Depeche Mode today announced that Columbia Records will release its upcoming 13th studio album in March, signalling an end to the synthpop act’s relationship with EMI Music, which picked up the group when it purchased Mute Records in 2002. Neither an exact release date nor the album’s title have been revealed.

With their reunion tour set to open tonight in Denver, Australian Simon Bonney’s resurrected art-rock group Crime and the City Solution — which, during the ’80s, included members of The Birthday Party, Swell Maps and Einstürzende Neubauten — today debuted its first new music in 22 years.

As we previously reported, Mute Records this fall will celebrate Slovenian avant-garde industrial group Laibach’s “unique take on the art of the cover version” with a new 15-track compilation called ‘An Introduction To.. Laibach / Reproduction Prohibited,’ which will include a newly recorded version of The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette.”

Mute Records this week released a 10-minute video Q&A with former Depeche Mode bandmates Vince Clarke and Martin L. Gore in which the duo discuss their reunion under the banner of the VCMG techno project, the making of their album ‘Ssss’ and unresolved issues between the two.

Mute Records this fall continues its new compilation series An Introduction To… with a disc celebrating Slovenian avant-garde industrial group Laibach’s “unique take on the art of the cover version,” compiling 15 tracks, including newly recorded version of The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette” and Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

As part of EMI Music’s ongoing Electrospective campaign designed to celebrate the history of electronic music, Mojo magazine recently convened a roundtable discussion of the genre featuring, among others, synthpop pioneers such as Mute Records; Daniel Miller, Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and OMD’s Andy McCluskey.

Simon Bonney has resurrected his art-rock group Crime and the City Solution — which, during the ’80s, included members of The Birthday Party, Swell Maps and Einstürzende Neubauten — for the band’s first tour in more than 20 years, a brand-new compilation and its first new studio album since 1990’s ‘Paradise Discotheque.’

The new album from electronic music project Soulsavers — featuring Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan on lead vocals — arrives next week, but Mute Records is letting fans hear the full stream of ‘The Light the Dead See’ via the widget posted here. Also, check out video of Gahan discussing the project..

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Frank Tovey — aka electronic act Fad Gadget — and his former label, Mute Records, is honoring its famed first signee with a new video tribute, which we’ve posted above. The label writes: ‘We miss him dearly. Play your favourite Fad Gadget or Frank Tovey tune really loud today.’

Martin Gore isn’t the only Depeche Mode member who’s been busy during the band’s downtime: Frontman Dave Gahan has lent his well-known voice to electronic project Soulsavers for that group’s fourth album, ‘The Light the Dead See’ — and he’s already talking about making more music and touring with the group.

British communications agency ditto is celebrating The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ — the first release by Mute Records, and ‘the record that started everything’ — by commissioning this ‘re imagining’ of Daniel Miller’s classic 1978 track, with Really O’Reilly providing new production and ‘electro-lady’ Georgie piping in with vocals.

Mute Records will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Frank Tovey — aka electronic artist Fad Gadget, the first act the label signed — by helping stage FG.Ft, a month-long tribute in New York City that will include a group art exhibition, live music performances and a screening of the documentary ‘Fad Gadget by Frank Tovey.’

Today sees the debut of the musical reunion of former Depeche Mode bandmates Vince Clarke and Martin L. Gore in the form of ‘Spock,’ the first single off the newly christened VCMG’s as-yet-to-be-titled album, due out next year. Check out streams of the original mix and two remixes.