Thirty years on from their masterpiece album The Downward Spiral, we assess the studies of faith, authority and self-loathing from Trent Reznor’s band

Year Zero isn’t Nine Inch Nails’ strongest album, veering towards the kind of overproduced studio product that Grammys voters like – although there is still a distinct imprimatur to this mainstream blues-rock, as if finished with a black NIN wax seal. God Given is its pop moment, with distorted noises building the type of groove that Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera or Kylie Minogue might have tried out at the time in a moment of label-troubling moodiness.

Coldplay become act to headline most times with their fifth top slot, while Shania Twain is booked for the Sunday teatime ‘legend’ set as the lineup is announced

Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA will headline Glastonbury 2024, a diverse spread of A-list artists matched by a strong supporting lineup across the festival including Little Simz, LCD Soundsystem and Burna Boy, plus Shania Twain in the always-jubliant “legend” slot.

Much loved by Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis who once said they can “call in and do the milking any time” on his Worthy Farm site, Coldplay continue their longstanding relationship with the festival, becoming the first act to headline the Pyramid stage five times. They launched themselves into pop-rock’s big leagues with their first headline performance in 2002 when they had only released one album, and have since headlined in 2005, 2011 and 2016, as well as doing a livestreamed performance to an empty Pyramid stage field in lieu of a 2021 festival cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

(RVNG Intl)
While at times it brings to mind the hold music for a healing-crystal company, there is plenty of brilliantly retro songwriting

The nostalgic 80s sound of vaporwave , the nocturnal funk-pop of Nite Jewel, the blissful Balearic songs of the Mood Hut label and the kind of balladry heard between bouts of dimension-crossing depravity at a Twin Peaks bar combine on the second album by US singer and producer JJ Weihl, AKA Discovery Zone.

The period detail is expertly rendered, from Fairlight-style ersatz choral vocals to the same upward-zooming synth sound used by Alice Coltrane on her meditation tapes to evoke an expanding mind – and, inevitably, there are sax solos. This palette often makes the numerous pop-ambient instrumentals here feel rather like the hold music for a healing-crystal company, and many of these are pretty forgettable.

After disbanding cult pop act the Knife, Dreijer helped migrant musicians and resisted the Swedish far-right. His wondrous new club tracks now reconsider how art can inform politics

The past decade has been a journey for Olof Dreijer. In 2014 he and his sibling Karin disbanded their avant-pop duo the Knife at the height of their fame, and the Swedish producer found himself reckoning with his creative future. “I was spending my time doing a lot of youth work and activism and the tracks I was releasing weren’t in my own name,” Dreijer says over a video call from his home in Stockholm. “I wasn’t sure if I would continue working professionally in music.”

Having already released a slew of eerie, techno-influenced solo singles under the moniker Oni Ayhun from 2008 to 2010, Dreijer went on to teach music to undocumented migrants in Berlin and Stockholm, as well as produce for friends including Tunisian multi-instrumentalist Houeida Hedfi. “I didn’t think we needed more music from people like me,” he says, ie a white man. “I wanted to focus on helping other people realise their projects.”

ID3 tag on a track of his posted to SoundCloud in 2014 saying ‘vaccines are poisonous’ has been changed, said the musician

Aphex Twin has clarified his stance on vaccines after anti-vax sentiments and other conspiracy theories appeared in the ID3 tag of a song posted to SoundCloud.

A Reddit user found an ID3 tag on a song posted by the Cornish producer AKA Richard D James in 2014, reading “vaccines are poisonous, mercury, aluminum can+ autism, cancer” and also referencing 9/11, Hamas and chemtrails.

(Mute)
The avant garde musician’s first album in seven years features cinematic ambience, pummelling sound design and whinnying metal guitar

Iceland-based Australian composer Ben Frost has the portfolio career of most avant garde musicians, dividing his time between scores for film, TV and video games while also making opera and art installations. An album project seems almost quaint, but his first in seven years houses some of his very best work.

Frost has long tended towards symphonic grandeur, disrupting it with punkish guitar, glitching electronics and spooky sound design – with occasional spells of bluster or self-seriousness. But Scope Neglect undercuts that by centring the gnarly tongue-out riffs used by metal bands, played by prog-metal guitarist Greg Kubacki. Frost gave Kubacki and bassist Liam Andrews fully fledged orchestrations to guide the emotion of their playing – and then removed those orchestrations from the finished record, arranging it in a way that resists easy emotion.

Various venues, Bristol
It’s overambitious, but this festival remains a welcome alternative to generic lineups and corporate sponsorships – and there are stellar sets from L’Rain, Evian Christ and more

Amid festivals with homogenous crowd-pleasing lineups and corporate sponsorships, Bristol’s Simple Things is a welcome returnee in its first year back after the pandemic: an ambitious 15-hour programme of forward-thinking music across seven venues, including a bowling alley. It’s perhaps too ambitious – there are plenty of clashes, queues and frustratingly short sets – but it’s still hearteningly different from other festival bills.

Lauded multi-instrumentalist L’Rain warms up the day at Strange Brew as she glides through her quietly experimental album I Killed Your Dog, complete with a full band and samples of barking dogs and ringing phones. Like many of the performances that follow in the DIY space, L’Rain’s is strangely intimate, even in the face of the huge, enveloping rhythm section, owing to her delicate harmonies, faint bedroom-pop sensibilities and, no doubt, the band’s commitment to playing in socks.

British Land and AustraliaSuper want to create cultural venue that will include offices and shops

Printworks London, the 6,000-capacity post-industrial superclub, could reopen by 2026 after property developers that own the site filed their plans to Southwark council.

British Land and its partner AustralianSuper, one of the country’s largest pension funds, submitted a detailed proposal to the council on Monday to redevelop the site in Rotherhithe into a permanent cultural venue just over a year after the cavernous club shut its doors .

The rave pioneers on bricklaying, bust-ups and going to therapy

Orbital are brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Raised in Sevenoaks, Kent, they first worked together as bricklayers for their father’s business, but started recording music in 1987. Their first single, Chime, entered the Top 20 in 1990. With their crossover fusion of underground and stadium electronic music, Orbital went on to become one of the biggest British dance acts of the decade. The reissue of 1991’s The Green Album is out on 19 April. They tour the UK from 24 April.