Phil Selway on BBC 6 Music

Philip Selway is back in Guy Garvey's chair on 6 Music's Finest Hour after a while away. Nick Drake went into Sound Techniques in London in October 1971 for two late-night sessions and came out with Pink Moon, and Radiohead, he suggests, might take note. Lyn Collins was billed as the Female Preacher, and “I don't know why preacher wasn't enough on its own but then again it was the 70s I suppose.” An album made mostly on iPhone and iPad apps impresses a man who has trouble just texting. Reviews call Baaba Maal's new record a return to form, and Selway wasn't aware Maal had lost it. Mos Def has just announced his retirement from music and film at 42, which Selway calls nice work if you can get it.

He has been to a lot of gigs lately, perhaps reminding himself how it is done before the year ahead. Foals ended their set at the NIA in Birmingham with “Inhaler” and nearly lifted the roof, and Pins made the Bullingdon, a small club in Oxford, feel like the Brixton Academy. Jono McCleery's homecoming show at Bush Hall falls on 23 May, which happens to be Selway's birthday, a subtle reminder to any family listening. He swore he would never put the Clash on a 6 Music playlist, and plays “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais”. “Obviously I'm not a man of my word.”