The Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies

There was much to be said for attending the third and final show of Crosby Stills & Nash's Albert Hall stint, because this was the night when they played their debut album in its entirety. Clearly much – almost everything, in fact – has changed since 1969, but though the musicians are four decades older, their original collective spirit survives remarkably intact.

Puglia, otherwise known as Apulia, is the heel of the kinky boot that makes up Italy. It’s usually associated with the golden sands of the Ionian coast, the clear, sun-spun waters of Castellanata Marina, the palaces of Bari, and the sublime fish restaurants of Peschici. There is, however, another side to this Italian paradise. It boasts a music scene whose chief contenders resent being lazily lumped in with cheesy holiday Euro-disco or worthy local folksiness, bands and DJs who wish to engage with the wider spectrum of western pop, rock and dance music.

National Wake: A Walk in Africa 1979–81

Jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth’s fifth album Live to Love is, on the face of it, an unlikely forum for appreciation of quantum physics or the heroic plight of Pakistani campaigner Malala Yousafzai. This new release, launched at the 606 Club, contains both, but not because she has morphed into a fearsome amalgam of Tom Lehrer and Billy Bragg. Dankworth unified her eclectic subject matter by demonstrating a multifarious, magnificent facility for empathy.

A baby's brain is polished off by a throbbing welter of maggots. A field of sheep are on fire. A screaming child whose hands have been tied to a kite is flying out over the North Sea. How do you make an opera out of any of this? The answer of course is you don’t. You leave this kind of thing to cinema or the novel. Opera is - contrary to popular belief - extremely bad at spectacle, especially if the aim is to terrify. Horror has never had much of a look-in as a genre in the art form.

At the end of his hour and 20 minute long performance Shlomo gives us an encore, a percussive tune wherein his amazing noise-making abilities are piled on top of each other with a piece of sampling kit called a Loop Station. This multi-layered nugget is propulsive but the seated audience is unsure, as it has been throughout, whether the evening's ambience should be rowdily interactive or quietly appreciative, as if watching a play. Except, that is, for two women who stand up and boogie enthusiastically.

Dino Valente: Dino Valente

We all know the backstory of the Mighty Mac, the breakups, the betrayals, the addictions and now, finally, the reunion. These days they're more like the Mellow Mac with the emotional hatchets buried, lingering hugs on stage, and tender tales of their time as struggling Seventies hippies. Few other bands, not even Abba, have mined their private lives for inspiration to the same extent.

A fortnight after its release, fans now know the Manics’ latest album Rewind the Film to be a rich, contemplative affair. The musical dynamics are intimate and seemingly best suited to small venues, like the one that features in the video for the single “Show Me the Wonder”. As I made my way across London last night, I wondered if this new sound was why the band had chosen to downsize from last year's O2 to the cosy surroundings of Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Was this "last phase of the band's development" to be consciously close-up and personal?