This month…

Finding poignancy in the dread and dislocation of modern living, London four-piece DRY CLEANING have garnered admirers including Nick Cave, Grace Jones and Jeff Tweedy. As new album Secret Love refines their nervy post-punk sprechgesang, the band set their sights on new targets. “Art and humour are our main weapon,” they tell Stephen Troussé

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

From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock (reissue, 2004) DEAD OCEANS

In 1976, the revolutionary singer-songwriter LAURA NYRO returned from self-imposed exile. But her comeback confounded expectations, shifting away from the impassioned intimacies of her early albums to embrace more radical perspectives. Fifty years on, Nyro’s collaborators revisit her striking second act. “She was a hip American from the Bronx,” one friend and producer tells Rob Hughes. “But her soul was old.”

At the dawn of the new millennium, Matt Johnson was in a dark place. Over the previous two decades, the creative engine and sole permanent member of The The had built a devoted following for his inten