Just eight months after a-ha’s farewell concert in Oslo, the Norwegian pop trio — saying they were ‘shaken to the soul’ — have announced they will reunite later this month to perform at the national memorial service honoring the victims of last month’s mass killings in that country.

In December 1988, when Dinosaur Jr entered Boston’s famed Fort Apache Studios, to record a track for ‘The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young,’ they cut not one but two songs: ‘Lotta Love,’ which would be included on the disc alongside covers by the Pixies, The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth, and ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You.’

Much has been made about the loss of album art in the download age, but pop-culture maven Matthew Chojnacki argues that even more endangered are the 7- and 12-inch single sleeves of the 1980s — ephemeral splashes of music history that he’s compiled in the new book ‘Put the Needle on the Record: The 1980s at 45 Revolutions Per Minute.’

Members of long-lost Boston college-radio favorites Scruffy the Cat — part of the so-called late-’80s cowpunk scene that helped spawn the alt-country movement — have reunited around cancer-stricken frontman Charlie Chesterman after two decades apart and will play two headlining shows in their hometown this October.

The folks over at the U.K. arm of Rhino Records continue to dig through the video archive of material by The Smiths, and now they’ve unearthed this 17-minute ‘lost’ documentary about the band, which they believe was commissioned by the label in 1992 in support of the ‘Best…’ compilation.

The playlist from last night’s ‘Dark Wave’ — the weekly Sunday night ‘darker side of alternative’ show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — features Skinny Puppy, The March Violets, Bauhaus, Gene Loves Jezebel, Yazoo, Nitzer Ebb and much more.

As promised, the Throwing Muses will support the release of the 4AD band’s forthcoming best-of set ‘Anthology’ — which initially will be released in a deluxe package with a second disc of B-sides and rare cuts — with live dates, including a just-announced 15-date tour of Europe and the United Kingdom this fall.