The Elvis Costello box set that the singer himself railed against last fall has actually increased in price over the intervening months — Amazon.com now lists it at $280, up from $260 — but, as promised, fans soon will be able to spend $257.35 less for a slimmed-down repackaging of the set.

James have booked eight concerts across the western U.S. and Canada this April around the band’s dates at the two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and announced the long-delayed ‘The Gathering Sound box’ set finally will arrive this spring.

4AD this spring will commemorate the 30th anniversary of genre-bending electronic pioneers Colourbox by collecting the group’s full studio output in a four-disc, 59-track box set that includes the free mini-album given away along with initial pressing of the group’s 1985 debut, plus 12-inch mixes and a BBC session.

The five-disc World Party box set announced last month will be released April 10 and comprised entirely of previously unreleased material: 70 never-before-heard tracks including new songs and an ‘unheard history of rare studio gems, live sessions, concert recordings, radio interviews, covers, demos and B-sides.’

The Pixies have yet to record a new album since reuniting in 2004, but frontman Black Francis has been no stranger to the recording studio in those intervening years, and, in April, will release ‘Let the People Speak,’ his second effort with wife Violet Clark as the indie/electropop duo Grand Duchy.

Karl Wallinger’s long-dormant World Party today announced plans for a forthcoming 5-disc box set called ‘Arkeology’ that will feature new songs, live recordings and cover versions, as well as ‘lots of pictures,’ liner notes and something called the ‘the amazing any-year diary.’

Last fall, Simple Minds announced plans to release a new box set containing the band’s first five albums and an untold number of bonus cuts — and now, with the collection and accompanying European tour due next month, we’re finally getting a look at the set’s tracklist, via our friends at The Second Disc.

Midnight Oil will be the subject of a career-spanning, multi-disc box set next year that guitarist Jim Moginie promises ‘is going to be amazing in its depth and presentation of the band’s career, with rare recordings and so far unseen and unheard film and music.’

Elvis Costello’s new live box set ‘The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook!!!’ is currently listed at $262.39 on Amazon.com, and if you think that’s a ridiculous price for a release that features just one CD, one DVD and one 10-inch vinyl record’s worth of music, you’re not alone — Costello himself does, too.

Simple Minds today unveiled plans for a 16-date European tour early next year dubbed ‘5X5 Live’ that will see the band each night perform five songs off of each of its first five albums. The group also will release a new box set, ‘Simple Minds X5,’ featuring those five albums and previously unreleased bonus material.

The limited-edition Joy Division box set comprised of 10 newly remastered 7-inch singles that was released late last year is being reissued next month — this time on compact disc, collecting ‘CD replicas of 10 singles presented in a beautiful clamshell box.’

Elvis Costello will commemorate this year’s revival of his ‘Spectacular Spinning Songbook’ — which debuted during a 1986 trek that saw him choosing setlists onstage via a giant spinning wheel — with a limited-edition box set featuring a CD, DVD and 10-inch vinyl EP culled from the performer’s May 11 and 12, 2011, shows in Los Angeles.

The long-awaited This Mortal Coil anthology first announced a year ago — a 4CD box set featuring the 4AD collective’s three albums and a fourth disc of singles and rarities — finally will be released this November, while a Blu-ray disc called Tears in the Dropbox that includes all three albums in HD audio remains in the works.