DiS casts a glance over the last month’s music news…

Hello again and welcome to another News Mixtape, a digest of the need-to-know developments from the world of music sent freefalling into your screens so hard it should be wearing a space suit and sponsored by an energy drink that tastes like the carbonated perfume of a dying spinster. This month, a Tim Burgess exclusive, Godspeed on the comeback trail, Death Grips' self-sabotaging machine and more...

Tim Burgess – A Case of Vinyl

The Charlatans’ leading man has been in reflective form of late, his autobiography Telling Stories earlier this year lifting the lid on a lifetime spent inside music with bruising honesty, hilarity and introspection. His new album Oh No I Love You carries on in this vein, and lead single 'A Case Of Vinyl' is no exception – a sepia-stained homily to his record collection that just like its subject matter is warm, sounds like it’s warped in the sun a little and crackles with an irresistible charm. Its video, shot by Gold Panda and Factory Floor video director Dan Tombs and premiered exclusively here on DiS, is no less cracking, though it does bring back painful memories of trying to watch TV after spilling a precariously-placed can of Rio down the back of it at the climax of a bank holiday screening of Jurassic Park some seven years ago.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Mladic

Some ten years since their last release post-rock provocateurs Godspeed You! Black Emperor are back with a surprise new album. Ascend! Don’t Bend! Hallelujah! was announced to little fanfare, the band nonchalantly making it available on the merch table of their recent Boston show, before confirming details of a worldwide release on 16 October. Sure, the album title might sound like the sort of thing screamed in line at a fundamentalist Christian post office but rest assured it’s, ahem, first class. Of course, beyond the consistently bewitching music on offer, one of the great joys of a new Godspeed record is watching the band drag themselves begrudgingly onto the press circuit in their own inimitable way, and this campaign was no different – among the sound bites in a brilliant Guardian interview was this biting indictment of the state of the current music scene as: “self-conscious good vibes like love-handles poking through some 22-year-old's American Apparel T-shirt at some joint where you can only dance once you pay a $10 cover charge just to listen to some internet king's iPod.” Yeah, quite.

Death Grips - No Love Deep Web

Elsewhere, hip-hop experimentalists Death Grips earned the fury of their label Epic this month by leaking their new album – the first since signing to the major – online via their website some six months ahead of release. The move came after the group became “frustrated” at the efficiency of the Sony imprint in releasing the album, titled No Love Deep Web, and posted the whole thing on their website, earning an estimated 600,000 downloads before being shut down by the shady internet powers that be.

Gil Scott-Heron – Benji B and Richard Russell in conversation

It's been almost eighteen months since the death of Gil Scott-Heron, and marking the occasion next week is a BBC Radio 1Xtra documentary charting the icon's career and legacy. Gone Too Soon: The Gil Scott-Heron Story airs between 9pm and 10pm next Sunday (21 October) but in the meantime you can listen to an exclusive offcut from the show, as Benji B and XL honcho Richard Russell discuss their encounters with the soul icon and how he shaped contemporary music.

B-sides

J. Mascis revealed recently he twice turned down offers from Kurt Cobain to join Nirvana. Maybe you want to just to take a minute and let how great that would have been soak in.

Sufjan Stevens' follow-up to 2010 space rock opera The Age Of Adz is going to be a new installment in his series of festive albums. Songs for Christmas Vol. 9 lands on 12 November and features a sleeve that pales in comparison to this Cee Lo Green beauty.

Lady Gaga and Prince are reportedly collaborating on music for Baz Luhrmann’s much delayed adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

How do you celebrate your band's 50th anniversary? If you're Beach Boy Mike Love, you do it by firing your longstanding bandmates, apparently.

Lana Del Rey's controversy courting rumbles on with new video Ride, taken from the upcoming bumper release of debut album Born To Die.