One strain of American rock that’s never quite made a successful transition into British music is the sub genre known, in typically contradictory fashion, as ‘slacker rock’.

It’s hard to fathom that British Sea Power now have five albums under their belts.

The best shows are most often those where artist and audience fall into a frenzied feedback loop of mutual appreciation.

Some tech-savvy good Samaritan recently ripped and uploaded a BBC radio documentary about house music grandaddy Larry Levan.

King’s College seems an odd venue for Australian singer-songwriter Gotye.

Save for an old electronic keyboard and a delay pedal that makes singer Kamal’s vocals ping-pong out of the room, Flamingods don’t do instruments with wires.

Drugs. They’re rife within popular music. Especially within the type that Texan trio Pure X make, courtesy of a Spiritualized habit they just can’t (or won’t) kick.

Sisters Hannah and Colette Thurlow famously named their bristly, glowering rock band after a favourite moment on a Melvins song, 2 minutes and 54 seconds in, to be precise.

The man formerly known as MF Doom returns to the Roundhouse for a sold-out show, barely a year after his debut European performance in the same venue.

In the studio, Caged Animals (Soft Black’s Vincent Cacchione’s new baby) deal in a faintly cloying, suburban youth-channelling indie with a twist.

Despite the days of Union Jack plastered guitars and weather-worn parkas being a prerequisite of any northern based guitar band being long gone.

“It’s hard to believe that in this very room they used to have gladiators fighting to the death,” exclaims Metronomy main-man Joe Mount.

Yugoslavian Boys are burning up the Punk rulebook then pissing on its dead ashes.