This week’s new releases include brand-new albums from R.E.M. (‘Collapse Into Now’), Blancmange (‘Blanc Burn’) and Exene Cervenka (‘The Excitement of Maybe’), plus a new EP from The Primitives, two mid-period reissues from The Mission and a new KMFDM single.

Much of R.E.M.’s new album has been intentionally leaked by the band over the past two months, but now — one week before ‘Collapse Into Now’ actually arrives in stores — you can hear the whole thing, streaming here.

While R.E.M. is busy promoting its forthcoming new album ‘Collapse Into Now,’ the band will continue its reissue series with the release later this year of an expanded 25th anniversary edition of 1986’s ‘Lifes Rich Pageant.’

The R.E.M. pre-release train keeps on rolling, as the band this week released a new live-in-the-studio performance — filmed at Berlin’s famed Hansa Tonstudios — of ‘Collapse Into Now’ single ‘Mine Smell Like Honey.’

This latest round of links and stuff includes a look back at 20 years of R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion,’ a talk with OMD’s Andy McCluskey, a long-lost Dream Syndicate interview and a link to watch the BBC’s ‘Reggae Britannia’ documentary.

Now less than a month away, the schedule for the South By Southwest music festival is starting to solidify, with a host of ’80s college rock vets slated to make appearances in Austin, Texas, next month — including Duran Duran, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Edwyn Collins, World Party, J Mascis and more.