Soundwave: Faithless, Coldplay, Swizz Beats, REM, Lou Reed & Wilco

What’s with the Coldplay / mainstream hip hop collabos? Hooking up with his second thugged-out rapper in under a year (after last year’s dubious duet “Beach Chair” with Jay-Z), Chris Martin and co will be guesting on new Swizz Beats album “One Man Band Man”. “Part of the Plan” will be the first single released from the LP, preceding yet another guest-spot on the forthcoming Kanye West album. Lil’ Chris and the College Boys better step their game up if they want to bring it to Ghostface, Doom et al.

REM are heading back into the studio in the next few weeks. Producer of the moment (and former UK big-beat type) Jacknife Lee will be at the controls this time around fresh from his work on the last U2, Bloc Party and Snow Patrol albums. The follow up to last year’s “Around the Sun” promises to have more of a rock edge and is planned for release in late 2007.


Faithless will kick start their eleven-date arena tour with a secret warehouse gig exclusively for Myspace users. The intimate gig is to be held in a 260 capacity venue in an undisclosed location just outside of Leeds on Friday March 16th. In order to get your hands on a ticket visit myspace.com/secretshowsuk and myspace.com/faithlessmusic.


After treating fans to a performance of his classic 1973 LP ‘Berlin’ in NY last Christmas the mighty (and generous) Lou Reed has decided to bring the show over to Europe this summer with a nine-date tour including two nights at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. He explained: “I only do this every thirty years. One time, one time only. You can tell your kids you saw Lou Reed’s Berlin.” Tour Dates

Poor old Wilco, just like their last two albums it appears that latest LP ‘Sky Blue Sky’ (due to be released May 15th on Nonesuch) has been leaked online by eager fans. It hasn’t seemed to faze Jeff Tweedy though. Speaking to Billboard yesterday, he said: “There's probably some good argument to be made that it will prevent a few people from buying the record, but there's also the idea that I believe is true for us, which is, it's people listening to our music."