Inside The Wire 298 | December 2008

Antony Hegarty photographed by Michael Schmelling

The Masthead 4

Letters 6

Bitstream 8 News and more from below the radar

The Joined-up World of The Wire 10 What we are up to online and elsewhere

Trip Or Squeek 10 By Savage Pencil

Bites 12 Grimetapes, Reginald Foresythe, Goodiepal

Charts 52

Out There 94 Festivals, concerts, gigs and club listings

Reviews Index 53

Soundcheck 54 This month’s selected CDs, vinyl and downloads, including new releases from Harry Pussy, Neil Landstrumm and Valerio Cosi. Plus avant rock, critical beats, dub, electronica, hiphop, jazz & Improv, modern composition, outer limits, unusual formats and reissues

The Inner Sleeve 79 Baron Mordant on 23 Skidoo

Print Run 80 New music books, including a dancehall history, David Rothenberg on whalesong, plus a study of videogame sounds

On Screen 82 Les Stances À Sophie and Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders on DVD

On Site 83 Gallery and mixed media events, including Amsterdam’s Wave Field Synthesis and New York’s Looking At Music exhibition

On Location 84 Concert and festival reviews, including the Open Frame and Approximately Infinite Universe events, Juana Molina, Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS and more

Noodles 14 Joe Muggs on the spaced-out future Groove Chronicles of South Londoner Steven Jude

Graveyards 16 David Keenan meets a Michigan trio warming up the corpse of jazz and chamber music

Bettina Köster 18 Val Phoenix meets the ex-Mania D/Malaria! agitator turned Queen of Noise

Global Ear 20 Toronto Daniel Nielson listens in to the overlooked sounds of suicide spots and broadminded churches

Cross Platform The Owl Project 22 ‘Tree fellers’ from Manchester construct digitized log instruments. By Anne Hilde Neset

Invisible Jukebox The Band Of Holy Joy 24

Songwriter, bandleader, theatre director and broadcaster Johny Brown mines for gold in The Wire’s mystery record selection. Tested by Biba Kopf

Radio Ballads 30

Rob Young celebrates the 50th birthday of Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and Peggy Seeger’s experimental radio creations mixing folk and actuality

Florian Hecker 34

The German sound artist harnesses the power of Xenakis’s UPIC system to amplify psychoacoustic space. By Nick Cain

Antony & The Johnsons 38

Alan Licht uncovers the singer’s interest in paradise and Japanese Butoh dance, and his former dreams of creating a progressive cabaret in New York

The Primer West African psychedelia 44

A user’s guide to the fuzzy, funky sounds of postcolonial West Africa, fuelled by political independence and pop-cultural revolution. By Richard Henderson

Epiphanies 106 Jonny Trunk on discovering the buried treasures of Library Music