A certain ratio

Batman: back in the black

It begins with a flutter of guitar, a dusting of cymbals. Then a female, faintly ethereal vocal arrives, accompanied by bells. At first, it sounds like she might be distant kin to the acid folk scene which still percolates away in the US; there’s a very vague resemblance to Meg Baird and Espers, perhaps. But then again, she’s not singing in English, and there’s something discreetly exotic about the song, “Dawn Over The Clouds”.

Elliptical, euphoric and "staggeringly good" says Allan Jones, plus a Q&A with Craig Finn

You wait 17-years…then three Kevin Shields album turn up at once

Franz Ferdinand, Glasgow’s most eminent art-college band turned international rock stars, close the main stage on the first night of Latitude. According to frontman Alex Kapranos, Franz Ferdinand set out to prove that art-rock could involve "really, really catchy tunes that girls can dance to".

One of the weirder and more heartening musical shifts of the past few years has been the way post-rockers have moved into looser, hairier, trad rock terrain. I’m thinking of records like Jim O’Rourke’s southern-tinged “Insignificance”, perhaps (Incidentally, O’Rourke has broken his musical exile, after a fashion, with something called Osorezan; more on that soon), as well as that palpable move towards heavy jams and psych by any number of college rock types in the wake of Stephen Malkmus. And so on.

I remember seeing dEUS at their UK 'comeback' show at London's ICA around the time of the excellent 'Pocket Revolution' album, the band's four year hiatus having not dented the furious, urgent, wonderfully fuzzy live experience that Belgium's biggest musical export can create. Tom Barman and Klaas Janzoons' group are certainly one of the more exciting 'underground' bands to be playing on Latitude's main stage this year.

A lost career collected: his solo masterpiece, plus it's follow-up

Solo album number 21 finds Emmylou looking back, but moving forward

A FEW years ago, Elvis Costello declared an ongoing fondness for U2. By way of explanation, Costello outlined his admiration for U2’s ability to forge intimacy and emotional connection even in the Enormo-Domes and Mega-Bowls that constitute their tour schedules. At stadium level now, Costello observed, “everything else is bullshit, or a trip to the circus.”