Like sculpture

One to listen out for on the drum'n'bass/breaks scene - Bristol quintet Audio Sculptors. Making a name for themselves supporting such dance luminaries as Stanton Warriors, the boys were the mightily impressive highlight of Sunday's 12-hour Music Box Project charity event in the Subtone club, Cheltenham. Their closing set in the Bongo Bar went down a storm, a glorious, frenetic fusion of all that is good in urban and suburban music - reggae, dancehall, funk, house, electro-soul - like Jamaica invading New York with a pack o' pills and some dread-heavy basslines. The little dancefloor was quite obviously ram-packed with whirling, gracefully thrashing bodies, each complete with a grin wider than the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Job done.

Scatterguns and thorny roses

From the Baghdad street musician picking out the opening chords of Paradise City on his kanun, to the Papuan cannibal tribesman humming Welcome To The Jungle softly to himself as a fresh batch of tasty missionaries approach, EVERYONE is going to have an opinion on the new Guns'n'Roses album, Chinese Democracy. But screw it, here's mine too.

It'd be largely pointless for me to mention just how lengthy and expensive the process of making what is only G'n'R's fourth full-length record in 20 years, released this week, has been. Suffice to say that, despite the absence of any original members bar squawky idiot-genius frontman W.Axl Rose - and that, of course, includes Iconic (with a capital 'Iconic') Stoke-on-Trent-raised guitarist Saul 'Slash' Hudson - this is the biggest record of the year.

And...it's absolute pants.

Rose, of course, has been able to roll in the adulation and royalty cheques of a decade and a half of inactivity due to three principle factors.

Firstly, about six truly great tunes. 1987 Debut album Appetite For The Destruction had growly calling card Welcome To The Jungle, the hazy singalong cheese-rock genius of Paradise City, and American number one and wedding reception standard Sweet Child O' Mine. The simultaenously released Use Your Illusions I and II had gloriously overblown, laughably vague 'political' rocker Civil War, even more ridiculously overblown power ballad November Rain, and probably the best version of Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door ever made. But these apart, how many Slash/Rose works could the average, well-informed music fan name?

Secondly, G'n'R's uncompromising 'big rock' sound - crunching riffs, widdly solos, and simple-in-a-good-way (if sometimes a little misogynistic) lyrics - is ecstasy to the ears of certain demographics: guitar fanatics, geeks, bikers, rock chicks. And that's a lot of people, all together. It's sustained Metallica through the lean times, too - St.Anger still sold 2 million copies in the US, despite being one of the most pointless and directionless records ever committed to tape by a major rock group. Chinese Democracy will doubtless prove a massive commercial success.

And thirdly, the Guns 'n' Roses myth itself. Sex, drugs, rock, roll...you get the idea. Rose's legendary diva tendencies, disregard for his fanbase, and general obnoxiousness, mark him out as the ultimate embodiment of hair metal, Spinal Tap, classic rock decadence. For better or worse, millions want him, or want to be him. Probably mainly the latter, to be fair. He's getting on a bit.

Anyway, the album. From the title track's bad Smashing Pumpkins rip-off (even Billy Corgan's voice) to the Martin Luther King-sampling pomposity of Madagascar, it's an utter disaster from start to finish. The opening riff sounds like a half-finished I Believe In A Thing Called Love, and it's all downhill from there. Rose has not so much thrown the kitchen sink at the production as the entire kitchen, house, garden, and possibly some neigbouring properties as well. But no amount of pointless overdubs can squeeze a good tune from a mess of half-finished ideas, and the lyrics - with meaningless nonsense like "the Catcher in the Rye again / won't let ya get away from him /It's just another day like today" pretty much par for the course - are equally poor.

Pop this one in the cannibal's pot. A record as bad as Chinese Democracy should be boiled to death.

The jazz man stupifies

Certainly, jazz is not an area of music I can profess much knowledge of. However, on Thursday night I found myself at Birmingham Symphony Hall, observing one of the great masters of the genre, Mr. Herbert Jeffrey Hancock, perform with his sextet.

The prefix 'progressive', when applied to music, has never provoked the same instant horror in me that it does for many. Progression means invention, creation, new ideas. But, as with any experiment, some things work and some things don't.

Herbie's band - comprising bass, drums, guitar, harmonica, trumpet, and the man himself on keys - played for three hours, and despite occasional moments of brilliance, it was tricky to completely follow.

This can probably be attributed to the fact that I am no jazzhead. But some parts of the performance were more accessible than others. The band twisted and strained sections of 1964 standard Cantaloupe Island every which way, but the killer hooks were all there, and still strong enough to draw in any open-minded music fan.

The band represented something of a jazz supergroup. Lionel Loueke was always good value. Born in Benin, West Africa, he blended spacey funk licks with tribal rhythms and scat singing, summoning clicks, yelps, and animal growls. Occasionally this provoked titters of laughter from the audience - perhaps unintended, but a welcome respite from the relentless intensity of Hancock's foraging blues. Given a mid-set solo section, Loueke made his guitar sound like dozens of people popping bubble wrap inside a giant milk bottle.

Kendrick Scott is a beast of a drummer. Dextrous, assured, and creative, it was the sticksman who kept the wagon rolling when others momentarily lost each other. His rattling, snarling snare style occasionally suggested a man who wouldn't be out of place drumming for Tool.

Without doubt, this is mightily impressive music, and even at 68 Hancock is still keen to explore new avenues. But after 180 minutes of freeform jazz, the three-chord pop punk on my iPod never sounded so good.

Vacant, but not too pretty

NME.com reports that Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke has spoken out about his ordeal at the hands of Sex Pistols man Johnny 'Rotten' Lydon and his entourage in July.

It's a story many will already be familiar with, but to surmise: an incident occurred backstage at the Summercase Festival in Spain, which allegedly began with a conversation between Lydon and Okereke and ended in something of a brawl, also involving members of Foals and the Kaiser Chiefs. The Bloc Party man also alleges that he was racially abused by a member of Lydon's entourage, supposedly being told his problem was his 'black attitude'.

The incident was reported to the police in the both Spain and the UK, but no further action has been taken.

I was lucky enough, a couple of months ago, to interview Foals guitarist Jimmy Smith, who witnessed and was indeed involved in the incident. Clearly a decent and intelligent guy, he backed up Okereke's story and seemed genuinely disgusted at Lydon's behaviour.

They say you should never meet your heroes, and that impression has been magnfied one hundred-fold for several British indie musicians, who, it seems, were all big fans of Lydon beforehand. As Jimmy said: "Johnny Rotten was one of my heroes, I thought the whole arsehole thing was just an image for the press."

It's rather depressing to witness the descent of a once-great (and he was, as you can see here), iconic public figure into a grumpy grandad, seemingly interested only in 'filthy lucre' and endless narcissism. The worst thing about Lydon is his recent exploits leave you not only with the impression of someone who cares far more about these things than any principles, but indeed of someone who has actually always been like this - we just never realised.

Even at the best of times, The Sex Pistols were always more about blind, taste-challenging provocation than focussed political argument. And that was why people loved them. But a lot of people, I think, believed (and still believe) that the band were doing more than just flogging the brilliant formula - literally anarchic punk rock - they had created. But I'm not at all sure there was ever belief behind the bollocks. And there certainly isn't now.

In the bag for Dan and Pip

Cheltenham has never been known as a hotbed of thrilling live music. But that could be changing. Last night I was at the Town Hall to see trailblazing breaks/hip-hop duo Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip.

At around 10.15pm, DJ Dan 'Le Sac' Stephens - short, a little chubby, with searching, Gollum-esque eyes and classic farmer sideburns - strode onto the huge stage and, brilliantly, began remixing the theme tune from The Antiques Roadshow.

This set up a triumphant entrance for Dan's rabbi-bearded chum David Meads - aka Scroobius Pip - provoking a huge roar from the assembled throng, as the duo launched into The Beat That My Heart Skipped.

Rarely is live music such pure, unadulterated FUN. Playing a series of crowd-pleasing classics from debut album Angles, Dan and Pip showed why they're one of the most original and cutting-edge acts in British music today.

Fixed sees Dan take the unmistakable beats of Dizzee Rascal's Fix Up Look Sharp and smash them against each other at calamitous intervals, while Pip's polemic dismisses mainstream hip-hop, using Dizzee's 'pop hit' chorus to demand artists "don’t make another pop hit, be smart; take it back to the start...like KRS and Rakim use passion and heart".

Look For The Woman, an incisive ballad of romantic apathy, slows things down, with Pip remarking humorously on the ironic spectacle of couples in the crowd singing "Love you too much to leave, don't like you enough to stay" in unison.

Breakthrough hit Thou Shalt Always Kill is Dan and Pip's ultimate killer tune in a set of dangerous little numbers, and soon the majority of the Hall are dancing like happy idiots. The Radiohead-sampling single Letter From God To Man brings the house down and the show to a close.

Dan and Pip are a peerless example of how good urban music can be: the penetrating, euphoric, repetitive rhythms of breaks, drum and bass and techno, fused thrillingly with serious, hilarious, deeply affecting beat poetry.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - genius, from any angle.

Björk and Yorke go back to nature

Björk, for me, is one of those artists where you have the utmost respect for their talent, originality, and innovation. But it's pretty rare that you actually want to listen to their music.

A few others fall into this personal category, mostly experimental and ambient acts like Aphex Twin (although Windowlicker is always good fun), or progressive rock acts. Bar their first album, The Mars Volta's output is far too dense and jumbled for me, and to be honest I can only be arsed to listen to Pink Floyd's more popular material. There are only so many hours in the day.

Actually, I can say the same of most experimental jazz as well. I've tried listening to Kind Of Blue and Bitches Brew, Miles Davis's pair of supposedly seminal albums, but I get four minutes into the first (17 minute) track, and the distinct lack of decent hooks leaves me dying for a blast of Toxic. Or a fishing tackle shop.

I do find a few Björk songs an enjoyable listen - Hyperballad's spacey, crumbled beauty in particular, as well as breakthrough hit Play Dead and the camp theatrics of It's Oh So Quiet, with its revolutionary video. But I am generally happy to appreciate her intriguing ice-siren nuggets from afar.

However, Ms. (bet you didn't know this was her surname!) Guðmundsdóttir's new single, Náttúra, might have stoked my interest.

The song, written by Björk, is a shuddering percussion-fest, like a group of African tribal drummers playing murder in the dark. Over them, little Björk - still as freakishly beautiful as ever - does her usual summon-the-gales vocal act, but, for the first time, entirely in Icelandic.

Most of the other sonic elements come from Thom Yorke, in the form of those splayed, half-asleep mouth movements which characterised much of his band Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A. He and Björk are long-time collaborators, having worked together on her song I've Seen It All, which soundtracked the film Dancer In The Dark.

This is essentially augmented only by a few 'nature' sounds - something that sounds like a building tidal wave or earthquake, far off in the distance - and a few rattling cymbals. And that's it. It's like drum and bass, without the bass.

But it's quite interesting nonetheless, and all proceeds from the sale of the single go to the Náttúra Foundation, which works for the protection of Iceland's stunning natural environment.

Greatest pre-going out song?

Last night I was still hungover from an epic Wednesday, but had already organised to go out again, with different friends, and was not about to bail. It was with some trepidation that I cracked open my first ale, and though it tasted beautiful, the urge to get hammered and go mental as usual was sadly lacking.

It was at around this time that some rather familar sounds begin to build and surge from upstairs, like a twisted Spaghetti Western. My housemate had Pendulum on again.

Propane Nightmares, from latest album In Silico, is possibly the most suitable song I have ever heard for these kind of times. Its swirling chemical buzz is like a magnet, a rocket up the arse of a flagging spirit and a flagging liver. I actually had to stop what I was doing (playing the acoustic guitar) and head up to bask in the hurtling freedom of those adrenaline-fuelled synths and Rob Swire's timeless, effortless vocals, calling soothingly from the heavens.

I was out until 5am, and full of energy throughout a glorious evening.

So I think PN could be the best pre-going out song in existence. But I wait with anticipation for something even better to prove me wrong.