My parents were... not the best.

Sultan Khan was a hereditary sarangiya – a sarangi player – and one of the preeminent Hindustani or Northern Indian classical soloists of our age. He played one of the most brutish-looking instruments humanity has ever devised. Yet the voices that he coaxed from this squat, bowed, stringed instrument were divine. The instrument's name derives from two words meaning "100 colours", but Sultan Khan proved that the sarangi hid many more than that. Many hold it to be the instrument able to capture the nuances and tonal range of the human voice the most faithfully. Many – Mickey Hart, the Grateful Dead drummer-turned-Smithsonian Folkwayswallah who recorded him included – hold sarangi to be the greatest melody instrument ever devised. And without question, Khan was one of sarangi's all-time virtuosi.

A little under an hour has passed, and James Blake has arrived at the end of his show, bar one last, luscious, understated reading of "The Wilhelm Scream". "I actually haven't got much music, I don't know if you've noticed," laughs the singer and electronic composer to cheers from the crowd. Possibly they haven't noticed, because what had gone before was a rich, evocative and often ground-breaking core of work, which sums up this most deservedly fêted (and, indeed, Mercury-nominated) young artist.

Adapting Virginia Woolf's fantastical novel, which follows the title character through four centuries and a sex change, is no mean feat.

On the opening day of Bestival, Friendly Fires will curate a one-off exploration of “The Past, Present and Future of Dance Music” in the RizLab arena.

Nero are the London dubstep/drum'n' bass duo of Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray whose debut mixes the pop and the ponderous, occupying a halfway point between Burial and N-Dubz.

Lamb used to feel like the most infuriatingly middle-class band in existence: a Portishead for people who were scared of the dark, a proto-Dido to provide ambience at dinner parties.

Fabric is teeming, its air-conditioning units dripping with such persistence that it seems to be raining. A secret treat under London's streets, the venue is designed in such a way that it is difficult to find the exit. You find yourself stumbling into room upon room of never-ending beats. This intense atmosphere suits Chase and Status's set, which steers away from their hits and concentrates on the drum and bass that ignited their passion.

Nitin Sawhney is not one for the spotlight. Sitting stage right at the Royal Albert Hall, playing wondrous melody lines on his acoustic guitar as a series of singers belt out lead vocals next to him, he looks like just another member of the band; in reality, he is so much more.

As the Southbank Centre launched its celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain this week, it seems fitting to recall the secret history of one of Britain's most important textile designers, who came to prominence during the festival.