At other moments, he shuffles clumsily about the stage like Michael Jackson. Conscious of his ridiculousness at all times, Stockdale has the gumption to poke fun at his exalted position. And that makes him all the more charismatic.

If 2008/9 was a period of transition for the burly Sydney-siders, then 2010 sees them arguably stronger than they have ever been. Their second album Cosmic Egg was released last October, and while not exactly stretching boundaries or transcending genres, was a consistent enough effort. The time since then has allowed fans to fully ingest the new Wolfmother, and tonight’s show was packed with sweating, wide-eyed fans almost unhinged at the prospect of staple show-stoppers such as ‘Woman’, ‘Dimension’ and ‘New Moon Rising’. They rocked out hard. No more, no less.

That kind of simplicity cannot quite be said of support band the Black Angels. The Austin, Texas quintet are also on their second album, but enjoy a certain subterranean credibility that will always elude Wolfmother. They peddle a heavy, minimalist psychedelic rock that even comes close to certain strands of metal at times. They even have an instrument that they call a ‘drone machine’.

Tonight their set includes several songs from their 2008 album Directions To See A Ghost, tracks that thud along with spectacular morbidity. Unfortunately most of the sparse crowd in front of them were hyperactive Wolfmother freaks, perhaps not used to something quite so subtle. This is deviance, to them. The Angels previewed new material too, which interestingly are more in a bluesy direction, suggesting their obsession with the Velvet Undergound and to a lesser degree 13th Floor Elevators, may be reaching its natural end.

When the Black Angels headline, they often create evenings of brutal, incredible euphoria with their ear-splitting racket. As the support act, they were not allowed to achieve this tonight. At the peak of their powers they will easily overpower the likes of Wolfmother, but working in tandem with them they only served to emphasise the fact that the headliners appeal to the basest instincts of rock fans. There is nothing wrong with that, but ultimately it is bands like the Angels who will inherit the earth.

Sleepy Sun look like a band it would be enormous fun to be in – perhaps, as one watches them grin and saunter about the stage feeding off the energy of each other much more than the sparse audience, more so than those Antipodeans.

Sleepy Sun, however, are not about to trouble the charts any time soon. The Santa Cruz sextet hit the jackpot for psychedelic rockers when they were picked up by the ATP label, affording them instant credibility, and meaning that after this relatively low-key date in the freezing winter gloom of Switzerland’s financial centre, they headed to Butlins in Minehead for the hallowed cool of the ATP festival, and London shows supporting Dinosaur Jr’s J.Mascis.

Sleepy Sun make bluesy, heavy rock that is punctuated by a softness that proves them sixties throwbacks at heart: all of The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, The Allman Brothers and plugged-in Neil Young are hinted at tonight. Jefferson Airplane are also an obvious influence, and not just because of the presence of a charismatic and alluring female singer in the shape of Rachel Williams. ‘Golden Artifact’ could have been an outtake from Surrealistic Pillow in its wistful, mild folk-tinged melancholy.

The presence of a strong female vocalist and those occasional soft moments also aligns them with Canadians Black Mountain, and it may interest some to know that Sleepy Sun benefitted from the production expertise of Colin Stewart, who the band ventured up to Vancouver to record with for their excellent debut album Embrace. Stewart polished up Black Mountain’s In The Future, and he has exceeded even that with Sleepy Sun. For Embrace is a sublime record, adding melody and articulacy to the drone-heavy US psychedelic scene.

That’s not to say Sleepy Sun don’t nail down a few huge riffs now and then. ‘No Age’ and ‘Sleepy Sun’ are thunderous tonight and offer countless deviations from their recorded guises into experimental territory that is yet another impressive weapon in the arsenal of this band, even if the ‘improvisation’ is steady and a little monotonous at times.

The band are using this tour to test new material for a new album that promises to be released next summer. Those songs seem meandering and looser, with more pronounced juxtapositions of soft and moody with loud and tempestuous. Gone, to an extent, are the simpler song structures of Embrace, heralding in a new obtuseness that makes them all the more an ATP sort of band.

Most persuasive though is that camaraderie. Bret Constantino may act the role of frontman, but Williams matches him as both singer and court jester on stage, and each member is allowed breathing space to cultivate their own off-the-cuff contributions to the show: guitarist Evan Reiss is a particularly imaginative musician. Such constant positivity and friendship is going to become boring and make relationships implode eventually, making Sleepy Sun at this precise moment in time all the more adorable a proposition.

Even before he opens his mouth to sing in Zurich’s Mascotte venue, such gross misconceptions are lanced. Sporting a grey three-piece suit, he bounds on stage with his band, The County, with a swagger worthy of Lupe Fiasco. Woah now, maybe not quite that impressive, but the fact remains that Mayer Hawthorne is a soulful cat whose music takes its cue from and is so reminiscent of to be a tribute to, the best ‘classic’ soul, from Marvin Gaye to Curtis Mayfield to Leroy Hutson and especially, Barry White. His live show is fascinating, and tonight achieves the rare feat of splitting the audience in two: one half is gleefully dancing away just as The Mayer voraciously demands of them, and the other half stands nearly stock-still, transfixed on nothing except the interplay between all the elements of this supreme five-piece, who add subtlety and melody to a sound based on imperious retro funk.

Mayer Hawthorne’s real name is Andrew Cohen, and from those Michigan beginnings now lives in Los Angeles. After his spell as an integral member of hip hop groups Now On and Athletic Mic League, he decided to embrace his inner Isaac Hayes with his widely fawned-over debut album A Strange Arrangement, the result. It’s an album of gleeful soul and funk, with rhythmic qualities that recall his hip hop past, and benefits from being on Stones Throw records: an instant mark of credibility if ever there was one.

He opens tonight with lead single ‘Maybe So, Maybe No’, before launching through most of The Strange Arrangement. Aside from evidently being a great scholar of the soul tradition, Hawthorne appears to be a devilishly talented songwriter in his own right. ‘Green Eyed Love’ and the quite fantastic ‘When I Said Goodbye’ are almost worthy of a place on a Motown record circa ’72. Berry Gordy would be all over this. A decidedly odd moment occurs when The County launch into ‘My Blue Sky’ by ELO, mind you, ensuring his genre-crossing knows few boundaries.

The Mayer had to work extra hard to break through the infamous Swiss reserve and provoke what was a large audience into engaging with him. He did so, through a combination of infectious energy in his effortlessly soulful jiving on stage and his occasional ‘bringing it down’, becoming an instant lothario figure paying homage to White and Hayes. “This is a song all about lurrrrve,” he purrs. “So get with your lurrrrvers”.

It would be all too easy to tar a young white boy doing this sort of thing with cynical accusations of mere imitation and gimmickry. Not so. If the album is not enough to convince of his passion and his belief that music is a benevolent force of celebration, see him and The County live. It’s not all seduction – he does incorporate social commentary on the odd tune, such as ‘The Ills’ – but it is nigh on impossible not to fall for his fancy moves.

For all her gifts, and the fact her reputation among critics is outstanding, it is forgivable to not know who she is. Or, more likely, you know who she is from her work with other artists. She was, for example, part of Neil Finn’s Seven Worlds Collide project both in 2001 and 2009 (contributing some of the supergroup’s finest songs, such as ‘Paper Doll’ and ‘Reptile’), and in 2002 contributed to David Bowie’s Heathen album. She’s worked on three albums by Eels, Iggy Pop’s Beside You and, perhaps less worth heralding, The Globe Sessions by Sheryl Crow.

So she has friends. But any notion of ever-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride is banished on first listen to Magic Neighbour. Throughout her career, which began in 1991 with her first solo album On The Way Down From The Moon Place, she has perfected what we might call ‘fairytale balladry’, for want of a better way to sum up the fact so many of her songs have a simplicity to their melody, structure and instrumentation that evokes merry-go-rounds and carnivals, albeit with a certain darkness. But hers is not a darkness without at least some kind of hope, as exemplified on ‘To The Mighty One’ .

Her voice is her most affecting weapon. Hushed and whispering, she is constantly singing lullabies, but not in a twee, Vashti Bunyan sort of way.  Her voice, to use a wretched term, is ‘lived in’, even though it still maintains an innocence and wide-eyed curiosity that still, on her seventh album, is her hallmark.

Early in her career she was firmly lo-fi, which explains her kinship with Eels, and Magic Neighbour balances the piano and her signature violin with fairly loose acoustic guitar, such as ‘Simple’. ‘The Prince of Plati’ is Germano at her mournful best, and typically, her tone is one akin to a grown up trying to console an upset child.  What marks this out as so special is the fact there is no irony or subtle meaning to be explored or deciphered, nor any psychological dramas or, really poetics. Germano’s music is exactly how an adult must speak to a child, with direct simplicity and honesty, and therefore, great profundity.  Even on songs that hint at romance or relationships, like ‘A Million Times’, she assumes this very tender persona.

This style of hers is highly original. At some points she is comparable to Hope Sandoval and Mazzy Star, though Germano is less ambiguous in her imagery. Germano’s songs are on a deeper emotional level than Joan As Police Woman and less melodramatic than Tori Amos. Johnny Marr said of her during the first Seven Worlds Collide outing, “she is everything I like in a female singer”.  Johnny Marr, who these days has more good taste than talent, is correct.

Very rarely, a compilation album comes along that is genuinely seminal; that sums up a scene, a movement or a generation. Those albums that artists refer to as an influence just as much as any single band. The ultimate of these must the Nuggets compilation of underground psychedelia from the mid to late sixties, an album released in 1972 that spawned a veritable institution, with 15 volumes released in the eighties. More recently, the excellent Dark Was The Night compilation summed up the modern experimental folk trend of the past half-decade.

The Amorphous Androgynous’s second instalment of psychedelic hymns is not like that. Not seeking to capture the essence of a moment in time,  the duo seek to express a single theme of joyous lysergic abandon, taking music from throughout the decades and throughout the genres, as long as it is at least a mild freak-out. This is A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind: Volume 2, and like Volume One, it is a thing of great beauty.

The Amorphous Androgynous are actually electronica veterans The Future Sound of London (Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans)  in disguise, indulging their love of mind-expanding rock by searching through the annals looking for wonderful, overlooked gems that deserve a reappraisal. The new record is launched with an almighty concert at Matter, London on 30 October, featuring those who feature on the collection such as Hawkwind, Cranium Pie and a rare appearance from re-discovered pagan-folk weirdos Comus.

Indeed, Cobain and Dougans have shown remarkable imagination (and stamina) in presenting their album live. As well as getting those still alive to play live for them, the album acts as a superb DJ device – at this year’s Green Man Festival the duo performed for seven hours, sending the crowd into a psychedelic stupor, experiencing this wig-out of a record in the best way possible.

As far as home listening is concerned, there are some remarkable artefacts to be found here. Particularly satisfying are Ultimate Spinach’s ‘(Ballad Of ) The Hip Death Goddess, Melanie’s ‘(Lay Down) Candles In The Rain’ and The Transpersonals’ ‘Silver Star’. Of the 44 tracks, most are unearthed from the 66-75 era of rock, although contemporary acts to get a look in include Brightblack Morning Light, Circulus, Animal Collective and Holy Fuck.  Volume Two doesn’t quite outdo the remarkable Volume One, but in its breadth and staggering sense of funk, Cobain and Dougans are doing a moribund rock scene a massive service. The only letdown is the inclusion of a remix of an Oasis track. But nevermind.

That is, until you see the opening shot of Gabriel Noble’s documentary P-Star Rising. Priscilla ‘P-Star’ Riaz, born and bred in New York, is the girl in question, and in that first scene you see the diminutive Puerto Rican being snuck into a hip hop club at 2am, appearing on stage minutes later performing her rhymes and laying down her flow in front of the blinged-up majority, and, it seems, seriously rocking the house.

It is only then that the incongruity of P-Star becomes apparent. It’s true that she isn’t rapping about the typical urban ribaldry in much of the hip hop canon: no bitches, hoes or guns here. Her songs are largely self-referencing treatises on her precociousness and her family. But the delivery is distinctly ‘mature’, shall we say, and later in the film she indulges in some Beyonce-style ‘booty shaking’ dancing (or whatever it’s called).

P-Star Rising has been doing the rounds of European Film Festivals recently, with a screening on the BBC planned for the new year. This is actually an extremely well told story, with Noble keen to present the film as an analysis of family dynamics as much as any music documentary. Equally as prominent as P-Star in the film is her father Jesse, a rather deluded man  who failed in his own attempts to achieve stardom in the eighties. The fragile balance between his genuine passion to ensure his daughter is treated fairly, and his dangerously irresponsible streak, is one of the main fascinations of this film.

Film or no film, P-Star’s is a story worth telling. Yet to truly crack any lucrative market with a big deal, she remains tied to NYC’s Hunc Records as her father works two jobs. Her mother, a drug addict, is estranged and her sister, thanks to that, was born with learning difficulties. That P-Star emerged from that background to even be in a position to attract the attentions of a filmmaker such as Noble is a notable achievement.

Her music, however, is nothing special. A few levels above Aaron Carter, maybe, but while she is accomplished enough as an MC, it is a struggle to put together anything meaningful at that age, especially in a genre based on oral delivery rather than melody. In the film, her father is intent on not making her ‘bubblegum’, and is even accused of dressing her as a ‘young thug’ to ensure this. However, surely the best chances of success do lie in appealing predominantly to children. Some of her most prominent work in the past was with Reggaeton Ninos, a team of well organised Latino youngsters who put out a series of reggaeton albums aimed at children, and she is currently acting in The Electric Company, a public service TV show for kids. Clearly, to go down the ghetto route would not be a good move. Her album, Welcome To My Show, has a beaming, colourful P-Star on the front cover. It is, one has to say, pretty darn ‘bubblegum’. Her MySpace reads: “a wonderful attraction for any children’s party”, which tells its own story about her current status, as well as her prospective audience.

The other problem with taking P-Star seriously is her frightening confidence. Throughout Noble’s documentary she is articulate and forthright, almost brash at times.  At one point this pre-teen is seen holding the room at label headquarters laying down the law to executives and other workers. So structured is her speech that one wonders if she has meticulously rehearsed for every interaction she ever has.  Her sincerity in these moments seems hollow, yet this, of course, is a talent in itself.

P-Star frequently points out she is a ‘phenomenon’; but nowadays, she is simply a charismatic young woman with various talents, the most suitable of which is yet to be found. In that opening scene though, she is something to see.

The Amazing would probably be flattered by a comparison with that most bloated of rock juggernauts. The first song on their record, ‘The Kirwan Song’ is an exaggerated, but excellent, tribute to Danny Kirwan. Kirwan was the Mac guitarist from 1968 to 1972, and The Amazing apparently have a strange fetish for him. There are indeed Mac-ish touches all over the LP, certainly in the reverb-happy guitar sounds eeked out by Reine Fiske, but The Amazing have a more diverse palette than just humdrum white blues. The odd slip into Americana and even shoegaze ensure that.

The Mac affiliation is furthered by the fact The Amazing are something of a Swedish rock supergroup. Fiske and drummer Johan Holmegard are full-time members of psych hipsters Dungen, while singer Christoffer Gunrup is a prominent Swedish solo artist and multi-instrumentalist Fredrik Swahn a member of Dream Boy. That’s appropriate, because these fellows really, really like Fleetwood Mac. An unfalteringly inventive yet painstakingly and gloriously derivative new band.

The first track emerged in July, ‘Say Please’, a pleasant-ish song without being devastating. Unlike many other supergroups (The Raconteurs being a good example), it is difficult with this quartet to n0tice who does what, according to the stylistic habits of their own careers. For example, it is moronically easy to guess which Raconteurs songs are by Brendan Benson and which by Jack White. Here, based on ‘Say Please’ anyway, the most one can say is that while there are certain melodic cadences and a general mood that evokes Oberst’s recent work, particularly 2007’s Cassadaga, his distinct passion and insight is somewhat blunted by the others. Indeed on other tracks, like ‘Dear God’, it is James’s more soulful proclivities that are interfered with by the confines of being in such a democratic ensemble. Tellingly, it is M.Ward, the only permanent solo artist in the band, whose work is least stunted by the collaboration. His ‘The Sandman, The Brakeman’ is arguably the album’s best track.

So you may ask how the whole thing is held together if everyone’s talents are dumbed down so. The answer comes from the production of Mogis. Much has been made of the fact this album owes a great deal to the original folk supergroup, The Travelling Wilburys and true, there is that Wilburys-esque notion of pure pop competing with more traditional-based ‘classic’ songwriting. But where Mogis succeeds is pulling together three such disparate talents (the politico-apocalypse of Oberst, the smooth country-funk of James and the slightly boring, uneventful singer-songwriterly fare of Ward) and recording them as something approaching a coherent whole.

On the other hand, the lack of surprises or electricity on this record makes one wonder whether he would have been better served leaving them to do their own thing without trying to smooth over the potentially jarring musical differences between them. Not enough fireworks, even if this is a very listenable record by three men, all great students of the history of rock, who know exactly how to press the buttons of those after a throwback sound.

The only other thing is the name. Awful. There must have been a moment when they were sitting round a table with a bottle of whiskey, or perhaps on a porch sharing a joint, when someone came up with this ‘Monsters Of Folk’. It beggars belief that no one either then or since thought to say: “guys, that’s a terrible name, let’s try again”. It’s not that they aren’t folk (the name being an obvious reference to the fact they are not), but clearly this was a move to pre-empt critics and reviewers with an ironic soundbite-friendly description,  a mocking piece of self-knowledge aimed at those who will emphasise the fame of the band’s members rather than the actual music. That is very clever, even admirable, but very smug. If only they weren’t so darn literate.

This is the Green Man Festival’s sixth year, and thanks to the weather and a line-up that was diverse and strong, this was the best ever. The last two years had been washed out by constant rain creating a muddy chaos at the Glanusk Park estate, near Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. This year as ever, organisers stretched the definition of ‘folk’ to its furthest point, incorporating heavy rock (Hawkwind), dance (Pivot) and outright psychedelia (Wooden Shjips).

Headlining on the first night was a clearly exhausted Animal Collective. The trio have been on the road pretty much constantly since their landmark Merriweather Post Pavilion album was released in January. Unfortunately it showed here, with the lethargy obvious as songs like ‘Summer Clothes’ and ‘My Girls’ were devoid of their usual bounce. It didn’t really matter that much, because earlier in the day Melbournites Pivot put on half an hour of loud, heady electronic noise. They were tucked away in the Far Out Tent, the festival’s secondary stage, while over on the main stage crowds witnessed a guileless set from New Yorkers Gang Gang Dance. If Wooden Shjips weren’t on later, who knows what might have happened.

The San Franciscans, still performing with their psychedelic projections behind them, have forged themselves a profile in the UK they could never have dreamed of. The middle-aged noiseniks played a set of heat and dirge, ending with a version of Neil Young’s ‘Vampire Blues’ that had little or no trace of the On The Beach classic whatsoever, and was all the more brilliant for it.

A typically patchy set from The Aliens on Saturday still contained enough moments of hilarity to fend off some Wagnerian-looking clouds creeping over Sugarloaf Mountain. With Jarvis Cocker giving an entertaining if slightly predictable headlining set (no Pulp songs = not really a great festival set, seemed to be the mood among fans), Saturday was the day of unheralded gems further down the bill. The surfer/garage/rockabilly/punk of fantastic Texans The Strange Boys should send countless towards their debut The Strange Boys and Girls Club. Songs of teenage brattishness and awkwardness at the same time, this foursome have an attitude that softens punk by worrying about playground strife and acne. Wonderful.

Better still were Golden Animals. It would be too easy to call them ‘desert blues’. But they sound nothing like Tinariwen, hailing from southern California. A boy and a girl, they shake the legacy of The White Stripes to its core, adding Jim Morrison to the mix. Singer Tommy Eisner has a drawly delivery not unlike the lizard king himself, and as he takes the stage all long-haired and tassled, one can almost forget the presence of statuesque drummer Linda Beecroft. Together they delight in psychedelic blues delirium, transforming the lethargic kids at their feet at the front of stage into a seething mass of freaks by the end of their time.

Aside from a blistering hour or so from Wilco (a couple of new songs, and the full gamut of classics from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born), the final day was something of a wind-down. Scott Matthews is innocuous and inconspicuous. And from Wolverhampton. But to pay close attention to his seemingly gentle and unchallenging songs is to reveal an artist of some considerable talent, and with his utilisation of unorthodox folk tunings, a degree of curiosity and imagination too.

At the other end of the spectrum was the Dirty Three. Warren Ellis was in particularly fine form in the banter stakes, effing and blinding about the place like the sex-god he continues to be. They were brutal, and indeed stung away the confusion at a bizarre set from he who made the ‘lost classic from the seventies’, Rodriguez. One moment stumbling about the stage needing support from his bemused band, the other regally belting out such beautiful songs as ‘I Think Of You’; it was an absorbing affair. As was this whole remarkable festival. A shout out must go to the literature tent too, which featured a talk on the history of Indian Pale Ale and a ridiculously scholarly lecture on Dylan. In fact, to be drunk and bookishly bohemian sums up the Green Man Festival pretty accurately.

Unlike last year, the weather held out. Proceedings began on the Thursday with the staggeringly misjudgement that was Henley all-girl rock band Harlequin. Young and enthusiastic yes, but rambling banter and apparent ‘attitude’ perhaps do not a meaningful contribution make. Manchester youngsters 4 Square were more impressive; magnificent musicians all let down only by one painful excursion into sentimentality, excused by their singer with “everyone likes a bit of cheese, don’t they?”. Oh well. Steeleye Span’s Ken Nicol has forged a partnership with comedian Phil Cool, and the former’s virtuosity alongside the latter’s oddly entertaining impressions eased the way into a patchy, rushed and unfocussed set from a clearly bored Buzzcocks.

The ennui that Buzzcocks left in the air soon made way for the quite mesmerising Steve Winwood. Drawing on recent material balanced with songs from Traffic, Blind Faith and The Spencer Davis Group, the 61-year-old produced a performance the like of which this festival hasn’t seen since John Martyn in 2006. Both catering to his pop success along with his proclivity towards lengthy jazz-folk workouts, Winwood was superb.

A particular highlight of day two was Wolverhampton’s Scott Matthews. Emerging in the dead of early afternoon, the purists of Cropredy didn’t take too kindly to his odd tunings, his 12-string and his Jeff Buckley-lite voice. It’s true, he is no genius, but his introspective brooding actually stood out well amid more traditional acts like Feast of Fiddles and The Churchfitters, who performed the following day. Matthews has an obtuse charm that must be worked for, something that the easily-pleased throngs who are only after a jig or two might not appreciate.

Unseemly guitar noodling almost got the better of John Jorgenson, up later on that day, but he redeemed himself with a bizarre version of The Beatles’ ‘Love To You’ alongside a few other well-chosen rock covers. As far as guitarist go, mind, few, if any, can hold a candle to Richard Thompson. Playing a lengthy solo acoustic spot, he covered ground from his time with Fairport right through to his remarkable 1000 Years of Popular Music project (the song plucked from that being The Who’s ‘Subsitute’). Other highlights included ‘Down Where The Drunkards Roll’ and ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’, and a duet of ‘Persuasion’ with his daughter Kami, who herself performed her own song ‘Little Boy Blue’. “Nepotism will get you everywhere,” said Thompson senior. “Well, to Cropredy,” retorted the younger, who unlike 99 per cent of budding young songwriters, has her fanbase already totally set up for her.

The following afternoon was something of a letdown. No act managed to cover themselves in glory in the beating sunshine, including an oddly subdued Ralph McTell. By the time Fairport Convention started at 9pm, there was such a cloying sense of expectation that when Yusuf Islam eventually did meander out and join them (Cropredy’s “worst kept secret” according to the programme), his entrance was slightly underwhelming. He was only around for a matter of twenty or so minutes, in which he resolutely played songs from new album Roadsinger, only giving us the slightly wet ‘Peace Train’ of his major classics. He soon left, however, and Fairport got on with their marathon performance, delving into such untrodden territory as songs from Babbacombe Lee. As every year however, they returned to ‘Meet On The Ledge’ for their grand finale, sending many of the 20,000 in this Oxfordshire field a-blubbing. In it’s thirtieth year, despite some patchy music, this was one of Cropredy’s grandest occasions.