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EVEN BY RECENT STANDARDS, IT’S ALREADY been a pretty momentous summer in the UK for live shows. Br uce Springsteen And The E Street Band. Arctic Monkeys. Lana Del Rey. Pulp and Blur. An auspicious Glastonbur y Festival climaxing with the final British performance by Elton John.

When festival bills were announced, though, one name at July’s Latitude Festival stood out. There, lurking on the second stage line-up, was the most shocking of additions: Siouxsie Sioux, returning to the spotlight for the first time in a decade. Over those 10 years, absence has only boosted her already powerful reputation – not just as a punk trailblazer, as an unwitting progenitor of goth, but as a visionar y innovator who deser ves to be talked about with the same reverence as we talk about Kate Bush.

“I’m not the cartoon character that ever yone would like me to be,” Sioux told MOJO’s Mark Paytress, and this month we present the deepest of dives into her nuanced, multi-faceted genius. Paytress travels to Milan, to re-engage with Sioux as she starts a season of live manoeuvres. Jon Savage uncovers a revelator y – and often extremely moving – inter view with her from his archives. And long-ser ving Banshees lieutenants Steve Severin and Budgie are on hand to provide more unprecedented insights into this most mysterious of icons. “It was tricky, and fractious, and loving, and entangled,” says Budgie. “And I wouldn’t change a thing.”