The press notes describe this baroque, Scandi girl band as purveyors of "fairground burlesque" and, accordingly, this first UK release is an aural Waltzer, exhilarating and nauseous.

Two things that we've never met anyone who dislikes – The Muppets and the Flight of the Conchords. As such, it was almost inevitable that Conchord Bret McKenzie's writing of songs for the recent Muppets movie was guaranteed to bring a smile to the faces of most right-thinking fans of puppets and well-pitched parody songs.

Tuesday's awards ceremony was anodyne and uncomfortable. Andy Gill offers his 20-point plan to inject a bit of danger back into the show

Still based in the North-east of England, brothers David and Peter Brewis are on album number four now while still denying that Field Music is a band at all.

No one ever said actresses trying to make it in Los Angeles live in the real world.

During two meetings that were secretly recorded in June and July 2011, two undercover reporters talked with Tim Collins, managing director of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, David Wilson, chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Relations, and former diplomat Sir David Richmond, who works for the firm's "strategic communications and geopolitical" specialist arm, Bell Pottinger Sans Frontières. Below are extracts of the conversations which took place.

A tribute album to the late, sometimes-great John Martyn (betcha couldn't see that coming).

Given that he (allegedly) recommended Andy Coulson as Tory comms director, and (allegedly) invited James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to his 40th birthday party, you may be surprised to learn that George (né Gideon) Osborne is said to be intensely relaxed about the imminent publication of ministers' meetings with media execs.

The names and faces of Colin and Christine Weir may not remain in the public's consciousness for quite as long as some of the people whose worldly wealth theirs now exceeds – David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Ringo Starr, Phil Collins – but their decision to go public is an increasingly rare one among lottery winners in an increasingly media-savvy world.

The last work of a crumbled genius, recorded in the year before his death, some 30 years after his last great work.

The low-key, chill-out format of the Late Night Tales series of band-curated "mixtape" compilations lends itself well to Midlake, whose selection tracks the fringes where disparate strains of art-rock, folk and folk-rock rub up against each other.

Boasting a rich career that started with mod-punkers The Jam more than 30 years ago, Paul Weller struck gold again this year. Delirious reviews welcomed the Modfather back to the UK charts in April with his 10th solo album, Wake Up the Nation, a short, sharp and striking work of fresh experimental hits nominated for the Mercury Prize. It's this new material that dominates Weller's set on the last night of his UK tour at Wembley yet, surprisingly, his performance massively misses the mark.