Award-winning ballet director Marco Goecke from the Hanover State Opera has been suspended after smearing dog faeces on a critic's face, Daily Mail reports. Goecke, apparently furious about a review of one of his shows by journalist Wiebke Hüster, allegedly confronted the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung critic during the half-time break of another show and smeared a paper bag filled with dog excrement on her face. Ms Hüster described Mr Goecke's show, 'In The Dutch Mountains' opened recently at the Nederlands Dans Theatre in The Hague, like being "alternately driven mad and killed by boredom". When the director attacked her, she said she couldn't defend herself, as she was in panic, she told NDR.

Oleh Shpudeiko bought himself a handheld digital tape recorder in 2012 and started to record sounds around his city - rail stations, the sound of traffic and birdsong, the dripping of water in a tunnel, the rumbling of trains on a track, the babble of voices in a shopping mall – all sliced up, manipulated, accompanied by synthesisers and transformed into a piece of compelling ambient music. The city in question is his hometown of Kyiv. The album, 'Kyiv Eternal', was completed after the Russian invasion and is coming out next week under the name Heinali. Guardian presents the album and the composer.

Producer and musician Pharrell Williams will take on the role of creative director for the luxury fashion brand’s menswear line, GQ reports. His first collection for LV will be released during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris in June. Pharrell follows in the footsteps of Virgil Abloh, who served as the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection from 2018 until his death in 2021 due to cardiac angiosarcoma. Abloh was the first Black American to be appointed to the role.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have launched a special website dedicated to marking the 10th anniversary of their album 'Push The Sky Away', featuring video, audio, imagery, lyrics and exclusive merchandise related to the record. A February 2013 performance of 'Push The Sky Away' in full, followed by a set of other classic songs, captured at Los Angeles' Fonda Theatre, has also debuted online and will be available for a limited amount of time. In a new statement about the album, Cave said: "'Push The Sky Away' was the start of a new, wild adventure for The Bad Seeds. The record opened up a whole different approach to the way we created our music. It was the beginning of a way of writing – a kind of controlled improvisation. Because of this shift, the record was to some extent divisive – but it was the necessary reinvention that the Bad Seeds desperately needed".

s me with a kind of professional pride to be a part of the sometimes contentious business of songwriting. It’s cool. I like it" - Nick Cave answered on his Red Hand Files blog to fans' questions about Tom Jones' 'Delilah ' being banned in Wales. Cave doesn't really like that particular murder ballad - "'Delilah’, despite the fact that it was awarded the Ivor Novello in 1968, just sort of sucks. As someone who knows a thing or two about murder ballads, for my taste, it’s all too waltzy and strident and hammy and mariachi and triumphant. And the words are ugly – 'I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.' Really?".

U2 are launching their long-rumored Las Vegas residency 'U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere' at the high-tech MSG Sphere this fall, Rolling Stone reports. The shows will celebrate their 1991 album 'Achtung Baby' in a multi-show residency, but without drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who will be recuperating from surgery. Bram van den Berg will replace him. U2 said that their "audience was always the fifth member of the band. Bottom line, U2 hasn’t played live since December 2019 and we need to get back on stage and see the faces of our fans again".

Playboi Carti allegedly choked his pregnant girlfriend, leaving visible injuries on her neck, chest, and back, during an argument on December 20, TMZ reports. Carti’s girlfriend, who was 14 weeks pregnant at the time, told police that she and Carti were arguing about a paternity test when he grabbed her throat, pushed her into some bushes, and held her neck until she could barely breathe. She went to her car and tried to call police, but Carti attacked her again.

David Jolicoeur, a founding member of De La Soul, has died at the age of 54, with the cause of death still unknown, All Hip Hop reports. The musician has commonly performed under the stage name Trugoy the Dove, and later in his career as Dave. On De La Soul's debut - '3 Feet High and Rising', the band's most commercially successful record, and widely considered a masterpiece - they differentiated themselves from their contemporaries with their eccentric wordplay and eclectic jazz and funk samples.

Burt Bacharach, the songwriter and performer who scored dozens of hits, has died at 94 at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, CNN reports. 'I Say a Little Prayer', sung by Aretha Franklin, 'What’s New Pussycat?' by Tom Jones, 'The Look of Love' by Dusty Springfield, 'Make It Easy on Yourself' by the Walker Brothers, are some of his hits. 'Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head', performed by BJ Thomas and featured in the film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', won a Grammy and an Oscar in 1969, while Bacharach’s music for the film won the Oscar for best original score. Dionne Warwick became one of Bacharach’s most enduring and fruitful collaborators, with hits such as 'Walk on By', 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?', 'Anyone Who Had a Heart', 'A House is Not a Home'... As of 2014, Bacharach had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits and is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.

Sleaford Mods have shared 'Force 10 From Navarone,' a collaborative track with Dry Cleaning's Florence Shaw that's from their upcoming album 'UK Grim', NME reports. Shaw's deadpan delivery fits right in with post-punk-meets-dance banger of a beat. "She’s the real deal and conjures the inspiration I get from the likes of Wu-Tang in the way she uses one word to convey a whole story" - Mods frontman Jason Williamson points out. As for the song, Williams says “The track is a conversation with myself coming to terms with happiness and whether it is in fact a darker space than my negativity and depression. Coupled with that it explores the myth of activism and inaction of the majority in the UK in the presence of a corrupt government.”