Long-time Cult collaborator and producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Bush) – who produced one of The Cult’s most successful albums, the platinum album Sonic Temple, put the finishing touches on the album after much of the initial work being done by co-producer Chris Goss (Queens of the Stone Age, U.N.K.L.E., Masters of Reality).

The new release features founding members Ian Astbury on vocals and Billy Duffy on guitars, with drummer John Tempesta and bassist Chris Wyse. “We have had the opportunity to work with two of the most influential and talented producers in the world today,” said Astbury. “They pushed us beyond our comfort zone, and helped us craft Choice of Weapon.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview Ian Astbury spoke of some of the thoughts behind the record and typically he is looking at the big picture. “I think what needs to be said is that we have to start looking inward. Our spiritual lives are almost bankrupt. The material systems are not going to fix where we are. Moving the furniture around, metaphorically moving the furniture around – getting a new president, or putting a new, fresh coat of paint on something – isn’t necessarily going to change the root causes. We’re human beings, we’re organic, we’re dependent upon the environment, we’re dependent upon this living planet. It’s a fact. And it’s a fact that we cannot fight. But all our fighting is more about semantics, political systems, languages, structures, charts, graphs. It’s almost like we want to be right, but we don’t want to win.”

A new Apple album was rumoured all through last year, but until now there had been no word from the label on an actual release. Apple confirmed that Epic had put her fourth record on hold at a concert in Los Angeles in November, explaining to fans that “I can’t remember [how to play] any of my new songs because they’ve been done for a fucking year.”

This is not the first time an Apple album has met with delays. The songwriter began work on Extraordinary Machine in 2003, but after label holdups, leaks and re-recordings, the disc was finally released in 2005 following a “Free Fiona” campaign led by her most hardcore fans.

Apple’s full catalogue consists of her stunning debut Tidal, When The Pawn and the remarkable Extraordinary Machine. We can only hope the new album maintains her strike rate.

The Smithereens

The latest album, “2011″ reunited the Smithereens with producer Don Dixon (R.E.M.) who helmed the group’s first two albums, the power-pop masterpiece Especially For You and Green Thoughts. USA TODAY’s Brian Mansfield wrote, “From start to finish, ’2011′ is classic Smithereens: Marshall-amped post-mod power-pop.”  Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel on Sirius XM dubbed the single “Sorry” “as the coolest song on the planet.”  FRESH AIR & NPR commentator Ken Tucker, said, “’2011′ is hypnotic…everything in Smithereens world is like a film noir shot in psychedelic colors.  A great Rock ‘n’ Roll band!”  And the Chicago Sun Times declared, “The Smithereens haven’t aged a day.”

The Smithereens first performed in March 1980 in Hillside, N.J. Over the next five years, the group played both in the States and overseas, and released the EPs: GIRLS ABOUT TOWN (1980) and BEAUTY AND SADNESS (1983), and did a stint as Otis Blackwell’s backup band.  Pat sent a cassette of the band’s material to Enigma Records, which was distributed by Capitol/EMI. The executive, who signed them, was a fan of the band’s when he was in college radio. The Smithereens finally had a record deal.  Especially For You was released in July 1986.  Green Thoughts, 11 followed, all netting top 40 hits.  It’s said that Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain listened to the Smithereens as he wrote ‘Nevermind.”

In all, the group’s releasd nine albums, with titles that include GOD SAVE THE SMITHEREENS, ATTACK OF THE SMITHEREENS (RARITIES), A DATE WITH THE SMITHEREENS. The Smithereens have two gold albums, have sold 6 million albums worldwide. They have appeared on every major television show including SNL, Tonight Show, Arsenio Hall, and live on National Public Radio.  Such memorable Smithereens songs as “Girl Like You,” “Blood & Roses,” and “Only A Memory” have become FM staples.

Chosen by NPR Music critics, staff and public radio DJs, the selections for the “50 Favorite Albums of 2011″ feature artists as diverse as pop singer Adele, the Mexican garage-punk band Davila 666, country musician Eric Chruch, opera tenor Joseph Calleja, rap group Shabazz Palaces and indie-rock singer St. Vincent. The list represents the artists and albums the NPR Music team enjoyed the most in 2011 – the ones that inspired, surprised and stayed with them more than any others.

NPR Music celebrates great music in every genre, and is an industry leader in music discovery. The Emmy Award-winning website at www.npr.org/music offers new features daily and an extensive archive, in collaboration with NPR’s news magazines, 12 public radio member stations and the passionate NPR community. NPR Music creates and distributes inventive music coverage across multiple platforms – from web, to radio, to podcast, to mobile, to social media, to live events – with first listens to new albums, live performances, concerts at the Tiny Desk, interviews, reviews and blogs.

NPR Music’s “50 Favorite Albums of 2011″

Adele: 21

Alexandre Tharaud Scarlatti: Sonatas

Antlers: Burst Apart

Ashton Shepherd: Where Country Grows

Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal: Chamber Music

Beirut: The Rip Tide

Beyonce: 4

Bombino: Agadez

Bon Iver: Bon Iver

Book Of Mormon: Original Cast Recording

Bright Eyes: The People’s Key

Brooklyn Rider: Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass

Captain Black Big Band: Captain Black Big Band

Civil Wars: Barton Hallow

Colin Stetson: New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges

Cormorant: Dwellings

Crash Ensemble: Gra Agus Bas

Davila 666: Tan Bajo

Demdike Stare: Tryptych

Ebene Quartet: Fiction

Eric Church: Chief

Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, ULTRA

F—- Up: David Comes To Life

Girl In A Coma: Exits And All The Rest

Glenn Jones: The Wanting

Gretchen Parlato: The Lost And Found

James Blake: James Blake

Jay-Z & Kanye West: Watch The Throne

Joseph Calleja: The Maltese Tenor

Julianna Barwick: The Magic Place

June Tabor: Ashore

Kendrick Lamar: Section.80

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins: Diamond Mine

La Vida Boheme: Nuestra

London Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Vladimir Jurowski): Mahler: Symphony No. 2 – Resurrection

Los Rakas: Chancletas Y Camisetas Bordada

Miguel Zenon: Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook

PJ Harvey: Let England Shake

Radiohead: The King Of Limbs

Roots: undun

Shabazz Palaces: Black Up

Sonny Rollins Road: Shows Vol. 2

St. Vincent: Strange Mercy

STS: The Illustrious

Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972

Tom Waits: Bad As Me

Tommy Guerrero: Lifeboats & Follies

tUnE-yArDs: w h o k i l l

Wilco: The Whole Love

Wye Oak: Civilian

The ten-track album can be preordered from Cohen’s website, where a stream of first single Show Me The Place, can be found. The album will cap a remarkable re-birth for Cohen who started touring a few years ago, reportedly due to financial necessity, and discovered a huge worldwide audience awaiting his return. The shows have been uniformly outstanding, including two Australian tours. Believe it or not it’s been 44 years since the release of Cohen’s debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen, released in December 1967.

Cohen has been progressing this album for several years, but first publicly described the album earlier this year when accepting an award in Spain.

“As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these…Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

Cohen has worked with Patrick Leonard, one of Los Angeles most respected producers. Leonard also worked with Cohen’s son Adam on his recently released album Like A Man Cohen is joined on his album by some great singers including Sharon Robinson, Jennifer Warnes, Dana Glover and The Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb, who feature in his touring band). The album will feature cover art and drawings by Cohen himself.

The double album, which is split over two CDs and also available as a digital download is made up of thirty-two Cure classics, including “The Lovecats”, “The Caterpillar”, “Close To Me”, “Friday I’m In Love”, “Lullaby”, “The Hungry Ghost”, “The End Of The World”, “Just Like Heaven”, “Grinding Halt”, “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” and “Boys Don’t Cry”.

Robert Smith of The Cure says; “We had such a great time in the Isle of Wight at Bestival that we wanted to release this show as a way of thanking fans and islanders alike. Bestival is the best!”

Rob da Bank, founder of Bestival says; “Since I was 15 and backcombing my hair, donning my sisters eyeliner and singing the lyrics to ‘A Forest’ into my hairbrush I’ve had an unhealthy fascination with The Cure. To say it reached its peak at Bestival 2011 is an understatement, as after seven years of pestering I not only landed The Cure to headline Bestival, but now appear to be putting out one of their live records on my own record label. How strange! For any of the 50,000 who were at Bestival and saw all or some of the two and a half hour set, this live album will transport you back. For fans of The Cure who didn’t make it I know this will be a legendary addition to your Cure collection!”

All profits from the sale of this album will go to the Isle of Wight Youth Trust. The Isle of Wight Youth Trust is a charitable, independent and professional organisation offering counseling, advice, information and support services to young people aged 25 and under on the Isle of Wight (the home of Bestival) and, in some cases, their parents or carers. The Youth Trust has been working on the Isle of Wight for 27 years and has made a positive input to the wellbeing of people locally.

THE CURE: BESTIVAL LIVE 2011 TRACKLISTING

CD1:

01. Plainsong

02. Open

03. Fascination Street

04. A Night Like This

05. The End Of The World

06. Lovesong

07. Just Like Heaven

08. The Only One

09. The Walk

10. Push

11. Friday I’m In Love

12. Inbetween Days

13. Play For Today

14. A Forest

15. Primary

16. Shake Dog Shake

CD2:

01. The Hungry Ghost

02. One Hundred Years

03. End

04. Disintegration

Encore1:

05. Lullaby

06. The Lovecats

07. The Caterpillar

08. Close To Me

09. Hot Hot Hot!!!

10. Let’s Go To Bed

11. Why Can’t I Be You?

Encore 2:

12. Boys Don’t Cry

13. Jumping Someone Else’s Train

14. Grinding Halt

15. 10:15 Saturday Night

16. Killing Another

A veteran of the Texas blues scene for over 40 years, Bramhall first came to prominence as the drummer for The Chessmen, a band fronted by blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan in Dallas in the 1960s. In the ’70s, he relocated to Austin along with Jimmie and younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan and helped put the city on the map musically.

Stevie Ray Vaughan played in Bramhall’s band The Nightcrawlers in the ‘70s before he became a prominent guitarist in his own right. As Bramhall was not only a talented drummer but also a singer and songwriter, Bramhall influenced Stevie Ray’s vocal style and wrote several songs the guitarist later made famous, most notably “The House Is Rockin’.” He was also one of the first blues musicians in Austin to successfully kick his alcohol and drug habits and helped many other artists, including Stevie Ray, to do the same.

Bramhall had also maintained a modest solo career of his own since the ‘90s, with his most recent album, 2007’s Is It News, being his first album to comprise entirely original material.

He is survived by wife Barbara Logan and daughter Georgia Bramhall as well as son Doyle Bramhall II, who is an accomplished guitarist and has toured with high-profile stars like Eric Clapton and Roger Waters.

“If you listen to Stevie singing, you can hear a lot of Doyle in there,” said friend and fellow musician Mike Buck in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman.

It features the all-star King Charles Trio (John Moen, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee and Nate Query), all members of The Decemberists, Peter Buck of R.E.M. and McCaughey.

Rosanne Cash, Laura Veirs and John Roderick (The Long Winters) also lend their vocal talents to the record.

John Wesley Harding is an inveterate and ingenious multitasker, combining twin careers as an acerbic and articulate “gangsta folk” (his term) singer-songwriter and an acclaimed novelist. On his CDs, he juggles musical styles that include sharp, witty originals, traditional folk songs, even his own convincing imitations of old ballads. Acoustic, electric, a cappella, solo or with full band, the man known as “Wes” has covered a lot of territory with no signs of slowing.

He started out as Wesley Stace (and remains so for his writing duties), born in Hastings, England, in 1965 to a mother who taught singing and a father who was a classics scholar. Then there was pop music – the Beach Boys, David Bowie – for him to listen to. And then there was Bob Dylan, whose songs changed 14-year-old Wes’s life (and future performing name).

After completing his degree in English Literature at Cambridge University, Wes yielded to the call of songwriting and performance, crafting his own music and pomposity-puncturing stage presence. A subsequent move to London thrust him before larger audiences as the opening act for such diverse artists as John Hiatt, Hothouse Flowers and Ted Hawkins.

Signed by the UK’s Demon Records, ironically the home of Elvis Costello, to whom Harding was initially compared, Wes and his manager made the strategic “mistake” of his recording his first album, It Happened One Night, at a live show: “I’d done a total of about thirty gigs before I recorded my debut album; the songs were live, so no one wanted to play them on the radio; I was writing a lot at the time, so I was bored of these songs by the time it came to record Here Comes the Groom (his first US release and second CD overall, described in the L.A. Times as “the first great rock album on the ’90s”).

It Happened One Night did serve to establish Harding as a worthy link in the chain of personally aware, politically conscious, and painfully observant modern songwriters that connects Dylan, Springsteen, Costello, Bragg and a shortlist of others. Critics were quick to notice: “His eloquence can be gut-wrenching. [The album] captures something you won’t find . . . almost anywhere else: the sheer joy of performing” (Creem)

Capitol Records have collected and compiled the sessions from 1966 and ’67  when The Beach Boys went in to record the follow-up to their masterful Pet Sounds album in 1966. The master-tapes were shelved and SMiLE went down in history as the most mythical unreleased pop album ever.

After 44 years as a secret passed between fans, three of the band’s surviving members have collaborated on “an approximation of what was intended to be the completed” album, according to a press release. And if you spend enough, it comes with a surfboard.

The Smile Sessions will be released by Capitol/EMI on 31 October, available digitally and in a variety of physical manifestations – dual CD, double vinyl, or in box sets including 7in singles, shadow-boxes, signed lithographs and even a custom-made Hobie longboard. Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love have worked with engineers to polish off the Beach Boys’ original session masters, which were aborted when the group began work on 1967′s Smiley Smile.

Besides Smile itself, the Beach Boys are issuing four albums of bonus material, including demos, alternate mixes and studio chatter. There is also a 60-page hardbound book, including essays by Wilson, Love, Jardine and Bruce Johnston, who joined the Beach Boys in the lead-up to Smile.

The assembled SMiLE album features 19 tracks, with another eight bonus tracks. And the second disc features thirteen cuts of alternate takes, highlights, demos and unheard parts.

The five-disc set has a mammoth 139 tracks.

It’s a landmark of pop history, and the various editions will be released on October 28.

Ryan Adams is a multiple-Grammy-nominated singer songwriter from Jacksonville, NC whose critically acclaimed albums both as a solo artist and with the Cardinals have included ‘Heartbreaker’ (2000), ‘Gold’ (2001), ‘Love Is Hell’ (2004), ‘Cold Roses’ (2005) and ‘Easy Tiger’ (2007).

He is also an accomplished author, with two books - Infinity Blues and Hello Sunshine – released by independent publisher Akashic.

Ashes and Fire was recorded in LA at Sunset Sound Factory in Hollywood and produced by Glyn Johns, renowned for his work with the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Who and The Rolling Stones, and whose son Ethan produced previous Ryan Adams albums ‘Heartbreaker,’ ‘Gold’ and ’29.’

‘Ashes & Fire’ also features Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers‘ organist Benmont Tench as well as Norah Jones who sings backing vocals on several tracks.

From the country-rock tinged opener of ‘Dirty Rain,‘ to the piano-led lament of ‘I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say’ and the acoustic harmony of ‘Lucky Now,’ ‘Ashes & Fire’ is said to be the most cohesive album of Ryan’s distinguished career.

The full tracklisting for ‘Ashes & Fire’ is:

Dirty Rain

Ashes & Fire

Come Home

Rocks

Do I Wait

Chains Of Love

Invisible Riverside

Save Me

Kindness

Lucky Now

I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say