For Phuket's ethnic Chinese community, this bizarre festival is a time of cleansing, purity and abstinence.

Who's who at this year's festival of fashion? We find out the details of each designer, and a little about their approach to the season.

Who's who at this year's festival of fashion? We find out the details of each designer, and a little about their approach to the season.

In Japan on one day a year 20-year-olds pull out all the stops for a big, noisy, colourful public party, notes Ian D. Robinson.

Add a little glamour to your life and join in the fun and action of the New Zealand Fashion Festival, which kicks off this Friday in the heart of Auckland City.

Every night of this spectacular annual festival, huge, colourful lantern floats are wheeled through the streets.

Lydia Jenkin's week of movies, music, TV and more.

Jazzie B from Soul II Soul talks to Scott Kara about club culture and being pioneers of the sound system.

After 15 years in the music business, Erykah Badu remains a fiercely independent spirit and genuinely inspiring artist. VOLUME spoke with Badu prior to her first visit to New Zealand.

This annual festival is held in the attractive inland town of Ubud, a haven for artists and craftspeople.

Danielle Wright looks at what's to love about this year's Lantern Festival.

Liz Light gets a world of music at WOMAD.

M83's latest album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, released last October, is a huge, melodramatic, pop soundscape filling two discs, richly layered and boldly drawn.

Indie pop duo Cults are the epitome of New Yorker-style coolness.

A sweet, artistic, free spirit, with a voice that rivals Enya and Bjork, New York-based Cameron Mesirow, who works under the artist name Glasser, is the kind of musician who dreams up the idea of a two-person organ, and then actually gets one made.

Belgian-born Australian indie pop artist Gotye (you say it like "Gaultier"), whose real name is Wally De Backer, is much loved in Australia.

Max Cavalera and his brother Iggor didn't speak to each other for 10 years after Brazilian metal legends Sepultura splintered into two camps.

Noel Gallagher is in the process of belittling me - and anyone else with an office job for that matter.

2012 will see My Chemical Romance celebrating 10 years together, 10 years of uniting the teen masses with their anti-establishment messages and powerful punk glam rock.

Like his good mate Noel Gallagher, Tom Meighan doesn't mind letting the world know how great he thinks his band - Kasabian - is, and for that matter, how great he is.

Who's the biggest star of tomorrow's Big Day Out? Noel? Chris?