Communion, the folk club night and label co-founded by Mumford and Sons keyboardist Ben Lovett and Kevin Jones is behind the debut releases of two of this year's Mercury Prize nominees – Michael Kiwanuka and Ben Howard.

Two urban festivals in a similar rural spirit occupy Victoria Park this weekend.

Cinema's styles and stories have been a rich resource for singers such as Lana Del Rey. It's a fertile attraction, says Gillian Orr

Laura Marling is the most gifted singer-songwriter working today. And with her third album, she's set for mainstream success, says Andy Gill

Emmy The Great, aka 27-year-old Emma Lee-Moss, grew up in Hong Kong and the Home Counties. Now based in London, the singer-songwriter sang with Noah and the Whale before making two solo albums, First Love (2009) and Virtue (released this June).

This year, for the second time, I've judged the bands who will be performing on the BBC Introducing stage at this weekend's Wychwood Festival. To sum up, this requires listening to 70 new bands originating from the seven regions surrounding the festival and narrowing them down to 10. This is much the same process as when I extract all CDs by new acts from my daily pile of post and take them home for a weekly session that I call "spin it or bin it". The session typically involves a bottle of wine, and a music-loving friend for that important second opinion. Any act that makes it to the second song goes on one pile, any that doesn't meets its less happy fate on the second. You must understand that the pile of new music is always large.

Justin Vernon, the man behind Bon Iver, has finally recorded a follow-up to his much loved 2007 album, For Emma, Forever Ago.

Noah and the Whale have swapped songs of heartbreak for a celebratory new album peopled with captivating characters. The band's Charlie Fink tells Gillian Orr why

The third album by these posh indie-folkers may be one huge conceptual prank.

An East End chapel is the latest offbeat location for bands to record. Elisa Bray hears the attraction of boats, factories and even forests

A band reinvented once more

Laura Marling's triumph at the Brits introduced a prime-time audience to a hugely undervalued treasure, says Gillian Orr

Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley has shown a commendable desire to break new ground in recent months, with the African and Japanese elements of Night Train now followed by this debut album from the country-rock project he's hatched with Jesse Quin and members of The Killers, Mumford & Sons and Noah And The Whale.

A model looker with friends in hyped places (Mumford and Sons, Noah and the Whale), Pownall has everything going for him but his music.