This past winter, the Promise Ring played a pair of reunion gigs, its first since breaking up in 2002. Now, the band has announced the summer release of a retrospective rarities album via Dangerbird … This Record Store Day (April 21), Billy Bragg & Wilco is releasing Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions (Nonesuch) in honor of the centennial year of Woody Guthrie’s birth. The set includes two original albums of Guthrie lyrics and music as performed by Bragg & Wilco, plus a third disc of previously unreleased material and making-of documentary Man In The Sand … American Laundromat Records is issuing a tribute album to 1984 cult film Repo Man on September 18. It features Amanda Palmer, Matthew Sweet, Black Francis, Weekend, Polar Bear Club and many more covering songs off the original soundtrack, originally performed by the likes of Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, Iggy Pop and others … Sleeping In The Aviary’s 2008 sophomore effort, Expensive Vomit In A Cheap Hotel, will be issued on vinyl for the first time on June 5 via Science Of Sound … The Light The Dead See is the new record from Soulsavers, due out May 22 via Mute … Last May, Gordon Lightfoot had his 150th performance at Toronto’s Massey Hall. Now, he’s hand-picked the finest live recordings from the archives of his 40 years’ worth of shows there, which will comprise Massey Hall Moments: All Live. It’s available from Rhino Records on April 17 … Ample Play will issue the new LP from Cornershop, Urban Turban, on May 15 … Shoes have plans to release their first studio album in more than 17 years this spring … The self-titled sophomore release from King Tuff will be out via Sub Pop on May 29. He’ll hit the road this month for a short album-preview tour … Dr. Dee, an 18-track work inspired by the life of John Dee written by Damon Albarn, will be released May 8 by Virgin.
—Emily Costantino
