What a rise. When Disclosure's album 'Settle' comes out on 3 June we can reasonably expect the Lawrence bros to roll out the British dance album of the year. It's been a dizzy old trajectory from bedroom tinkering to stepping into a club for the first time and accelerating towards a mammoth top three hit with AlunaGeorge hook-up 'White Noise', and now expectation hangs heavy.

Exciting news for a Thursday: the first rumblings of Arctic Monkeys' big return have started. Last night (May 22), at their first show in almost a year at the Majestic Ventura Theater in California, they unveiled a new track, 'Do You Wanna Know?' It's the strongest clue yet that a new album cannot be too far off. So what does it tell us?

On Saturday, I went to see The xx play the second in a three-part series of their Night + Day festivals, in which they curate a day of music, food and general merriment in unusual locations in Lisbon, Berlin and London. This weekend's setting was the abandoned amusement park Spreepark, a former GDR-era funland that's lain dormant for the last decade while its bankrupt owners sit in prison after being caught smuggling £14 million of cocaine over the German border on one of the rides. Graffitied dinosaurs lie strewn across the grass while a looming Ferris wheel creaks in the wind. An incredible setting to hear The xx in all their post-industrial glory.

The shortlist in NME's search to find Britain's Best Small Venue in association with Jack Daniel's JD Roots has been revealed. Thousands of votes were cast for hundreds of venues across the country, but the list has now been whittled down to just 10 regional winners. Now it is your chance to vote for the overall winner. And this week, we’re helping you along by profiling the ten shortlisted venues.

The shortlist in NME's search to find Britain's Best Small Venue in association with Jack Daniel's JD Roots has been revealed. Thousands of votes were cast for hundreds of venues across the country, but the list has now been whittled down to just 10 regional winners. Now it is your chance to vote for the overall winner. And this week, we're helping you along by profiling the ten shortlisted venues.