The xx's Jamie Smith has revealed that he is working on building a brand new instrument based on both an MPC sequencer and an iPad. The producer and DJ told the Observer that he is planning on making a see-through device which will make music via "colourful graphics" and finger taps. The band's vocalist Oliver Sim also explained that he has written a song for Beyonce. He said that he has written a track which isn't right for The xx, but which he hopes Beyonce would like to record "if he can work up the courage to ask".

Stevie Wonder has spoken out about comments he made regarding the sexuality of soul singer Frank Ocean last week. Speaking to the Guardian, Wonder had said that he thought Ocean – who publicly revealed that his first love had been a man earlier this year – might be 'confused'. He said: "I think honestly, some people who think they're gay, they're confused. People can misconstrue closeness for love. People can feel connected, they bond."

Even though each artist gets at least a 45-minute slot - and everyone on the main stage gets an hour or more - there's still a lack of epic outros at End Of The Road.

Beautifully measured return to the studio from this humble master of English song...

The second day of Dorset's End Of The Road is a scorcher – not bad for the first day of autumn. Van Dyke Parks must be pleasantly surprised, if he's still around.

It's the last day of summer, as Van Dyke Parks tells us, repeatedly. He's right, of course, but it's also true that there are still two days left of End Of The Road, pretty much the last festival of 2012.

David Bowie has broken his silence to say he is not involved in a retrospective of his costumes at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. The Observer reported this week that the legendary singer would co-curate an exhibition of his life and work told through his extravagant costumes next year. The show was said to chart his rise to cult status, using his collection of outfits to document his changing identity, with him selecting outfits for the retrospective.

50 years is a long time to wait for a book. In September 1956, Alan Garner started writing his debut novel, a children’s book set among the landscape and folklore he’d known all his life – Alderley Edge in Cheshire, 12 miles south of Manchester. First published in 1960, The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen followed the adventures of 12 year-old twins, Colin and Susan, on the Edge – “a long-backed hill… high and sombre and black.”

One bright morning a couple of weeks ago, I was unpacking CDs in my new house and found Four Tet’s “Pause” as an ideal soundtrack. Eleven years old, it still sounded wonderful: beatific but fleet of foot; contemporary in spite of folktronica, or whatever it was called (the pricelessly daft “Idylltronica” was even better), being a very fleeting fad. I think Kieran Hebden once blamed me for coming up with that folktronica tag; wrongly, I hope.

Real life slice of Texan noir...