All 12 nominated artists will perform at the ceremony for the first time ever

It is hard not to be nostalgic on nights like this. About an NME night when Pulp were on the bottom of a bill headlined, I think, by Kingmaker. About the party for “OU” at the Leadmill, with a problematic balloon launch and a large papier mache head, and the party for “Do You Remember The First Time” at the ICA.

Band's guitarist hints at reunion dates for 2012

'The Smile Sessions' sees the remaining band members returning to the abandoned album

In the second week of May, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings drove from Los Angeles to Nashvillle. The journey took 31 hours, and Welch filmed a small portion of it on her iPhone. The clip is framed by an open car window, and outside you can see the flooded Mississippi stretching away from the edge of the road to the horizon: a new inland sea for the beleaguered American South.

This is the second part of a lengthy piece I wrote for Uncut earlier this summer. The first part is here.

As has probably been pointed out ad nauseam, Jeff Tweedy seems to take a constant pleasure in wrongfooting Wilco fans. So it is with the start of “The Whole Love”, the band’s eighth studio album. “Art Of Almost” begins with a burst of staticky guitar and pulses along, mixing orchestral stabs, a plausibly funky bassline, a motorik core akin to “Spiders” and “Bull Black Nova”, and a distracted melody from Tweedy.

Welsh trio will play mammoth set, which will feature every single one of their singles

Lou Reed says 'Lulu' is 'the best thing I've ever done'

Been away for a while, so as you might imagine there are a lot of new things in here. Particularly liking The Field, Feist and James Blackshaw at this early stage.