Weekly News Round-Up: The Maccabees, Slaves and more

Missed any of the week’s top news stories? Live4ever has it covered with our Weekly News Round-Up, looking back at ten of the biggest headlines we featured during the last seven days in British music.

The Maccabees live in London, January 2016. (Photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)

The Maccabees have announced their decision to split after 14 years together.

“After 14 years as a band we have decided to call it a day,” a statement reads. “The decision has obviously been an incredibly difficult one, given that The Maccabees has been such a huge part of our lives until now. We are very proud to be able to go out on our own terms, at our creative peak and off the back of the best and biggest shows we have ever done.”

The chance to revisit the evolution of The Rolling Stones – from their first love affair with the Blues under the tutelage of Brian Jones to the burgeoning influence of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards‘ songwriting partnership, and the start of a legendary run of classic albums with ‘Beggars Banquet‘ and ‘Let It Bleed‘ – will be up for grabs next month.

All this and more is packed up into a 15CD box-set entitled ‘The Rolling Stones In Mono’, restored in mono for the first time at Abbey Road, starting with the 1964 self-titled debut and ending with the aforementioned 1969 triumph ‘Let It Bleed’.

Not content with one of the year’s standout records in the shape of ‘Curve Of The Earth‘, Mystery Jets have added more to their 2016 canon with the brand new EP ‘The Whole Earth‘.

Led by the similarly themed single ‘The World Is Overtaking Me‘, the EP was recorded at their own studio located in a disused button factory in east London, while Blaine Harrison also undertook some of his own sessions in a cabin on the Thames Estuary.

The Flaming Lips are briefly returning to the UK in January 2017.

The band have arranged gigs at the Brixton Academy in London on January 21st next year and the Manchester Academy the very next night as the wait continues for their next album, which has reportedly been in production this year.

Super Furry Animals will enter a period of reflection later this year through a UK tour, a reissue and a new Best Of collection.

Performing their first two studio albums ‘Fuzzy Logic‘ and ‘Radiator‘ during UK and Ireland live dates in November and December, the band are also lining up the 1996 debut for a remastered re-release on November 4th with an extra disc packed with bonuses.

Laurie Vincent performing with Slaves in London, Jan 2016 (Photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)

Slaves‘ second album ‘Take Control‘ is out on September 30th.

Laurie Vincent and Isaac Holman confirmed the news on social media and will be looking to continue a run of good form which carried the duo on to the BBC’s Sound Of… shortlist at the start of 2015 and landed them a Mercury Prize nomination for the debut album ‘Are You Satisfied?‘.

The Verve have used contemporary in-studio footage to create a video for the previously unreleased track ‘South Pacific‘, which is a part of the reissue version of their debut album ‘A Storm In Heaven‘.

This and ‘Shoeshine Girl‘ have been added to the 1993 LP which is out on September 9th as a 4-disc super deluxe edition, remastered by Chris Potter with lots more added goodies and an accompanying DVD featuring a 1992 Camden Town Hall concert, the US video for ‘Blue’ and previously unseen footage from New York in October 1992.

The Courteeners have completed their ‘best’ and ‘sexiest’ set of songs yet and will release a new album on October 21st.

“Last year was unreal, the biggest and best we’ve ever had,” frontman Liam Fray remarks. “Now we’re back again to show that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved and that lost causes are the ones most worth sticking with.”

TOY are back with a new album and arsenal of books as their main inspiration.

“One of the books we all swapped around was Electric Eden by Rob Young,” bass player Maxim Barron explains. “The sound of folk music and how it progressed in a modernising world interested us and the idea that people were looking back to forms of music that were in danger of being forgotten, looking back at a golden age.”

Johnny Marr‘s going to be ‘In Conversation’ later this year around the release of his autobiography Set The Boy Free on November 3rd.

He’ll be at Manchester’s Royal Northern College Of Music on November 7th and at London’s Barbican Milton Court on November 10th discussing his hugely varied, influential career which began as a prestigious local guitar talent in Manchester, got serious upon a knock on Morrissey‘s front door and has now taken in stints with acts like Modest Mouse, The Cribs and a growing solo career.

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