The Bulletin: Arts & Culture News | 19 April

FESTIVAL WATCH: MY BLOODY VALENTINE FOR T IN THE PARK, EUROCKEENES, LOVEBOX, NIGHT & DAY
All-conquering, newly-revived shoegazers My Bloody Valentine will be bringing their full sonic assault to T in the Park (12-14 July), it has been confirmed this week. Our review of their recent Barrowlands gig describes the band's performance as both "majestic" and "deeply unsettling." MBV round out the raft of big names playing the ifestival in 2013, including Kraftwerk Snoop Dogg. Kevin Shields and co. will join the main stage lineup, along with a few more late additions in the form of The Virginmarys, FIDLAR and Trash Talk. Details and tickets here.

Eurocknees (4-7 Jul) in France has an exciting lineup this year, with performances from indie and rock acts such as The Vaccines, Dinosaur Jr., Palma Violets, Deep Vally and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, plus a strong mix of hip-hop and electronica including A$AP Rocky, Kavinsky, Busy P, Joey Badass, Disclosure, and Action Bronson. And that's not mentioning the previously announced headliners, including Blur, The Smashing Pumpkins, Phoenix, Tame Impala, My Bloody Valantine and Two Door Cinema Club. Details and tickets here.

Lovebox (19-21 Jul) takes place in London, and alongside big-name headliners Plan B, Goldfrapp and Azealia Banks, they will be welcoming D'Angelo, Flying Lotus, Jurassic 5, SBTRKT, Aluna George, Frankie Knuckles, Foreign Beggars, Factory Floor, Redlight, Miss Kittin, Zebra Katz, Gold Panda, Purity Ring and Mykki Blanco. Details and tickets here. 

Finally, one-day mini-festival Night & Day (22 Jun), curated by The xx, will feature performances from recent collaborator Solange, as well as Poliça, Kindness and Mount Kimbie. Details and tickets here.

NEW MUSIC: J.DILLA COVERS GARY NUMAN, BLACK SABBATH, DE LA SOUL, JAMES HOLDEN, DAS RACIST, LAUREL HALO, D33J, S-TYPE X JAMIE LIDELL
The raiding of the J. Dilla archives continues – and this time, the Rappcats label have dug up an ingenious cut from 2001, in the form of a Gary Numan cover by the late, great beatsmith and rapper. Dilla's version of Cars is simply called Trucks. It is taken from the forthcoming, unreleased vocal album by Dilla, The Diary, due to drop this spring, featuring Dilla rapping over beats by the likes of Madlib and Pete Rock. The track is available now on clear vinyl. 

De La Soul recently caused controversy by commenting to Rolling Stone magazine that in hip-hop culture these days, "everything is redundant." They have returned to fill our lives with relevant, real hip-hop, thank goodness, and the first evidence of this is new track Get Away, featuring an extensive sample from the classic album Wu-Tang Forever, in a nod to their fellow Staten Island rappers.

Avant-garde electronic producer and DJ James Holden's sophomore album The Inheritors is slated for a 15 June release, and he has unveiled one track from the album so far, Gone Feral, a satisfying slab of analogue electronics, thundering drums and swooping, filtered synths.

A rare unreleased track from weed rap kings Das Racist surfaced online this week – hip-hop group A Tribe Called Red produced the track for them, and it was previously slated for the group's second album. Fans will be pleased to hear both Heems and Kool A.D together again on a track, even if it is an unreleased cut rather than a reunion. Heems last mixtape Wild Water Kingdom is available here, while Kool A.D.'s sprawling, two volume 19 / 63 is available here.

Planet Mu have confirmed details of a new EP from electronic maven Laurel Halo – Behind The Green Door will drop on 20 May. The artist told SPIN that the EP was inspired by Detroit and UK techno, describing the tracks as "rhythmic." 

D33J will very soon be dropping his debut album on Anticon – the producer, who was a high-school crony of Baths and Syd The Kid of Odd Future, is a member of the collective known as Wedidit. He is giving away the first track from the album for free download over at XLR8R.

Closer to home, Glasgow's S-Type dropped an abolutely killer remix of a Jamie Lidell tune this week, which is also available as a free download.

And finally, Brummie metal progenitors Black Sabbath have released the first full track from their iminent new LP 13. Produced by Rick Rubin and featuring Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk behind the drumkit (in the absence of Bill Ward), God Is Dead? marks Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi's first studio recorded material under the Sabbath banner since 1979's appropriately titled Never Say Die. 

NIRVANA BIOGRAPHER MICHAEL AZZERAD LAUNCHES TALKHOUSE
Journalist Michael Azzerad is best known for his encyclopaedic Nirvana biography, Come As You Are, published in 1993. Recently, he launched a scathing attack on modern music journalism in an article for Billboard. He argues that the proliferation of bloggers, commentators and critics writing online has devalued the worth of print journalism, leading to a lack of properly incisive critical dialogue between journalists and musicians. His response has been to launch a new site, The Talkhouse, designed to be a home for critical essays by musicians, allowing them space to talk about their peers.

"There’s a lot of room for unique, qualified voices who can provide good reads," says Azzerad. "Musicians think and talk about music all day, so they have lots of practice discussing it. They hear lots of new stuff and find out about it before most people. They certainly know how the sausage is made. And guess what: a lot of them can write really well." 

The site has already published an article by EMA talking about Anika, Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt on Mudhoney, and Duff McKagan on Kiss. 

BOOK TALK: JARVIS COCKER ANNOUNCES FIRST BOOK FOR FABER & FABER, ALAN MOORE TALKS NEONOMICON SEQUEL
Jarvis Cocker is employed by publishing giant Faber & Faber as an 'editor-at-large,' which essentially means he can commission anything he feels like. His first book selected for the publishers was announced this week. J.P. Bean's Singing From The Floor examines the culture of British folk musicians, clubs and culture, and documents the folk revival.

Cocker says: "Singing From The Floor portrays an important movement in vernacular culture in the voices of the people who made it happen – and that’s not an easy task. Especially when the events in question took place many years ago and may have involved the consumption of alcohol. J.P. Bean has captured this moment before it is lost forever, and has made it live again on the page. He’s a very clever chap.” 

In other books news, comics legend Alan Moore discussed his return to comics with Providence, a follow-up and prequel to the controversial, Lovecraft-inspired Neonomicon. In an extended interview with Comics Beat, Moore compares the novel's research to his work on Watchmen, and states: "With Providence, what I am doing is, I’m looking as much at American society in 1919 as I am looking at Lovecraft, in terms of my research, and I am connecting up Lovecraft’s themes, and Lovecraft’s personality, to a certain degree, with the tensions that were then incredibly evident in American society.. There’s no Arkham in it, there’s no Innsmouth, but there are real locations which I believe are coherent sites for the Lovecraft stories that I’ve connected them to."

NEW VIDEOS: GARBAGE & SCREAMING FEMALES COVER PATTI SMITH, MGMT, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, THE KNIFE, YOUTH LAGOON, ALICE IN CHAINS, GHOSTFACE KILLAH & RZA
The Record Store Day split between Garbage and New Jersey trio Screaming Females features a cover of the classic Patti Smith track, Because The Night. This week, the bands unveiled their video for the track, featuring Shirley Manson and friends working in the studio. 

MGMT's RSD release will be a cassette single (or 'cassingle' – boy, that takes us back!), going by the name Alien Days. The video below is a bizarre stop-motion animation, featuring the lead single from the mini-EP.

Queens of the Stone Age have this week unveiled a teaser for new album ...Like Clockwork. The video features a vinyl-cutting machine in action, as a snippet from an un-named song plays. The song featured showcases a slower, ballad-paced style for the band, with Josh Homme singing in a delicate falsetto.

The Knife also have a new video out this week – and for once, it's a minimalistic affair, with a hot pink background overlaid with morphing green grids of colour. 

Trevor Powers, aka Youth Lagoon, released his second album Wondrous Bughouse to almost universal critical acclaim this year - the new video to be taken from the album features a skateboarder who gets more than he bargained for when he sets off on his board one morning...  

Last but not least, Ghostface Killah's first new video from new album Twelve Reasons To Die features a guest appearance from Wu don the RZA, and is a horror-themed tribute to the likes of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. 

Following a recent mockumentary to promote forthcoming LP The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, grunge metal kings Alice in Chains mark their return proper with this video for new single, Stone, a typically snarling and melodic jam from the Seattle titans. Horns up motherfuckers.

TRAILERS: MAN OF STEEL, CARRIE
After showing you the viral clip featuring General Zod from the forthcoming Man of Steel film, we thought it only fair to share the new full trailer, which features a few choice shots of Zod tearing it up on Earth, and the epic destruction of Krypton, as witnessed by Superman's dad Jor-El, played by Russell Crowe. You definitely get more of a sense of where the story is going from this trailer, and it is most definitely on a Batman Begins tip - Superman Starts, if you will. 

And finally, we'll break our own promise to stop taking remakes seriously by showing you the trailer for the umpteenth reboot of Carrie – the title role is played by the very talented Chloe Grace Moretz (of Kick-Ass and Let Me In fame), and the pivotal role of Carrie's mother is taken on by acting heavyweight Julianne Moore. Helmed by a female director, Kimberley Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss), this could either be a disaster; an intelligent, feminist take on the Stephen King novel; or a re-tread of the DePalma classic. We know which we would prefer, so we're off to the closet to pray.