Anna von Hausswolff: Iconoclasts review – exhilarating, euphoric goth songcraft
The Swedish experimental musician pivots from drones to spectacular pop melodies, with guest spots from Iggy Pop and Ethel Cain
Lily Allen announces UK theatre tour for her West End Girl album
The British pop star will perform her headline-grabbing fifth album from front to back in a run of dates next March
Stella Donnelly on the painful friend breakup that inspired her new album: ‘I’m trying to protect them – but I’ve written this record’
On her third album, Love and Fortune, the Australian singer has captured the dull ache of being rejected by a friend – and how she fell in love with music again
Who is Lily Allen’s Madeline about? Wait, I don’t actually want to know – pop needs its mysteries
Whether it’s Parton’s Jolene, Beyoncé’s Becky with the good hair and now Madeline on Allen’s new album, the ‘other woman’ is everywhere – but gossip risks spoiling these songs
‘I flew to Luxembourg to see the gig there instead!’: music fans on how they cope with high UK ticket prices
As increasing prices and fees make gig-going difficult, readers voice their frustration – and suggest alternatives
Teenage Daydream by Debsey Wykes review – coming of age in an all-girl guitar band
Dolly Mixture’s singer and bassist looks back on their time chasing mainstream success and facing down outrageous sexism
‘All roads lead to Grace Jones’: visual artists on the music that fires them up in the studio
Chris Ofili loves steel pans. Lindsey Mendick adores Self Esteem. And Ragnar Kjartansson enjoys everything from Bach to the Cure. Artists reveal the bangers that get their creative juices fizzing
Sananda Maitreya review – the former Terence Trent D’Arby returns in astonishing vocal form
Pop’s lost prodigy returns for the first time in 23 years with a dazzling, genre-hopping show – and a falsetto that still floors the crowd
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke says he would ‘absolutely not’ play in Israel now
Singer says he will not perform in Israel while Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power, eight years after Radiohead defied criticism to perform in Tel Aviv
‘Pepper-spraying a 15 year old is cowardly’: Turnstile on hostile cops, playing through pain and taking hardcore punk global
The Baltimore band have built a vast fanbase with their explosive live performances, but an incident at a recent show laid bare the challenges they face as they ascend to superstar status. Can they maintain their hardcore ethos?
Dave Ball obituary
One half of the synth-pop duo Soft Cell best known for its No 1 single Tainted Love
‘I don’t make it easy for myself’: divorce and desire power Lily Allen’s autofictional comeback
The singer has brought her seven-year music hiatus to an end with a new album, West End Girl
Add to playlist: the spiky, playful free jazz of Laura Ann Singh and the week’s best new tracks
A rowdy debut departs from Singh’s American bolero work to revel in the chaos of atonal scrapes, cymbal splashes, wonky horns and raucous vocals
‘Raise the questions. Don’t provide the answers’: composer Jake Heggie on 25 years of Dead Man Walking
As his groundbreaking opera about the death penalty comes to the UK, Heggie reflects on its enduring power and the story’s relevance in an age of division
Jennifer Walton: Daughters review – a stylish and painful debut
Fiction, folk and a devastating diagnosis feature in the producer and DJ’s literary penmanship, her gentle, gothic vocals thick with morbid, magical thinking