Evoking the ethos of the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, Sadler’s Wells contextualises today’s artists, designers and composers, within the sphere of modern performance.

Energetic, fun, edgy, catchy and alive, Soft Core, is a delightful record. Two year’s in the making, it’s the third album from the band based in New York City.

Creating a real buzz around his music, A.A. Bondy has legions of fans like Bon Iver and Low Anthem. On the same label as Andrew Bird, Bondy is in good company.

At times this is avant-garde jazz at its befuddling best, where the twang of guitars is interspersed with oboes, violins, drums and the calls of gulls.

In 2008, Efterklang teamed up with The Danish National Chamber Orchestra to perform their original work to a capacity audience at Koncerthuset in Copenhagen.

Kieran’s background as DJ, producer and film-score creator for Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, means that Shh doesn’t sound like a debut album.

Lubelski has a voice of calm, serene with textbook energy, simplicity at heart, and with depth in each track; Future Slip is bound to become a staple.

Free and easy, impetuous, unaffected, inspired: from the very first guitar chord, Telekinesis! is imbued with hazy loveliness, which proves ridiculously infectious.

The rack of plastic in HMV may be getting dusty as downloads become the norm. The effects on the industry are far from subtle, but change inspires innovation.

Aesthetica launches the International short Film Competition, with cash prizes up for grabs and screening opportunities. It has never been a better time to get your camera out and start shooting.

Reminiscing on 40 years of free love, political protest, family values and social unrest, Born in ‘68 focuses on the humanity of the late 20th Century epoch.

Julian is a writer, photographer, art critic, curator and lecturer. His primary focus is on the effects of politics, and the economy on contemporary art and New Media.

Challenging the boundaries of art and fashion, Alex Box’s inaugural exhibition fuses figures from the artist’s imagination onto the face.

Images of the Middle East often leaving a negative impact on the viewer. Daniela da Prato challenges stereotypes, and invites us to reconsider cultural preconceptions.

Martin Parr is known for his satirical documentation of contemporary British life. Opening this autumn at Baltic is Luxury, a collection of over 40 works.

Investigating the role of the “artist” and “art”, Tate Modern surveys the last 30 years of contemporary visual culture.

A mammoth text, now in its seventh revised edition, this is a seminal work looking at the history of art from “before history” through to the third millennium.

This book is a brilliant artefact of the event. It opens with a foreword by the venerable Martin Scorsese, and is organised in three parts “Origins” “The Event” and “The Aftermath”.

Narrative Essays, part of a set with Critical Essays, was collected by George Packer to do justice to Orwell’s extra-ordinary talents as a non-fiction writer.

Donohue has a mastery of the time-space continuum, with a narrative arc that spans three decades in a heart-wrenching exploration of the human condition.