Janelle Monae CONFIRMED FOR Glastonbury

Excitement ahead of Glastonbury 2019 later this summer has increased with the announcement that R&B star Janelle Monáe has been added to the line-up.

Speaking on BBC Radio 6 Music’s breakfast show, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis told host Lauren Laverne that the American singer had been booked to headline the West Holts Stage at the festival, on a night yet to be confirmed.

33 year old Monáe, who released her third studio album Dirty Computer last year to rapturous reception, has not performed at Glastonbury since 2011, when she rolled out a set that was recently voted as one of the 100 finest that Worthy Farm had ever seen.

“Visually it was just incredible,” recalled Eavis of her set eight years ago. “You could have watched it with the sound off.”

The star joins previously announced Glastonbury headliner Stormzy, who will play the Pyramid Stage on the Friday night (June 28th), and Australian pop legend Kylie Minogue, who is set to perform in the hallowed ‘legend slot’ on Sunday afternoon.

Foals TEASE TWO NEW ALBUMS IN 2019

Indie fans rejoice! After a lengthy break between records, Oxford-based band Foals have announced TWO upcoming albums in 2019, both of which will be titled Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost.

Speculation suggests that the two albums will be known as parts 1 and 2 and possibly released simultaneously, much like Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion albums. A release date has not yet been announced.

It’s set to be Foals’ first albums as a four-piece outfit, after it was announced 12 months ago that bassist Walter Gervers had departed the group amicably.

Recording for the new material was first announced way back in the autumn of 2017, when Foals finally wrapped the exhausting world tour for their last studio album, 2015’s fourth LP What Went Down.

NEW James Blake ALBUM ARRIVING IMMINENTLY

After a number of LED billboards and social media teaser snippets were rolled out over the last week or so, English producer and artist James Blake has announced that his fourth studio album will be arriving next Friday (January 18th).

Titled Assume Form, it’s tipped to include collaborations with a number of guest stars such as Travis Scott, André 3000, Rosalía, Moses Sumney and Metro Boomin.

James Blake’s last full-length album, The Colour in Everything, dropped by surprise back in May 2016. Since then, he’s shared the singles ‘If The Car Beside You Moves Ahead’ and ‘Don’t Miss It’ – the latter of which appears on Assume Form. He won the 2013 Mercury Prize for his second effort Overgrown.

David Bowie RARITIES BOX SET ANNOUNCED

To mark what would have been the late pop music icon’s 72nd birthday, Parlophone this week revealed details of a new box-set of David Bowie’s rare early recordings, dating from the late Sixties, that have never been released on any physical format.

Bowie’s record label Parlophone announced on Tuesday (January 8th) that it would release a box-set of nine 7” vinyl singles featuring previously unreleased demos dating from the ‘Space Oddity’ era around 1969.

The set, titled Spying Through a Keyhole, will be released on an as-yet-unspecified date this spring. Included are early versions of ‘In the Heat of the Morning’ and ‘London Bye, Ta-Ta’, alongside long-sought-after songs like ‘Mother Grey’ and ‘Love All Around’, and what’s believed to be the first ever recorded demo of ‘Space Oddity’, which became Bowie’s first major hit in July 1969 and then a UK no.1 hit on re-issue in 1975.

ST. VINCENT TO PRODUCE NEW SLEATER-KINNEY ALBUM

Reformed riot-grrl survivors Sleater-Kinney have announced they’ll be releasing a new album this year – and that it’ll be produced by none other than modern indie superstar Annie Clark, aka. St. Vincent.

Both Clark and the three-piece group announced they were working together through posts on social media that showed the four of them sitting together in the studio.

Guitarist and songwriter Carrie Brownstein told NPR: “We always planned on getting back in the studio — it was just a matter of when. If there is an overarching principle to this album, it's that the tools on which we were relying proved inadequate. So we sought new ones, both metaphorically and literally.”

Sleater-Kinney reformed in 2014 after a hiatus lasting nearly a decade, and the following year released their eighth studio album No Cities To Love.

More: Six more artists we’d love to see play Glastonbury’s legend slot