New Order and Tears For Fears will headline the inaugural edition of the Darker Waves music festival this November in Southern California.

Author Richard Evans delves deeply into “a true golden age of British pop” in his just-published book “Listening to the Music the Machines Make.”

 Soft Cell are teasing their first new album in 20 years with a version of one of the record’s songs newly reworked by the Pet Shop Boys.

Soft Cell will release their first new album in 20 years this May, but before that, the duo has teamed up with Pet Shop Boys to rework one of the songs on the record.

The BBC last night premiered a one-hour documentary about Soft Cell that recounts the ups and downs of the early-’80s synthpop stars, culminating with the reunion last September of Marc Almond and Dave Ball to play together for the first time in 15 years — and the last time ever. Watch it here.

Marc Almond and Dave Ball reunited as Soft Cell tonight for the first time in 15 years to simultaneously commemorate the classic synthpop act’s 40th anniversary and bid fans farewell with one final concert — dubbed, naturally, “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.” Check out the full setlist and see selected video right here.

Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs. All releases due out this Friday unless noted. This week’s releases include a new album from Spiritualized, a Soft Cell box set and reissues of The Durutti Column and The Posies.

With Marc Almond reuniting with Dave Ball to commemorate Soft Cell’s 40th anniversary with one final farewell concert next month, the duo also have produced some new music go to along with the occasion: two new songs, in fact, that will be included on a new singles collection. Hear one of them right here.

Marc Almond today announced he’s reuniting with Dave Ball for the first time in 15 years to commemorate Soft Cell’s 40th anniversary with one final farewell concert — dubbed, naturally, “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” — at London’s O2 Arena on Sept. 30. Tickets go on sale later this week.

This week’s new releases include a 6-disc Kitchens of Distinction box set, a new live album from Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy, a Marc Amond/Soft Cell best-of, a remixed edition of Soundgarden’s debut album ‘Ultramega OK,’ and a new solo album from Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin.

This week’s new releases include a live CD/DVD combo from Simple Minds, a new best-of from The Dream Academy, vinyl reissues of classic debut albums from Tears For Fears, ABC and Soft Cell, a live album from The Specials reissued on vinyl, and a new best-of set of 2 Tone ska.

For this week’s “120 Minutes” Rewind, we travel back to 1988 for a Kevin Seal-hosted “120 X-Ray” segment on former Soft Cell frontman Marc Almond, who discusses his then-new album The Stars We Are and his next project, Jacques, which would be released in 1989.

Reunited synthpop group Blancmange returns this week with ‘Blanc Burn’ — its fourth album, and first in more than a quarter century — as well as an eight-date U.K. tour, although ailing co-founder Stephen Luscombe has been advised by doctors to skip the trek.