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Perry Bamonte, guitarist and keyboardist for the Cure, dies aged 65

Starting as a roadie and guitar tech, Bamonte joined the band in 1990 after its breakthrough album Disintegration

Perry Bamonte, longtime guitarist and keyboard player for the Cure, has died aged 65.

The musician, known affectionately as Teddy, passed away after a short illness over Christmas, the band announced on their website.

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© Photograph: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

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Jewish klezmer-dance band Oi Va Voi: ‘Musicians shouldn’t have to keep looking over their shoulders’

After 20 years playing around the world, the group had two UK gigs cancelled this year after protests from activists. It’s made them feel targeted for who they are, the band say

Josh Breslaw was looking forward to a homecoming gig with his band of two decades’ standing. Oi Va Voi, a predominantly Jewish collective mixing traditional eastern European folk tunes with drum’n’bass and dance, were due to conclude a spring tour of Turkey with a gig in May at Bristol’s Strange Brew club, plus one in Brighton where Breslaw lives. But then, after protests from local activists about both the band’s past performances in Israel, and with Israeli singer Zohara, Strange Brew abruptly cancelled, citing “the ongoing situation in Gaza”.

To be told they hadn’t met the venue’s “ethical standards” was devastating, says Breslaw, the band’s 52-year-old drummer: “It felt so unjust.” But worse came when his home-town venue cancelled in solidarity. “It changed how I felt about the city, how I felt about parts of the music industry. And it changed how I felt about the political home I always felt I lived in.” Although the Brighton promoter swiftly apologised, only in November did Strange Brew issue a statement saying it had “made a mistake”, adding that the band likely only attracted scrutiny because they are “a Jewish band performing with an Israeli singer”.

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© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

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Soul-baring ballads, alt-rock fury and neon-lit techno: five-star albums you may have missed this year

Valentina Magaletti drummed for her life, Sarz got hips swinging and Daniel Avery got slinky and serpentine: our writers pick their favourite unsung LPs from 2025
The 50 best albums of 2025
More on the best culture of 2025

Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is characteristic of Annahstasia’s debut album. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and her extraordinary vocals – husky, expressive, elegant – are front and centre. The arrangement is subtle but not drearily tasteful: arching noise that could be feedback or a distorted pedal steel guitar, which gradually swells into something climactic before dying away. The lyrics, meanwhile, concern themselves with selling out: “Maybe I’m an analyst, an antisocial bitch,” she sings. “Who sells her dreams for money.”

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© Photograph: Tatsiana

© Photograph: Tatsiana

© Photograph: Tatsiana

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My big night out: I danced alone in a nightclub – and realised I could make my own good time

I had gone out with friends to mark the end of university, and one by one they disappeared. With the music throbbing, I learned I could be comfortable in my own company

Between the ages of 16 and 21, the big night out wasn’t just a hobby, it was a calling. Getting together with friends, getting drunk, being blasted by music, meeting new friends in the smoking area, getting more drunk, somehow making it home eight hours later – these were things I excelled at, the precious moments where I could try to lose myself and avoid the anxiety that inevitably came with daybreak.

The escapism wasn’t just selfish fun. It felt like a necessary avoidance of reality, which for me consisted of having a mother with a terminal illness who would die when I was 19, leaving me at university to cope with my grief. Going out, dancing and chatting rubbish to friends was one way to survive.

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© Illustration: Mark Long/The Guardian

© Illustration: Mark Long/The Guardian

© Illustration: Mark Long/The Guardian

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The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan; The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace by RWR McDonald; Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino; Your Every Move by Sam Blake

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate, £9.99)
The award-winning Australian writer’s third adult novel begins with a lone woman, Rowan, washed up on a remote island between Tasmania and Antarctica. Shearwater is a research outpost, home to the global seed vault created as a bulwark against climate catastrophe and to colonies of seals, penguins and birds. For eight years, Dominic Salt and his children have lived there, but dangerously rising sea levels mean that they, and the vault, will shortly be evacuated. Dominic cannot understand why Rowan has ended up on Shearwater, and Rowan is mystified by the absence of the scientists and researchers, about whom the family are tight-lipped – and the island’s communication centre has been mysteriously sabotaged, isolating them still further. McConaghy writes beautifully about the natural world and expertly ratchets up the tension, as mutual suspicion increases and secrets are gradually revealed. This is a powerful read that encompasses not only grief, sacrifice and perseverance in the face of disaster, but also survival strategies and their concomitant moral dilemmas.

Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan (Sphere, £20)
When chaotic kleptomaniac Caitlin returns to her small Irish home town after the death of Kathleen, the mother from whom she has been estranged for many years, she’s pleased to be welcomed by the Branaghs, friendly neighbours she remembers from childhood. Less pleasant is being forced to confront past traumas, including the disappearance of her nine-year-old friend Roisin from a local wood 20 years earlier. Caitlin feels guilty about this, as does Roisin’s older sister Deedee, who is sure that Caitlin is still hiding something. Having joined the garda to find answers that never materialised, Deedee is drinking heavily, making poor decisions and jeopardising both her job and her relationship, and both women desperately need closure … This impressive, if bleak, debut is a slow-burning but well paced story of shame, guilt, misplaced loyalty and generational trauma, the conclusion of which, once one is in possession of all the facts, has a heartbreaking inevitability.

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© Photograph: Mypurgatoryyears/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: Mypurgatoryyears/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: Mypurgatoryyears/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Tess and Claudia quit! Celia farts! It’s 2025’s most jaw-dropping TV moments

From shock Strictly news to shock flatulence, plus a roundup of the most hilarious news fails, here are the year’s wildest bits of television

One of the most critically acclaimed and most watched shows of the year was Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s staggering Adolescence. At the heart of the plot: why did an innocent-looking kid called Jamie (Owen Cooper) commit such a brutal murder? The third episode lifted the lid. As Jamie is interviewed by psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty), we see him slowly reveal that he’s not an innocent kid, but warped by misogyny and a twisted sense of entitlement. The episode was captivating in its acting, but it stayed with you: from Jamie’s sudden switch from vulnerability to manipulation, to the moment the camera zooms in on Briony’s face as she registers who Jamie really is. Horrifying.

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© Photograph: BBC

© Photograph: BBC

© Photograph: BBC

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The Dominik Diamond alternative game of the year awards 2025

There was no shortage of fun and video games in the Diamond household in the last 12 months. Which ones did we play so much our thumbs hurt? And which one saved my soul? Let the ceremony begin …
The 20 best video games of 2025

So, how was 2025 for your household? Was it really all as good as you pretended it was on Facebook? Full of A-grades for the kids and riotous themed fancy dress birthday parties for the grownups? Or was it a sea of disappointment with only occasional fun flotsam? And was any of it actually real, or are we all now seven-fingered AI slop beings with Sydney Sweeney’s teeth?

I have gathered my thoughts (and the Diamond household) together, whether they wanted to or not, to reflect on the most important thing in any given year: which video games we enjoyed the most. Without further ado:

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© Photograph: Raw Fury

© Photograph: Raw Fury

© Photograph: Raw Fury

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