diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 91f3f47c..05f79a93 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ build-test-tarball.mk
 config.log
 config.status
 configure
+configure~
 doc/AUTHORS
 doc/ChangeLog
 doc/NEWS
@@ -62,7 +63,7 @@ examples/sndfile-loopify
 examples/sndfile-to-text
 examples/sndfilehandle
 include/sndfile.h
-libsndfile-1.0.*
+libsndfile-*.tar.xz
 libsndfile-testsuite-*
 libsndfile.spec
 libtool
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c8d79a56..32dbb654 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
   The behavior of the functions for opening files on other platforms does not
   change.
+* Switch to .xz over .bz2 for release tarballs.
 
 ### Fixed
 
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index bb2a27bc..cf937754 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ AC_CANONICAL_HOST
 AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([src/config.h])
 
-AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.14 foreign dist-bzip2 no-dist-gzip serial-tests subdir-objects])
+AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.14 foreign dist-xz no-dist-gzip serial-tests subdir-objects])
 AM_SILENT_RULES([yes])
 
 dnl ====================================================================================