“Molly had a red shirt/ Susie, she ripped her shirt off completely/ Danny poured the beer all over Sally/ We all ran around the back yard/ It was crazy clown time/ It was real fun”. The voice is strangled, high. A treated guitar phases in and out, puncturing moaning sounds. A simple beat thuds. David Lynch’s fun might not be yours or mine, but his new album packs a punch. Crazy Clown Time is nightmarish. Seductive, too.

Gary Numan and Cliff Richard are clearly kindred spirits. One was born Gary Webb, the other Harry Webb. Both have strangely youthful appearances, though one owes it to tennis while the other looks as if he owes it to the blood of virgins. Both are deeply unfashionable yet have fiercely loyal fan bases. And a quick fact check reveals that Numan's "Cars" replaced Cliff's "We Don't Talk Any More" at Number One 32 years ago last month.

The Lexington on Pentonville Road is a pub with an easy-going Deep South style. The main bar looks like the sort of place where cattle barons might relax with basque-clad floozies after a hard week kicking homesteaders off their land. Instead, however, the place has a smattering of people, mostly in their twenties, a number with large sideburns and Stooges T-shirts, listening to a New Zealander called Delaney Davidson playing solo blues.

The 14th album from Vince Clarke and Andy Bell is supposed to herald a change, or so we are told by their people. Have they gone Goth? Have they discovered dubstep? Like heck. The only thing that has changed appears to be Andy Bell's eerily robotic face. Don't be fooled by the title. There is nothing futuristic about the nine songs here. There isn't even a cameo on backing vocals from Raymond Baxter, the presenter of the BBC series that got to their title first.

As Gary Numan strode out onto the stage last night, for the Shepherd's Bush leg of his Dead Son Rising tour, his black boots a-shining, his arms a-waving, his proto-emo knees a-bending, well, you couldn't say the crowd went insane, exactly - but they were very pleased to see him.

Many people think Kasabian are some sort of sub-Oasis lads' band. This is mostly down to gobby lead singer Tom Meighan. Also Q like them which doesn't help - they're on the magazine's current cover being cuddled by two naked ladies. The Leicester band don't fit the bill. Kasabian are no lame indie band, not that anyone is these days, now that it's terminally unhip. Kasabian, however, never were. One listen to their excellent eponymous 2004 debut album tells you that.

There’s a strand of electro-assisted, dance-leaning French pop that’s captured the international consciousness. Phoenix and Justice are Grammy winners, while Air exemplify the cooler, more reflective end of it. The bands come from chi-chi burbs like Versailles or towns south of Paris, south of the Seine. And so it is for Housse de Racket, an outfit from Chaville, between Versailles and Paris. On the evidence of their second album, they’re potential border breakers.

Spencer Krug must have problems knowing the name he should adopt. Over the past six years, he’s played with his main band, Wolf Parade, recorded as or with Fifths of Seven, Frog Eyes, Moonface, Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake. Organ Music not Vibraphone Music Like I’d Hoped is his second release as Moonface, a guise he now reserves for his entirely solo work. Organ Music... is quirky, but worth hearing.

Few bands maintain their early fanbase for 20 years by barely changing their sound, their dress sense, haircuts even, and yet manage to mature like Gouda cheese, gaining depth of flavour and punch over time. But Portishead have.

The French national holiday of 14 July might be marked by parades and fly-pasts in Paris, but here on the Atlantic coast it’s the central date for Francofolies, the annual festival dedicated to French music. La Rochelle hosted its first Francofolies in 1985. Twenty-six years on, the festival remains the premier showcase for Francophone music. This year the bill took in David Guetta’s dance-floor cheesiness, Gotan Project's overhauled tango, actress Mélanie Laurent plugging her recent album and all points in between.