King Crimson

Prefab Sprout have recently announced their long-awaited return with a new album, Crimson/Red – to tide you over until its release on October 7, here's a piece from Uncut's September 2009 (Take 148) issue, where Paddy McAloon tells us about the music that changed his world, including Dylan, Bowie and Puccini. Interview: Sharon O'Connell

British filmmaker Tony Scott, director of Top Gun, has died after jumping from a bridge in Los Angeles. Scott, 68, was seen parking his car and jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge over Los Angeles Harbor at 12.30pm local time on Sunday (August 19). According to official sources quoted in the Daily Breeze, Scott leapt "without hesitation". A suicide note was found inside Scott's car, a black Toyota Prius, said US Coast Guard Lt Jennifer Osburn. A representative from the LA County Coroner's Office told the BBC: "We have no reason to believe it was not a suicide."

The past few days I’ve been reading, on Rob Young’s recommendation, Alexandra Harris’ Romantic Moderns, an excellent survey of how British artists and writers in the mid-20th Century tried to reconcile a modernist impulse with the residual lure of English cultural traditions.

As new early 70s collection is released, the pair speak about how the band formed

I have to admit to a certain amount of anxiety tonight. It’s not just the weather, which is, of course, rotten, the wind howling like it’s fit to tear chunks from rooftops from miles around.

Watching TV over the Christmas and New Year period, chances are you might have caught Johnny Depp in a number of films. I'm pretty sure I spotted all three Pirates Of The Caribbean movies spread out across various terrestrial and satellite channels, plus the overlooked Secret Window and -- a personal favourite -- Finding Neverland, a very moving take on the relationship between author JM Barrie and the children who inspired him to write Peter Pan. In a way, these films are emblematic of the Depp's dualistic approach to his movies. In Pirates, he's performing; in Window and Neverland, he's acting.

Jim jarmusch's imminent set of dryly comic vignettes, filmed over the course of a decade, will pitch him to a new generation, as it features Jack and Meg White, Wu-Tang Clan (RZA scored Jarmusch's last film, Ghost Dog) and Steve Coogan among its cast. One of the better sequences sees Tom Waits and Iggy Pop mock-bickering over who's more famous, and both contribute to this studiously cool soundtrack.

Six volumes of highlights from the Sunday night US television show that was the MTV of its day

A 10-disc box set focusing on the modern master of dumb-but-fun action flicks