ZIPLINES | Estelle Bennett, M.I.A., Yeah Yeah Yeahs

February 17, 2009 by Alan Pedder in Blog

Oh boy, we are so behind in the news. Here, very briefly, is what happened last week while we were sleeping.

170209_estellebennett

After many years spent out of the limelight, The Ronettes’ Estelle Bennett was found dead at her home in New Jersey on Wednesday, aged 67. Her last public appearance was to celebrate The Ronettes’ inclusion in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Her sister Ronnie Spector announced Estelle’s death through a short, touching message on her website. The cause of death was later determined to be colon cancer. [more]

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MIA went into labour just hours after her Grammy Awards performance on Sunday, giving birth to a “healthy, fine, beautiful” son, “the most amazing thing ever on this planet”, on Wednesday. [more]

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs revealed the exploding egg artwork for their new album, and a tracklist that goes a bit like this:

It’s Blitz
01 Zero
02 Heads Will Roll
03 Soft Shock
04 Skeletons
05 Dull Life
06 Shame & Fortune
07 Runaway
08 Dragon Queen
09 Hysteric
10 Little Shadow

It’s Blitz is released on April 13th, with first single ‘Zero’ out a week earlier. Once again Nick Launay and TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek are on board as producers.

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Hot on the heels of their remarkable five-Grammy win last weekend, Rounder Records confirmed that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have started work on the follow-up to 2007′s Raising Sand with T-Bone Burnett as producer. In an email to Country Standard Time, Rounder’s Ken Irwin stated: ”Alison and Robert have been in the studio for about two weeks and although we haven’t heard any of the music, we’ve been hearing good things from the musicians.”

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Despite abounding rumours of an imminent split, Girls Aloud signed a new three-album deal with their label Fascination and will put out the first of those next year. [more]

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Chairlift announced plans to re-release their debut album, Does You Inspire You, in April after signing to major label Columbia. The new edition is bolstered by two previously unreleased tracks from the same sessions, ‘Dixie Gypsy’ and ‘Flying Saucer Hat’. Expect UK tour dates soon.

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New Welsh band The Joy Formidable gave away their debut album, A Balloon Called Moaning, on the NME blog. You can still get it here. The physical CD is out this week.

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Alan Pedder