Weekender

IF YOU ONLY BUY ONE RECORD THIS WEEK...
Most weeks this would be the new album from Clinic, Bubblegum their sixth studio effort and one that sounds not all that much like numbers one to five inclusive for once, more pastoral and blurrily languid than before. But oddly the headlines are taken by a reissue this week, and one from only last year at that, albeit one you can actually buy in shops and from download centres this time. Not all that oddly, though, given it's Nosferatu D2's We're Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise, four years past recording and yet still sounding completely contemporary, Adam Parker's octopus on amphetamines drumming, Ben Parker's tense guitar squalls and those hyperspeed lyrical brickbats we've come to know from his Superman Revenge Squad persona, with the self-doubt replaced by anger at everyone and everything else. Having spent a day of a major festival swanning round in one of their T-shirts this summer you should know our adoration for this record is unbound. Now it's time for you to learn. Look, here's an example of what to expect:

Nosferatu D2 - Springsteen by audioantihero

SOMEWHERE TO GO
Drowned in Sound are having their tenth birthday at the moment, and the live wing of the festivities kicks off in earnest on Friday at Skate Central in Sheffield. Rollerpalooza II brings together a rollerskating rink, No Age, Pulled Apart By Horses - unstable enough on terra firma, you'd have to say - and Male Bonding. Also on Friday, just along the Pennines, another cracker of a joint tour kicks off as the serrated blues-grinding of Archie Bronson Outfit headline Leeds' celebrated Brudenell Social Club with The Victorian English Gentlemens Club supporting. They move on to Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on Saturday and Nottingham Bodega Sunday (the same day Frankie & The Heartstrings and Summer Camp are at Stealth) before visiting Birmingham, Brighton and London Scala together next week.

BANDS START UP EACH AND EVERY DAY
Most Kingdom Of Fife musical activity is parlayed by the travails of the Anderson brothers and Fence friends of Anstruther, but Dunfermline's The Scottish Enlightenment are slowly (their first single came out in 2007) proving themselves worthy in their own far off field. The title track of their new EP Little Sleep, available through Bandcamp and also on Spotify, starts with cascading sweeps of guitar and then soars towards post-rock territory, like a less feedback frenzied, more pensive and liable to properly explode on contact Twilight Sad. It might be a cliche by now to say a Scottish band sound like they're pissed off with everything (and pissed) and channel that into their music, but that last ditch desperation against the world is what comes across strongest.

THERE'S ALWAYS A FESTIVAL SOMEWHERE
If Truck is the king of the DIY festivals and Wood its horticultural price consort, OX4 is a minor viscount with plentiful designs on making a name for itself. A one day event in venues across Oxford's Cowley Road. Everything Everything, who as you may know everybody now hates, are de facto headliners, ahead of Abe Vigoda, Dog Is Dead, Willy Mason, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Boat To Row, Chad Valley, John Spiers, Dead Jerichos and ex-Goldrushists, and thus lords of this hectare, Dreaming Spires.