There's a play by Ben Jonson called Epicoene, or The Silent Woman in which a wealthy old fool named Morose has such a fanatical hatred of noise that he's devised a room with double walls and treble ceilings to try to block out the world. 

Mazzy Star release their first album in 17 years this September. Seasons of Your Day, co-written by Hope Sandoval (pictured) and David Roback, features performances by all the band's original members, including guests Colm O'Ciosoig of My Bloody Valentine and the late Bert Jansch. This week the band posted “California” on YouTube at tinyurl.com/os96qro. It's a gorgeous, affecting song, sure to please fans of their shoegaze dream-pop.

An artist who invites us to listen as well as look

I can't help feeling a little let down by this follow-up to 2009's Walking on a Dream, which seems to compress that album's imagination and stylistic variety through a small valve set midway between Daft Punk and The Scissor Sisters.

Blown away by a hip-hop superstar’s brutal beats

Forget pyrotechnics, dancers and crazy hydaulics - Rihanna's Diamonds tour is essentially one long celebration of her lady-parts

LA musician Julia Holter (pictured) returns in August with her third album in three years in the shape of Loud City Song. Last year's much praised Ekstasis was a stand-out, full of great experimental baroque pop, strange electronics, fine songwriting and Holter's lovely high-pitched vocal.

The promotional bumf cites Colette and Frank O'Hara as influences on this album themed around Holter's relationship with her hometown, all of which might make one uneasy, but in her skilled hands it should all be OK.

The first track from Loud City Song has been a released and it is an intriguing opening effort. “World” is an extremely sparse affair with those high-end, poised vocals leading the charge over spare hints of synths and strings. The song can be heard with its lo-fi, LA-shot video at youtu.be/BmT7GKPsxto.

This weekend's Field Day festival in east London is packed with storming new acts.

Critics find little fault in Daft Punk's first album in eight years, which has its feet planted on the dance floor despite a few musical twists and turns

Somehow, it’s already the middle of 2013. We’ve survived apocalypse scares, generated celebrities who are more influential than politicians, and grown into adulthood without everything we’ve forgotten about Egyptian pharaohs from primary school being a hindrance to everyday life.

Dust off the glitter ball and dig out your Spandex – disco is back at the top of the charts. Samuel Muston explains why

Chairman, Dick Olver, endured a torrid time at his final AGM as protesters against its deals with Saudi Arabia were ejected amid stormy scenes

Karl Hyde’s debut UK gig as a solo artist shows how far club culture has come. Not as spectacularly, perhaps, as when his veteran dance outfit Underworld helped their old pal Danny Boyle by assembling the soundtrack for last summer’s Olympic Opening Ceremony, 16 years after their “Born Slippy” helped give Trainspotting its propulsive rush.