Trying for the career-revival hat trick, or maybe just trying to make people forget

their last, disastrous album, 1995's all-covers debacle, Thank You,

Duran Duran return on Oct. 14 with Medazzaland. The, gulp,

concept album, produced by band members Nick Rhodes and

Warren Cuccurullo (formerly of Missing Persons) is characterized as a mix of the dandy rock that made the Duranies famous back in the early '80s, spliced with some more modern electronic touches. The first single will be "Electric Barbarella," an homage to Barbarella, Roger Vadim's 1967 go-go space extravaganza from which the band took its name. Other songs on the album include: "Medazzaland," "Big Band Generation," "Out of My Mind," "Who Do You Think You Are?," "Silva Halo," "Be My Icon," "Buried in The Sand," "Michael You've Got a Lot To Answer For," "Midnight Sun," "So Long Suicide" and "Undergoing Treatment"...

For those of you who just can't get enough of the Sex Pistols, be on the

look-out for Raw, a "new" 15-track collection from Music Club Records

that presents a live look at the band in its prime. Eleven of the tracks were

recorded in September of 1976 at the 76 Club and include three covers, the Pistols' standard version of The Stooges' "No Fun," "Substitute" (The Who) and "Don't Give Me No Lip Child" (Dave Berry). The muddy recordings, which phase in and out at times, but present singer Johnny Rotten at his spitting, snarling best, also feature demos of four tracks, "Satellite," "Submission," "EMI" and "God Save the Queen." The other live tracks are: "Anarchy in the UK," "I Wanna Be Me," "Seventeen," "New York," "Liar," "No Feelings," "Pretty Vacant" and "Problems." The album's liner notes were written by one-time Clash road manager Kosmo Vinyl...

The Covenant is one of the most unusual musical projects you're likely to hear this year. The brainchild of producer Wally Brill, the 10-track album uses historical 78 RPM recordings of Jewish cantors from the 1920s through the 1940s overlaid with a wash of modern studio sounds for a culture clash of truly Biblical proportions. Brill mixes the Jewish prayers and songs with a variety of unlikely instruments, including the Australian aboriginal didgeridoo and Indian tabla ("Kiddush Le-Shabbat"), as well as keyboards, electronic music and, in one case, the reminiscences of Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Helen Lazar...

Resident alien David Bowie launches a six-week North American club tour on Sept. 6 in Vancouver, B.C. at the Plaza of Nations. The tour, inspired by last fall's string of East Coast ballroom shows, will find the suddenly bass and drum-lovin' chameleon rocker downsizing to clubs, ballrooms and theaters, versus the usual arenas he has played in the past. Bowie, who recently had one of his biggest hits in years with a "Mandarin" version of the track "Seven Years in Tibet," has written and recorded a new song called "Planet of Dreams" for the Long Live Tibet compilation benefiting the Tibet House Trust. The album, recently released in the UK, also features tracks from Radiohead, Kula Shaker, Bjork, Pulp and Blur...

Time to cash in on the Volkswagen commercial that has pumped new life into the Trio's career? But of course. Witness the rush-release

of Da Da Da, a collection of the defunct German band's greatest

hits. The renewed demand for the title track, a hit for the band in

1982, and available on the 14-track album in a rare 12" remix version as

well, propelled the re-issue to #194 on the Billboard charts last

week. Trio, fronted by graphic-artist /musician/producer Klaus

Voormann (bassist for John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and

designer of the Beatles' Revolver album cover) had a string of hits in the mid-1980s with their minimalistic, deadpan robot-rock. Other songs on the collection include: "Boom Boom," "Hearts Are Trump," "Bye Bye,"

"Anna," "Ich Lieb Den Rock 'N' Roll" and "Tooralooralooraloo"...

QUOTE (UNQUOTE): "Rock 'n' roll is a party, but just because it's a party, it doesn't mean you have to be singing about fartin' in the bathtub or putting wigs on and spittin' shit in the air." -- Brian Henneman, Bottle Rockets singer/guitarist.

(ATN's Senior Writer Gil Kaufman compiled this report.)