R.E.M. employed a decidedly old-school medium to announce the full tracklist of its new album ‘Collapse Into Now’: The band revealed the titles of the record’s 12 songs via its snail-mail fanclub newsletter.

Primal Scream will celebrate the 20th anniversary of ‘Screamadelica’ next year with a lavish 4CD/1DVD/2LP box set highlighted by ‘a new cut of the album’ made with occasional collaborator Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.

The ‘Omnibus Edition’ of The Fall’s ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’ that first was announced in the summer of 2009 finally will arrive in late January, packed with 31 singles, alternative edits, John Peel sessions and previously unreleased ‘working mixes.’

J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr will tone things down considerably next spring with the release of his first proper solo album, an acoustic — and apparently drum-free — collection called ‘Several Shades of Why.’

The first new album in a decade-and-a-half from electro-industrial powerhouse Nitzer Ebb finally will be released on CD in the U.S. next month — albeit in expanded fashion, with a new song and a handful of mixes thrown in — as the band embarks on a fall tour of North and South America.

U2 is set to release a new limited-edition, vinyl-only live EP next month called ‘Wide Awake in Europe’ — adapting the title and cover concept from 1985’s ‘Wide Awake in America’ — that will feature the debut of fan-favorite track ‘Mercy.’