Plus: Björk on protecting salmon, going on strike and magical mushrooms
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Sleeve Notes
Picks of the week
Rapper Danny Brown on reaching rock bottom – then beating addiction
‘I was really hard to work with’  
Rapper Danny Brown on reaching rock bottom – then beating addiction
He’s one of the most distinctive voices in US music, but got lost in drink, drugs and depression. Brown explains why he poured his pain into new album Quaranta – and now dotes on his chihuahuas
‘I always wanted to be David Attenborough’  
Björk on protecting salmon, going on strike and magical mushrooms
Jazz rulebreaker Hiromi  
The piano is a plane that can take me anywhere
‘My digestive system was a volcano’  
Indie star Youth Lagoon on surviving chronic illness to make a masterpiece
‘Doubt is exciting’  
Cellist Mabe Fratti on chaos, curiosity and climbing volcanoes
‘It will change the way we think about their story’  
Mythical archive of ‘first Beatles historian’ comes to light
Reviews
Dua Lipa: Houdini  
Vanishing-act anthem destined for total ubiquity
Vanishing-act anthem destined for total ubiquity
Alexis Petridis's album of the week  
Chase and Status: 2Ruff Vol 1 – resurgent drum’n’bass duo rev a little too hard
Global album of the month  
Thandi Ntuli with Carlos Niño: Rainbow Revisited – exquisitely minimal jazz
Album review  
The Kid Laroi: The First Time – angsty debut has moments of thrilling intensity
Film review  
Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin – portrait of the artist keeps its distance
Album review  
Beirut: Hadsel – joyously positive healing hymns
Spotlight
Readers on the Beatles’ Now and Then
‘Dull and unremarkable’ or ‘just fab’?  
Readers on the Beatles’ Now and Then
Guardian readers share their very varied responses to the ‘final’ single by the 60s superstars
Classical
Allan Clayton  
I’m your tortured tenor for hire
I’m your tortured tenor for hire
Opera review  
7 Deaths of Maria Callas – Marina Abramović dreams up a diva’s greatest hits
7 Deaths of Maria Callas – Marina Abramović dreams up a diva’s greatest hits
Classical album of the week  
Eros: Bridge, Grime, Eröd and Ginastera – Mithras Trio’s debut is intriguing and eclectic
Eros: Bridge, Grime, Eröd and Ginastera – Mithras Trio’s debut is intriguing and eclectic
Opera review  
John Adams: Antony and Cleopatra – European premiere fuelled by molten chemistry
John Adams: Antony and Cleopatra – European premiere fuelled by molten chemistry
Concert review  
Nutcracker/Iolanta – Tchaikovsky double bill is what he would have wanted
Nutcracker/Iolanta – Tchaikovsky double bill is what he would have wanted
Album review  
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé album – generations will thank John Wilson for this glorious recording
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé album – generations will thank John Wilson for this glorious recording
Add to playlist
Ranked  
Yoko Ono: her 20 greatest songs
Yoko Ono: her 20 greatest songs
‘I organised coach trips to see them’  
Readers on the forgotten musicians of their home towns
On my radar  
Cat Power’s cultural highlights
One to watch  
Nightbus
You may have missed
Meet Gob Nation, south London’s oddball music collective
‘We’re like a frat house’  
Meet Gob Nation, south London’s oddball music collective
Living in an old care home, recording in a disused police station and constantly playing in each other’s bands, could the likes of the Tubs, Ex-Vöid and Suep have stumbled upon a new model for struggling musicians?
‘You couldn’t make it up’  
Barbra Streisand on taking on Hollywood, her pal King Charles and cloning her dog
She’s the Hollywood megastar who’s sung for everyone – and looked to science when her beloved pet died. In an exclusive extract from her new memoir, the singer and actor shares some tales from an extraordinary life – including a spooky encounter with a medium
‘I had to fax the lyrics to the gospel choir’s pastor’  
How the Soup Dragons made I’m Free
‘We were indie kids but suddenly we found ourselves at a party, chatting with Dennis Hopper as Jon Bon Jovi walked past and Madonna had just left the building’
‘Things were really ugly’  
How one of Brazil’s greatest records was nearly not made
Two of Brazil’s greatest stars – singer Elis Regina and composer Tom Jobim – came together for a project saved by a whisker
God is a DJ  
The Jesuit priest who runs avant garde electronica nights
Father Antonio Pileggi is a former composer who found his calling running a festival dedicated to ethereal and spiritual expressions of electronic, ambient and experimental music
Led Zeppelin IV  
Figure on cover identified as Victorian Wiltshire thatcher
Fifty-year mystery solved as research suggests picture shows Lot Long, a widower from Mere
Live music this week
Giggs & Diddy  
Potent chemistry unites Peckham and NYC
Potent chemistry unites Peckham and NYC
Kitty Empire's artist of the week  
Brian Eno and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic – orchestral manoeuvres with the king of ambience
An 80th Birthday Concert for Bert Jansch  
Moving homage to 60s folk guitar hero
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