I don’t have any more information on the new Bob Dylan album, Tempest, following last week’s newsletter and blog on Friday confirming the track listing, so apologies to all the readers who have written in, hungry for further details about the record. The absence of anything further I can tell you at the moment about Tempest gives me, however, the opportunity to briefly sing the praises of Lawless, the new movie from director John Hillcoat and Nick Cave, who’s written the screenplay, as he did for The Proposition, Hillcoat’s savage outback Western.

A distinct late ‘80s/early ‘90s feel to the list this week, with generally good new releases in here from Bob Mould, Mark Eitzel and Sebadoh. Couple of other things to flag up, though.

David Byrne and St Vincent have released a second track from their forthcoming album, Love This Giant. The track, "Weekend In The Dust", follows "Who", which they released in June. You can hear "Weekend In The Dust" here. It can be downloaded when you pre-order Love This Giant. The album is released on September 11 on 4AD/Todo Mundo.

Singer Tony Martin has died at the age of 98. The legendary crooner, who was best known for his hit singles "I Get Ideas", "Begin The Beguine" and "There's No Tomorrow", passed away on Friday (July 27) from natural causes at his home in West Los Angeles, reports Reuters. Martin, who enjoyed the most successful periods of his career in the 1930s and 1950s, was a contemporary of the likes of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra and sold over one million copies of his most successful single "To Each His Own".

Momentous all-star blues jam in Chicago...

Paul McCartney was reportedly paid only £1 for his performance at the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday [July 27]. According to Associated Press, McCartney, as well as fellow performers Mike Oldfield, Emeli Sandie and Dizzee Rascal, were paid nominal fees of £1 ($1.57) to make the Olympic contracts binding. The ceremony was watched by an average of 42 million people worldwide. However, many music fans in America were left outraged after NBC's broadcast of the Opening Ceremony failed to include a number of key musical segments.

Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder has said he's happy his band didn't as wait as long as The Stone Roses to reform. When asked by The Guardian if he wished he had left it longer to reform the Mondays after finding out the amount of money the Roses were offered to reform, which has been estimated at £26 million, he replied: "What, and got as skint as they did? No thanks! I've got six kids who've all gotta go to private school!"

Arctic Monkeys' cover of The Beatles' 'Come Together' is racing up the singles chart. The track – which featured as part of Danny Boyle's four-hour Olympic Opening Ceremony extravaganza on Friday – has climbed to Number 14 in the iTunes download chart. "Caliban's Dream" – the Underworld-penned track sung by Two Door Cinema Club frontman Alex Trimble is currently at Number Five.

Radiohead closed Fuji Rock festival in Japan with a 23-song headline set last night (July 29). Walking on stage at the stroke of 9.30pm, the five-piece strolled through "Lotus Flower" and "Bloom" from The King Of Limbs and "15 Step" from In Rainbows in quick succession, to the delight of the 50,000-strong crowd. Songs from The King Of Limbs and In Rainbows made up most of the rest of the set, with just a handful of songs from The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief featuring.

Been talking for a while now about how I think Six Organs Of Admittance’s “Ascent” is one of the best albums of 2012, and I’ve finally written about it at length in the new issue of Uncut. Anyhow, Ben Chasny responded to a bunch of questions I sent over with a characteristic diligence, and I figured it was worth posting the whole exchange here. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey