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  • Rufus Wainwright wearing a black dinner-style jacket, white shirt and thin black bowtie, staring at the camera expressionless.

    10 Chaotic Questions
    Rufus Wainwright: ‘I had a great party trick, but it once blew up in my face’

  • MJ Lenderman on stage in London.

    The Observer's artist of the week
    MJ Lenderman – a shooting star from the American south

  • Bryn Terfel wearing a white shirt and a blue jacket, in front of a pale blue background

    The Q&A
    Opera singer Bryn Terfel: ‘Who would play me in the film of my life? Meat Loaf’

    The bass-baritone on nerves at King Charles’s coronation, upsetting conductor Daniel Barenboim, and a nasty dog bite
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Interviews

  • DJ EZ.

    Dance music
    ‘There was three of them waiting, like: play this track or else’: DJ EZ, the reality-bending maestro of the decks

  • Ripple Effect Band - Mayawa. Photo credit: Silly Goose Inc

    Australian music
    Ripple Effect Band: the all-female rock group singing in a language spoken by about 50 people

  • ‘The king of nothing matters’ … Benjamin Reichwald, AKA Bladee.

    Rap
    ‘I was really not OK’: Bladee on PTSD, Charli xcx and being struck by lightning

  • The Mars Volta

    Rock
    The Mars Volta: ‘The world we were in was very sexist and homophobic’

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Album reviews

  • Studio portrait of Flo, in red latex

    Alexis Petridis's album of the week
    Flo: Access All Areas – ​skilful R&B revivalists need to get their freak on a bit more

  • Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and Bert Cools of Merope.

    Folk album of the month
    Merope: Vėjula – Lithuanian folk reborn in glittering new forms

    • Rock
      Poppy: Negative Spaces – screams and sweetness as metalcore meets loungecore

    • Pop
      Shawn Mendes: Shawn – a candid, stripped-back return

    • Country
      Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith and Fables – Dolly digs deep

    • Pop
      070 Shake: Petrichor – maxes out on heightened feelings

    • Jazz
      Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet The Way Out of Easy – a captivating, unhurried ebb and flow

    • Contemporary album of the month
      Distant Voices, New Worlds – avant-garde vision of Albion by bright British composers

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Live reviews

  • MJ Lenderman at the Garage, London.

    Indie
    MJ Lenderman – songs of solace and goofy poetry from lauded indie darling

  • Amy Taylor fronts Amyl and the Sniffers at the Roundhouse, wearing bondage-look shorts and crop top and cheerfully sticking out her tongue

    Kitty Empire's artist of the week
    Amyl and the Sniffers – never a dull moment in a pub-punk fireworks display

    • Ghostface Killah at Electric Brixton, London

      Rap
      Ghostface Killah – Wu-Tang vet coasts as fans take up the slack

    • Faintly liturgical … Khruangbin’s Laura Lee Ochoa at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro.

      Pop
      Khruangbin – exquisite dreamy grooves get lost in the ether

    • Laurie Anderson in Ark: United States V.

      Experimental
      Laurie Anderson: Ark: United States V – portrait of America is a multimedia mess

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Add to playlist

  • Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s Emmie-Mae Avery, Lola Cherry, Billy Ward, Vera Leppänen and Clio Starwood lying in a sort of circle on the floor.

    One to watch
    Man/Woman/Chainsaw

  • Portrait

    Ranked
    Top of the pips: Fiona Apple’s 20 greatest songs

  • Emily Perry

    One to watch
    Pem

  • Julian Casablancas

    Honest playlist
    ‘Last Nite by the Strokes is dead to me’: Julian Casablancas’s honest playlist

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Obituaries

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From the archive

  • Mitski

    Mitski, the US’s best young songwriter
    I’m a black hole where people dump their feelings

    With songs about heartbreak and capitalism, the cult pop singer is on the brink of the mainstream – but the intensity of her fandom has her fearing for her safety
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Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

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