British ska-pop Madness recently announced they’ll release their 10th studio album — the cheekily titled ‘Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da’ — late next month, and, as Marco on the Bass points out, there’s now a seven-minute, full-album sampler on YouTube to whet fans’ appetites.

Kitchens of Distinction co-founders Patrick Fitzgerald and Julian Swales have reunited for the first time since the British dream-pop act folded in 1996, writing 10 new songs together — ‘whittled down from a lot more ideas that never fully flowered’ — that Fitzgerald says are ‘reminiscent of Kitchens but also something new.’

For months, former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck has been silent about his upcoming solo debut, but he’s finally opening up about the project, confirming it’s planned as a vinyl-only release and that he’ll sing eight of the album’s 12 tracks, with longtime sideman Scott McCaughey and Corin Tucker picking up the rest.

Alt-country rocker Ryan Adams took to Twitter tonight to announce he’s producing — and playing drums on — a new album by The Lemonheads, with not only Juliana Hatfield returning to play bass, but with Evan Dando being joined by the band’s co-founder and original co-songwriter, Ben Deily of Varsity Drag, who left in 1989.

Bernard Sumner previously has hinted that New Order — which reunited last year without bassist Peter Hook — may write new music, but now he’s talking about it in detail for the first time, telling interviewers that the band will meet early next year to begin writing new material with an eye on making an ‘electronic synth album.’

Soundgarden tonight revealed the cover art and an 85-second teaser video for its forthcoming record ‘King Animal,’ the reunited group’s first new studio album in 16 years. The album arrives Nov. 13, and will be Soundgarden’s first since ‘Down on the Upside’ in 1996.

Their box set may be on hold, but Australian rockers Midnight Oil do have a new release up their sleeves: In November, the band will issue a new 2CD, 36-track best-of titled ‘Essential Oils,’ a truly career-spanning overview of the band’s catalog, sampling cuts from 1978’s self-titled debut through 2002 swan song ‘Capricornia.’

Sonic Youth today announced that it finally will release a long-in-the-works archival, 14-track live album that was recorded on 4-track cassette on Aug. 11, 1985, at Chicago’s Smart Bar while the band was touring the U.S. in support of the the release earlier that year of the group’s second studio album, ‘Bad Moon Rising.’

The all-too-brief early ’80s career of synthpop duo Yazoo — comprised of singer Alison Moyet and former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke — will be anthologized next month on a new 2CD set called ‘The Collection,’ which assembles singles, cuts from the band’s two albums and both vintage and recent remixes.

Former Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins will follow up 2010’s acclaimed ‘Losing Sleep’ with his eighth solo album, ‘Understated,’ in January, the singer recently revealed — and he’ll be the subject of an upcoming documentary called “In Your Voice, In Your Heart” that chronicles his recovery from a debilitating 2005 stroke.

Long-running darkwave favorites Clan of Xymox — still centered around founding member Ronny Moorings — this fall will pay tribute to some of its own favorite bands with a collection called ‘Kindred Spirits’ that will feature covers of tracks by The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees and both Joy Division and New Order.

XTC’s Andy Partridge has re-teamed with singer-songwriter Peter Blegvad for a follow-up to the duo’s 2004 album ‘Orpheus: The Lowdown,’ and are previewing the record — titled ‘Gonwards’ — with a video for the track “Sacred Objects.” The song features lyrics and vocals from Blegvard set to music by Partridge and Stu Rowe.

Duran Duran next month will receive its first-ever double-disc best-of, the 34-track ‘The Biggest and the Best,’ which covers the years 1981 through 1989, collecting 20 of the band’s Top 40 hits as well as some “key album tracks” — while also omitting some pretty sizable hits from the band’s early ’90s renaissance.