Mark Stewart, the musical agitator and yelping frontman of the wildly innovative, dub-infused post-punk act The Pop Group, died Friday.

Nikolaos Katranis and Russell Craig Richardson are working on a four-part documentary series on post-punk music, based on Simon Reynolds’ book “Rip It Up and Start Again.”

With the Bauhaus reunion sidelined by COVID-19, guitarist Daniel Ash found plenty of time in 2020 to focus on a new album by his new band — a trio called Ashes and Diamonds — with plans to release the record later this year, he announced in a podcast interview Monday. More details here.

This week’s new releases include new studio albums from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Billy Idol, Half Man Half Biscuit, Inspiral Carpets and Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox, plus reissues from The Pop Group and a six-disc box set of recent material from the reunited Dexys.

BBC Four next month will follow up its excellent documentary ‘Synth Britannia’ with the new three-part ‘Punk Britannia,’ a look at the ‘historic cosmology, meteoric impact and smouldering aftermath of the most genuinely transformative force in British popular music history.’ The three parts air Friday, June 8 and June 15.

Sonic Youth will reissue two more early albums — 1985’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and 1987’s ‘Sister’ — on 180-gram audiophile vinyl in the coming weeks as they prep a French film soundtrack to be released as SYR9 in the Sonic Youth Recordings series and mix a new live album recorded in 1985.

Short-lived British postpunk act The Pop Group — which somehow melded punk, dub, noise and funk — will reunite this September after nearly 30 years apart, with four concerts scheduled in the U.K. and Italy and a new album reportedly in the works.

John Lydon with Public Image Ltd.

John Lydon will take the reformed Public Image Ltd. on its first North American tour in 18 years this spring, today announcing a 16-date club tour to follow the band’s performance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

John Lydon, ex-Sex Pistol and erstwhile reality TV star, is reactivating the long-dormant Public Image Ltd. for a five-date U.K. tour this December to mark […]