed by Stranger Things—opens with Jacob Lusk (of Gabriels) delivering the kind of vocal that physically relocates you. Lush orchestral strings pool beneath him like rising floodwater, and I had goosebumps before the first minute passed.

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