Twenty six years ago, Italian writer and gardener Umberto Pasti fell asleep beneath a remote fig tree on a stony hillside facing the Atlantic Ocean, 40 miles south of Tangier. When he awoke, he knew t

Praise be! Prog’s most devout figure, Neal Morse, gets the gang back together, dials back the sermonising and reaches for the stars on his band’s sparkling first album in five years.

In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

Marie Soliman has given this traditional Cotswolds cottage a jewel-box makeover – thanks to a mix of found pieces, dramatic wall treatments and contemporary art

Their tenth LP, borne of a Tuareg musician summit in Tamanrasset, Algeria, the group’s ancestral home.

Works by Bowie, Crumb, Brahms, Mahler, Wolf, Schubert, Clarke et al Olivia Vermeulen (mezzo), Jan Philip Schulze (piano/synthesizer), Bernd Oezsevim (percussion) Challenge Classics CC720038 67 mins Th