Gig of the week

All Tomorrow's Parties Festival Fri to 18 May

Explosions in the Sky (below) are the archetypal ATP band: post- rockers whose instrumental epics pass the 10-minute mark, they're a bit arty, a bit raw, a bit pretty and a lot loud. It was only a matter of time, then, before they curated this holiday-camp festival, and duly, their line-up trawls the gamut of noise and beauty. Dinosaur Jr and ...and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead make a racket, Animal Collective, Battles and Broken Social Scene avant-rock, De la Soul represent for "daisy age" hip-hop, Iron and Wine and Adem play gentle, and the National get tipsy on chamber- rock. Here be Explosions and fireworks, then, in all colours. Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead

Five best pop gigs

Iron and Wine Thur & Fri

Overwhelmingly lovely songs about buzzards, bones, teeth and the like from Sam Beam, whose mythopoeic imagery and campfire folk now comes with added worldly flavours. Don't talk, just swoon. Old Market, Brighton, Thur; Forum, London NW5, Fri

Battles Wed

A sonic thrill a second from New York's super-groovy supergroup, who pack Krautrock, avant-jazz, post-rock and prog-rock flavours into bustling bundles of energy and vision. If the tribal romp of "Atlas" doesn't rock your rhubarb, what will? Astoria, London WC2

Mogwai Mon

Glasgow's first monkeys of art-noise preview their new album, tentatively dubbed The Hawk Is Howling. Scamp-ish track titles apparently include "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School". Who fed them after midnight? Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1

Sparks Fri to 11 Jun

Beat this, Don't Look Back: the first brothers of electro art- pop play their 21 albums in 21 gigs - 20 in Islington before their new one, Exotic Creatures of the Deep, is aired at Shepherds Bush Empire on 13 June. Top 'tache action, too. Islington Academy, London N1

Ladytron Thur

Synth-rock thunderstorms from Liverpool's pop-bots, here touting a new album, Velocifero, which adds extra degrees of propulsion to their impeccably appointed electro-pop hauteur. Astoria, London WC2

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