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.

A new 700-page biography of The Smiths by music writer and biographer Tony Fletcher will be published in the U.K. next week — but not in the U.S. until December — and promises, through “extensive research, dozens of interviews and unprecedented access,” to tell “the complete story” of the iconic Manchester band.

Bob Mould’s first new album in three years — the 10-track ‘Silver Age’ — arrives next week, and the former Hüsker Dü frontman today debuted the record via a full-album stream at RollingStone.com. He tells the rock mag it’s no coincidence the album sounds a bit like Sugar’s just-reissued 1992 debut ‘Copper Blue.’

With plans for a September tour of the U.S. fleshing out, World Party this morning released a new music video for “Everybody’s Falling in Love,” one of the 70 previously unreleased tracks on the ‘Arkeology’ box set. The video follows a sad black-and-white guy stuck in a color world where everybody’s making out all the time.

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.

This week’s new releases include ‘The Seer,’ a new 2CD set from Swans, plus a soundtrack to the film ‘Lawless’ by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, a covers album from Juliana Hatfield, CD reissues of the This Mortal Coil catalog, a collection of synthpop remixes and the first new album in 22 years from Manchester’s The Distractions.

Morrissey today announced that he will wrap up one of his busier touring years in recent memory with six concerts in Australia and New Zealand this December immediately following the close of his 35-date U.S. tour — which also will find Moz appearing on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Colbert Report.”

Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes items about Joe Strummer, R.E.M., “120 Minutes,” The Cure, Andy Partridge, Bob Mould, PiL, Mark Eitzel, Dinosaur Jr, Psychedelic Furs, Peter Gabriel and more.

Today we celebrate one of the more significant milestones in the college-rock era, the 30th anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s debut EP, ‘Chronic Town.’ the five-song record that launched the band and, in many ways, the ’80s indie scene. To commemorate this classic record we present audio of a 1982 concert.

For this week’s ‘120 Minutes Rewind,’ we offer up a clip of unusually good video quality, a nine-minute reel from summer 1990 that saw Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore and drummer Steve Shelley sitting down to talk about the band’s just-released ‘Goo’ album with host Dave Kendall.

As they near the end of their summer run of European festivals, The Cure tonight plays the U.K.’s venerable Reading Festival — exactly 33 years to the day since Robert Smith and Co. last played the festival. To mark the occasion, we present this vintage tape of The Cure’s 1979 set at Reading.

The series launched this summer, and, so far, titles are available on Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Cocteau Twins and David Bowie. Next month sees publication of a title on Kate Bush, with books due in spring and summer 2013 on Abba, My Bloody Valentine, Kraftwerk, PIxies, R.E.M. and Roxy Music.

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.