Rachel Zeffira is playing the i Arena at this year's Latitude festival at Henham Park, Suffolk

Mercury Prize-nominated band Friendly Fires are staging a star-studded charity gig after the death of their friend Adam Connolly last week.

To the casual observer, it might seem that Australia’s new psychedelic heroes Tame Impala have plonked into the big time out of nowhere; in fact this headline slot at Brixton crowns a steady build of three years among the UK’s more paisley-minded types.

There could be no more arresting an opening to a gig. As the audience faced the orchestra, awaiting the arrival of the Canadian soprano and multi-instrumentalist composer Rachel Zeffira, a beautiful sound erupted from behind, sending heads turning in the opposite direction.

Adele’s run of award-winning success has finally been brought to an end after Florence + The Machine triumphed with a double win at the NME awards.

There's a dark and backcombed shadow that looms over innocent young art-rock hopes Toy, shake their shiny manes as they may on this tiny stage.

Every night, after the last visitor to Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum has left, the prestigious art gallery's newest curator flickers into life. The expert is a robot, which has begun the most exhaustive research ever performed on Picasso's renowned masterpiece, Guernica. The mission: to establish the extent of the damage the 75-year-old painting has sustained during its turbulent life.

He painted Guernica to expose General Franco's tyranny, and refused to let it return home until the dictator was dead. Now it's showing the scars of its global tour, say Alasdair Fotheringham and Enjoli Liston

This band is now so good that our critic is prepared to put its background of privilege to one side; plus, a new soulstress

It's a challenge for even the mildest-mannered Class Warrior to remember to review The Maccabees' music, not their names: Orlando, Hugo, Felix, Rupert (and Sam), but our privately schooled heroes' third album is their best yet.

Charles Dickens was driven by demons when he wrote his much-loved yuletide tales. Award-winning author Justin Cartwright feels the pain

This year's best-selling singer, Adele, is absent from HMV album of the year list

Until now, Bernardo Atxaga's novels and stories, from Obabakoak in 1989 to The Accordionist's Son in 2003, have all dealt with the contemporary history of the Basque Country: its emigration and conflicts. The best-known Basque writer, Atxaga has often expressed frustration at being typecast. Here, in his latest novel, he breaks radically with this subject-matter, though it was written in the Basque language, Euskera, Atxaga's native tongue spoken by no more than a million people. Seven houses in France is set in the Congo in 1903-1904. Atxaga takes it for granted that Belgian imperialism was criminally responsible for this Heart of Darkness. Against this background, his main interest is to explore the feelings and behaviour of the group of white officers confined in the Yangambi garrison.

It takes a brave writer to tackle the epic subject of the French Revolution. But historical novelist Katharine McMahon, author of a bestselling novel set during the Crimean War, The Rose of Sebastopol, takes no prisoners. It's the summer of 1788 and Paris is ablaze with revolutionary ideas. Swept along in the excitement is Asa Ardleigh, a 19-year-old Englishwoman visiting the city with her newly-married sister, Philippa.