With all the instruments he plays, it seems the only conceivable thing Liam Finn could add to his sonic arrangements would be another artist altogether. After a busy year of touring on the release of his stellar debut, I'll Be Lightning, Finn has done just that: his Champagne in Seashells EP, recorded with Australian folkie Eliza-Jane Barnes, drops Sept. 1.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. But in this case, it takes about 40 musicians to help raise two children. In September 2008, the wife of former Miracle Legion frontman Mark Mulcahy passed away suddenly. Various members of the musical community have come together to record Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, the proceeds of which will help Mulcahy continue his career while raising his three-year-old twin daughters.

Q-Tip might want to adopt a line from LL Cool J as his new motto: "Don't call it a comeback; I've been here for years." Eight years, in fact, have passed since the former A Tribe Called Quest MC produced the nine tracks that make up Kamaal The Abstract, to be released Sept. 15 on Battery Records.

In 1984, Michael Jackson swept the nation with his Victory Tour. He took the stage in his "Suit of Lights," which included that famous (and possibly infamous) sparkling white glove. Created especially for him by designer Ted Shell, the glove glimmered with beads, rhinestones and 50 tiny light bulbs, and became one of the most well-known symbols of the King of Pop. Now, thanks to Profiles in History, which recently announced plans to auction off the glove, MJ super-fans have the chance to own this iconic piece of memorabilia.

With the facility of micro-blogging service Twitter at their fingertips, musicians are increasingly able to keep their fans updated on their every move. Some artists, however, seem to tweet with equal significance the news of a successful recording session and the tastiness of that Philly cheesesteak they ate when stopping through the City of Brotherly Love. If you're feeling unsatisfied by a bevy of mundane and grammatically unorthodox posts, perhaps this new Twit-lit project will better serve you: Chris Eaton, novelist and frontman of Canadian band Rock Plaza Central, will post Twitter-length stories on the band's account on each day of the group's upcoming tour. 

Consider it a collaboration on top of a collaboration: Director Jonathan Glazer, responsible for major feature films like Sexy Beast and Birth as well as award-winning Radiohead music videos, has joined forces with supergroup The Dead Weather to direct the band's newest short. The Dead Weather already boasts an all-star lineup, including Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), Jack White (The White Stripes/The Raconteurs), Jack Lawrence (The Greenhornes/The Raconteurs) and Alison Mosshart (The Kills).

Mos Def returns from long strange trip with excitingly coherent new album

At this point, you could be forgiven for knowing Mos Def as an actor rather than a musician. His name was synonymous with the late '90s’ resurgence of politically pugnacious hip-hop, but after his equally era-defining label, Rawkus Records, was absorbed into Interscope, Mos went mainstream as a thespian and plumbed new depths of self-indulgent awfulness as a musician. His latest, The Ecstatic, arrives on the 10-year anniversary of his classic debut, Black on Both Sides. Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and for long stretches of the album, Mos remembers with a start that he’s an exceptionally talented rapper. The rootless “experimental” gambits that plagued 2006 train-wreck True Magic crop up occasionally—the Spanish-language track “No Way Nada Mas” (cool idea, but rapping in Spanish doesn’t mean you have to sound like Slowpoke Rodriguez), the cheesy patois of “Workers Comp”, and a smattering of karaoke-caliber singing. But on “Twilite Speedball,” “Quiet Dog Bite Hard,” “Life in Marvelous Times,” and many others, he rivets his limber flow to the beat and effortlessly produces the kind of good-natured braggadocio and gymnastic wordplay of his glory days. This isn’t the only sign that Mos is looking back—there’s a great cameo from old-school legend Slick Rick, and a reunion track with Talib Kweli, his former partner in the group Black Star (called “History,” no less). But it’s also modern, with the kind of exotic pan-global production (from Euro-club to Turkish-psych) that’s a must in the post-Timbaland era. (But Mos, why no Auto-Tune? It’s okay now!) That’s what we call re-centering. Even the Malcolm X sample that opens the album can’t quell the feeling that Mos’ revolutionary capital is long-since spent, but it’s good to know that he can still save his music, if not the world.

Although the music blogosphere isn't fawning over him, Jonathan Coulton is one of the most successful truly independent recording artists ever.  He cultivated a devoted web following by offering his music for free on his website and he has an abundant knack for melding pop melodies with comedy.  After the success of his ambitious Song a Week project, Coulton wrote the song "Still Alive" for Portal and secured his cult status. His first DVD, Best. Concert. Ever. just hit store shelves.

This fall, R.E.M. will bring us the two-disc release R.E.M. Live at the Olympia. But for those fans who just can't wait until the weather changes to get their Michael Stipe fix, the band will release Reckoning Songs From the Olympia, a four-song live EP, via iTunes and other digital service providers, on July 7. As the album title indicates, the EP's songs were first heard on the group's 1984 release, Reckoning, and were recorded during "working rehearsals" at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin in July 2007.

Guitarist and singer for The Seeds, Sky Saxon, died Thursday morning. He was 63.