My Focus – Live Under The Rainbow

From Laurel Canyon to Chiswick High Road, from Rancho De La Luna to a warehouse in Tottenham, many of your favourite artists have been hard at work crafting the soundtrack of 2026. Over the next 10 pages, we bring you the inside track on forthcoming albums by STEVIE NICKS , COURTNEY BARNETT , ALABAMA SHAKES , THE ROLLING STONES , BILL CALLAHAN , BUZZCOCKS , LANA DEL REY , SUNN O))) , ROBERT PLANT , IRON & WINE and many more. “It’s a really special time for music…”

Squeeze ’s songwriting duo are back in harness, toting a rock opera they wrote in the ’70s with an all-new album to come. Given their near-constant strife, it’s a miracle. But as they insist, “the thing that always brings us together is the songs…”

Sun Triptych Maxim Rysanov, Dasol Kim, Roman Mints et al; BBC Concert Orchestra/ Dobrinka Tabakova ECM 4878558 64:61 mins This is the second ECM disc to feature the extremely accessible music of Bulga

Mike Patton and the Avett Brothers join forces to create a work of immense beauty.

Fifty years on from their explosive debut single “New Rose”, THE DAMNED have evolved from punk pioneers to national treasures. But as a new album pays tribute to Brian James, their fallen co-founder, bandmates Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies – along with sundry eyewitnesses and ne’erdo-wells – recall the volatile beginnings, creative vision and incorrigible spirit of The Damned’s groundbreaking first act. “It was CID, villains and the Captain in a nurse’s outfit,” hears Peter Watts