CD: Bon Iver – i,i

Ta-da! Justin Vernon treats fans to an early release of his band's fourth album

If you’ve been paying attention, you might have already heard most if not all of Bon Iver’s curiously named i,i album – weeks before its physical release on August 30. The band debuted two tracks (“Hey Ma” and “U (Man Like)”) at London’s All Points East festival back in June, and since then they’ve been dropping videos, teasers, singles and unrelased tracks all over the place.

CD: Karine Polwart - Karine Polwart's Scottish Songbook

★★★★ CD: KARINE POLWART'S SCOTTISH SONGBOOK Classic and contemporary folk

Scottish folk musician reinterprets classic and contemporary songs from her native land

As a recent exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland showed, attempting to tell the history of Scottish popular music in an afternoon – or on one single album – is no mean feat.

Josh Ritter, Union Chapel review - strong songs and a boyish smile

★★★★ JOSH RITTER, UNION CHAPEL Strong songs and a boyish smile

The folk artist on fine form, with support act Ida Mae at a fascinating stage

Josh Ritter is in his early forties. He has a two-decade career with 10 studio albums (and, incidentally, a First World War novel) to his name. He has come a long way from trying out open mic nights in Providence, Rhode Island. His albums now regularly make it into the upper reaches of the US folk charts. But he still exudes a boyish charm, a winning and willing smile and obvious enthusiasm for live performing.

Florence + the Machine, BST Hyde Park review - mastering the matriarchy

★★★★ FLORENCE + THE MACHINE, BST HYDE PARK Mastering the matriarchy

Florence Welch delivers the perfect set for London's biggest summer festival

It’s a rare thing that musicians sound better live than they do on Spotify. But Florence Welch sings a note perfect set – even when jumping up and down like a pogo stick, whirling and spinning, or sprinting along the front of the stage to meet fans.

Reissue CDs Weekly: John Renbourn

REISSUE CDS WEEKLY: JOHN REDBOURN The great guitarist's pre-Pentangle magpie-mindedness

The ‘Unpentangled’ box set captures the great guitarist's pre-Pentangle magpie-mindedness

Although British folk-jazz stylists Pentangle played their first official concert in May 1967, their name is borrowed for the title of Unpentangled, a box set of their guitarist John Renbourn’s work on album which kicks off two years earlier.

CD - The Lost Words: Spell Songs

Songs inspired by disappearing nature cast their spell

Earlier this year, eight musicians – Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Kerry Andrew, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter and Jim Molyneux – set about working with the ‘spell songs’ of nature writer Robert Macfarlane and the images from nature of artist Jackie Morris, and recorded what they created at Rockfield studios, then performed four sell-out shows to stan

Midsommar review - hell is other people

★★★★★ MIDSOMMAR Hell is other people

Sun-bleached horror proves night isn't the only time things go bump

Who would have thought that Ari Aster could top the satanic delights of Hereditary? Yet with Midsommar, a psychedelic twist on folk horror, he has. Aster abandons the supernatural to show that it’s not things that go bump in the night that scare us, it’s other people.

CD: Foy Vance - From Muscle Shoals

Latest from Northern Irish singer-songwriter emulates '60s southern soul with waning results

Endlessly gigging Northern Irish performer Foy Vance's profile first rocketed after touring with fellow singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. The pair became pals, Vance went onto support the likes of Elton John, and signed to Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records. His fourth album is the first of a themed couple paying tribute to the southern US roots of popular music (the other will hail from Sam Phillips Studios in Memphis).

LSO, Guildhall School, Rattle, Barbican review - irresistible momentum

★★★★★ LSO, GUILDHALL SCHOOL, RATTLE, BARBICAN Patience pays off in sublime Bruckner

Patience pays off in sublime Bruckner

The Barbican Hall hardly boasts the numinous acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral for which Vaughan Williams composed his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, but Sir Simon Rattle has long known how to build space into the architecture of what he conducts.