Latitude 2009

Previously, Radio 4 has hosted its arts magazine show, Loose Ends, from Latitude. Loose Ends returns this year, to the Radio 4 stage, along with satirical comedy The Now Show, Roger McGough's Poetry Please and current affairs programme, Broadcasting House. But surely the most impressive presence on the Radio 4 bill is the legendary panel game, Just A Minute.

If there’s anyone appearing on the Latitude bill this year who might legitimately be able to claim that poetry is the new rock’n’roll, then step forward Huddersfield’s finest, Simon Armitage.

British Sea Power have a reputation as a band who like to punch above their weight: Rough Trade signed them on the strength of a single gig, their 2003 debut album, The Decline of British Sea Power, shifted 60,000 copies through word of mouth, and they once avoided interviews by issuing journalists with grid references 'directing' them to where they should meet. There will undoubtedly be a contingent of their devoted fans, complete with a sea of waving leafy branches, when they play the main Obelisk stage on Friday at Latitude.

Ah, the elusive Black Lips; a band I once chased around London in a black cab, trying to catch them live as they moved from one secret venue to another. I never caught up with them, which is why I'll be holding a vigil at the Sunrise stage on Sunday until I get to see the madness for myself.

One day, I imagine turning up at a festival and being confronted by a dedicated Wainwright/McGarrigle And Related Folk Families stage. There’ll be Rufus and Loudon and Kate & Anna. There’ll be Rufus’ good friend Teddy Thompson, and maybe his mum and dad and sister. There could, ideally, be Rufus’ other friend, Lorca Cohen, and her dad, the born-again road animal, Leonard.

Icelandic for "Victory Rose", the panoramic quartet Sigur Rós are coming to headline Latitude's Saturday night, bringing their ethereal and triumphant sound to the Obelisk Arena as night descends slowly on Henham Park.

Led by plaintive-voiced Ben Gibbard - sometime Postal Service frontman and electro-indie pioneer - Death Cab For Cutie stop off at Latitude during their 'Narrow Stairs' world tour to bring evocative, dark-hearted tales of devotion to the festival in Suffolk.

It's been six years since The Coral released their self titled debut album and with it resuscitated Liverpool's music scene. Following in the footsteps of bands like The Las, The Coral was a shimmering mix of '60s psych, classic song writing in the Merseybeat tradition and blessed with a strong sense of the surreal.

One of the highlights of Latitude 2008 is sure to be, we reckon, a sighting of the enduring miracle of indie-rock that is Kim Deal. It was Deal, rumour has it, who called time on the Pixies reunion because she would rather be expending her energies on her own band, The Breeders.

A strange one, this. Nick Cave has been workaholically juggling multiple projects over the past couple of years: The Bad Seeds, of course; his comparatively pensive soundtrack work with Warren Ellis; and the rambunctious, Stoogesy garage rock of Grinderman. A betting man or woman might have put money on him turning up at Latitude in the company of the Bad Seeds, on the back of their superb “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” album from earlier this year.