Former Distillers and Spinnerette  frontwoman Brody Dalle releases her debut solo album this week (28th April) and played a sold out show at the Electric Ballroom in Camden last Thursday.

It was the next date on her UK tour, which includes shows in Sheffield, Birmingham and Rough Trade East before she heads off to Europe next month and then the US, before some festivals this summer.  She has been confirmed for Reading and Leeds.

The new album is called Diploid Love, which she spent a year writing, recording and co-producing with Alain Johannes (Arctic Monkeys, Them Crooked Vultures, Mark Lanegan) at his studio and her husband’s, Pink Duck, both in California.

If you didn’t know she is married to rock powerhouse, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age.

While in the studio Brody had some help from her friends…. Garbage’s Shirley Manson, Nick Valensi from The Strokes, Michael Shuman (Queens of the Stone Age) and Emily Kokal of Warpaint. They all guested on the record, which looks like it will be her first solo effort but not the last.

Yesterday she dropped by 6 Music towers to chat to me mid-tour…

Jane’s Addiction will be marking the final week of the 25th Anniversary of their landmark Nothing’s Shocking album with two special UK shows.

They will play Brixton Academy  on Wednesday 20th August and the Apollo Manchester on the 21st

The record, released in 1988, was their first studio album and includes tracks Mountain Song, Ocean Size and the Grammy nominated Jane Says.

Upon it's release Nothing's Shocking was praised by fans and critics - although sales were slow because they weren't getting love from MTV and radio play, but it became one of the key alternative rock albums - at a time when alt rock was only just beginning to make waves with Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Junior. 

They took the classic rock of Zep and mixed it with punk, metal and prog and a kind of circus freakshow glamour and theatricality. 

And helped open the door for Nirvana and what's more, in 1991, they also created Lollapalooza festival, now an annual festival in the States.

I've been chatting to frontman Perry Farrell about coming back to the UK for these shows and looking back at the birth of Nothing Shocking....

Lykke Li has a new album coming out on the 5th May, her third LP in what she views as a biographical trilogy.  It's called I Never Learn.

She is booked in for some dates at London's Village Underground when the record comes out as well as festivals all over this summer.

Bjorn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John and Greg Kurstin (Lilly Allen, Santigold, Sia) helped her on desk duties, co-producing the album.

Recently she has also cultivated her passions for design, creating her debut collection for & Other Stories (she also like me loves the Swedish brand Acne) and making her acting debut in a Swedish crime film called Tommy.  

Lykke dropped by 6 Music when she was in the UK earlier this week and here she and I are chatting about the new album…