This year may be nearly half over, but it’s certainly not too late to catch up with The Smiths Project, an ambitious and impressive effort by San Jose, Calif., musician Janice Whaley to record layered vocal arrangements of every song ever released by The Smiths — all by the end of 2010.

In this clip recorded for Levi’s ‘Pioneer Sessions,’ James Mercer — leader of The Shins and one-half of Broken Bells — throws down a solo-acoustic cover of Squeeze’s classic ‘Goodbye Girl,’ which also is available as a free download.

Reunited Scottish indie-pop faves The Vaselines today announced they’ll release a new album called ‘Sex With An X’ — only their second ever, the follow-up to 1989’s ‘Dum-Dum’ — in September, and are previewing it with a free download of the track ‘I Hate the ’80s.’ Plus, they’ll mount a 10-date tour of the U.K. this fall.

Taking a pause from the ongoing Dinosaur Jr reunion, Lou Barlow this week released a new digital EP called ‘= Sentridoh III’ — recorded with his current backing band, The Missingmen — and announced two rounds of North American summer dates.

Enigmatic The The mastermind Matt Johnson continues to use his web show ‘Radio Cineola’ to treat fans to never-before-heard music, and this month is no different, with songs from the unreleased ‘Gun Sluts’ and ‘2 Blocks Below Canals’ albums making their debut.

New Jersey-based radio station WFMU is once again streaming full sets from the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain, today and Saturday, with performance on tap from Wire, Gary Numan, Soft Cell’s Marc Almond and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera, among others.

As promised, Robert Smith this week started streaming The Cure’s live performance of ‘Disintegration’ — recorded at Dallas’ Starplex Amphitheatre on 1989’s Prayer Tour — on the band’s microsite for the new reissue.