On Tour: Owls, The War On Drugs, First Aid Kit, plus the latest festival news

Chicago experimental rockers Owls are on tour throughout the UK in September, playing Glasgow's Audio on 16 September, Manchestser's The Deaf Institute on 17 September, and a strong of dates in other cities. The band formerly known as Cap'n Jazz are promoting their latest LP Two, released by Polyvinyl in March.

We spoke to Owls founder Tim Kinsella back in March, and he told us about the process of recording their long-awaited return. "The process of remaining engaged in your own life is incredibly interesting for us," said Kinsella. "We’ve been writing songs together since 1989; it’s a good time to check in to see what we all agree on. It’s about finding our sense of place in the world, and largely that’s defined by the relationships with each other that we’ve been invested in for 25 years." Read the full interview here.

Happening a little sooner, and no less exciting, is the UK tour of Philadelphia rockers The War On Drugs. They're touring latest full-length offering Lost In The Dream, about which we spoke to the band's Adam Granduciel back in March. "Music was the one thing that as I kept getting older, I was getting more obsessed with," he told us.

"With recording, with getting better. That's the one thing I do have that unbridled passion for. It's fun for me to go on these journeys with the songs. People joke that I'm a perfectionist, but when you work at something for a year and start to see the songs take shape, then you start making drastic changes." See those changes wrought in a live setting at The Academy 2 in Manchester on 28 May. They return to Manchester to play The Ritz on 11 July, and then Glasgow's O2 ABC on 11 August. Read the full interview here.

Swedish folk-pop duo First Aid Kit will be touring the UK in September - as well as appearing at Latitude (17-20 Jul) and Green Man (14-17 Aug), they will visit Glasgow's The Old Fruitmarket on 16 September, and Manchester's The Albert Hall on 20 September. Their third album, Stay Gold, is out on 9 June. 

We interviewed the duo a few years back, when they were just starting out - "We've always wanted to tour," the duo told us. "It's not a negative thing, it's such a privilege. It's so great to meet people and have people listen to our stuff. We might get sick of the songs, but every time you play them, you notice something new about them. As long as you don't drink too much and stay up late, then touring shouldn't be a problem." We hope they can stick to that as they hit up their Scottish and Manchester dates! Read the interview in full here.

A few summer festivals have added some impressive names to their bill in the last week or so - first up there's Finland's Flow Festival (8-10 Aug), who will now be welcoming Neneh Cherry and Mø alongside previously-announced headliners OutKast, The National, Janelle Monáe, Die Antwoord, and Slowdive.

Also gaining a few names is Welsh festival Dinefwr (20-22 Jun), principally a literary festival, but also featuring performances from the likes of Cate Le Bon, Adrian Edmonson & The Bad Shepherds, Alexis Taylor, Gruff Rhys and others, and indeed that most famous of Welsh songbirds, Charlotte Church.

Finally, Ireland's Electric Picnic (29-31 Aug) have added more than 20 names to their bill this week - joining headliners Portishead, Outkast and Beck will be Blondie, Sinead O'Connor, Mogwai, Kelis, James Murphy, Neneh Cherry, The Horrors, Duke Dumont, Twin Shadow, Clean Bandit, Drenge, The Orwells, Wolf Alice, Unkown Mortal Orchestra and others.