** Australian singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett is eyeing a March 27 release for her fourth Mom+Pop Music album, Creature of Habit, and has also revealed a new single, “Site Unseen,” with a vocal assist from Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) . See the video below.
Per her rep, Barnett wrote Creature of Habit “in the wake of a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of her long-running label Milk! Records,” which led her to grapple “with changes that put the future of both her life and career in question.” As for “Site Unseen,” the artist says, “I tried three separate times over two years years to track this song, and each time it either wasn’t finished or didn’t sound right and each time we had to start again,” Barnett recalls. “I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she’d be into singing it with me. I’m a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie’s songwriting and her voice, so it was an honor to have her sing on ‘Site Unseen.’”
Barnett will begin a North American tour on May 1 in Austin, Tx., with Momma and Built To Spill supporting at various points.
** Les Claypool will get weird and wacky on his summer Claypool Gold tour, which will boast performances from his bands Primus, the Claypool Lennon Delirium and Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade and promises “a fluid show featuring wildly different set lists and surprises.” Dates get underway May 20 in Reno, Nv., and wrap July 4 in Napa, Ca. Claypool Lennon Delirium, which features Claypool and Sean Lennon, has also released a new song, “WAP (What a Predicament),” ahead of an expected new album sometime this year.
** Afghan Whigs will celebrate their 40th anniversary on a spring North American tour, which will include Mercury Rev as the opening act. The trek starts April 25 in Bearsville, N.Y.; click here for tickets, which go on sale Friday (Jan. 23). “40 years later, I still get to do the thing I love the most: writing songs and performing them with my friends all over the world,” says Whigs leader Greg Dulli. “I truly have to pinch myself.”
The band’s first new music since their 2022 album How Do You Burn? arrived in early December in the surprising form of covers of Minneapolis indie pop band Poliça’s “Fake Life” and U.K. duo Still Corners’ “Downtown.” Neiher will appear on the Whigs’ forthcoming new LP, a release date for which has not been announced.
** Rush‘s 1984 album Grace Under Pressure is being spiffed up for a Super Deluxe Edition reissue on March 13 through UMe/Mercury and Anthem Records. The set will be available in five different incarnations across CD, Blu-ray and Dolby Atmos. Devotees will likely be most intrigued by a new mix of Grace by longtime Rush producer Terry Brown, who was not involved in the original release. “I had to give the guys something they would be excited about,” he says, “so I went for a little more detail, different reverbs and a larger footprint, all while maintaining the integrity of the original record.”
Grace is rounded out here by a complete Sept. 21, 1984, concert from Rush’s Toronto hometown, which was previously available in truncated form. The liner notes were supplied by vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee, while the package also includes a replica Toronto concert ticket, three lithographs, a poster and the Grace Under Pressure tour program.
Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson will tour this year under the Rush name for the first time since drummer Neil Peart‘s 2020 death.
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