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The Wire 507

May 2026

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Special Savage Pencil cover available in black or white editions.

Inside the magazine: Sunn O))): The robed pair get lost in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for their new album. By Rob Turner; Delphine Dora: The French multi-instrumentalist fuses made up language and spiritual texts in her metaphysical music. By Miloš Hroch; Jair-Rohm Parker Wells: The bassist and composer channels the vibrations of ECM into his low end explorations. By Phil Freeman; The Sleeves: Guitarists Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper take a scalpel to indie pop. By Lucy Thraves; Brion Gysin: Collaborator Ramuntcho Matta reflects on the artist’s freshly reissued Dreamachine album. By Daniel Spicer; Invisible Jukebox: Irmin Schmidt: Will the Can founder doo right by The Wire’s mystery record selection? Tested by Leah Kardos; Regan Bowering: Under the drumskin. By Derek Walmsley; Holy Sun Opera House: Sounding the corridors of the unconscious. By Stephanie Phillips; Global Ear: Battle of the bells in Moretonhampstead. By Clive Bell; Unlimited Editions: Outernational sounds by way of Brighton’s Hive Mind label. By Daniel Spicer; The Inner Sleeve: MIC on Black Sheep Wall’s I’m Going To Kill Myself. Against The Grain: Deborah Nash on the transportive power of the jukebox; Epiphanies: Young Adam Bohman’s pocket money opens up a world of improvised music. Plus 37 pages of reviews including: Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D Oberland: Trauma response. By James Gui; Simon Hanes: Gargantuan sounds. By Leah Kardos; La Musica: Mainline to the Tokyo underground. By Louis Pattison; Love Magic Power Danger Bliss: Yoko Ono And The Avant-Garde Diaspora: 20th century woman. By Mark Webber; I Hear Freedom: The Great Migration, Free Jazz, And Black Power: Urban renewal. By Andy Hamilton; bAdBLUEbirdz: Mono no aware. By Anla Li; GLARCIVERSARY: GLARCing around in Glasgow and London. By Claire Biddles, and much more.

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Tracks

Office Ambience 506

Office Ambience 506

Stream a selection of tracks from releases we listened to during the making of our April 2026 issue

Tracks

Wire mix: O Ghettão

Wire mix: O Ghettão

To accompany their interview in The Wire 505, Lisbon based DJ Firmeza, DJ Danifox and DJ N***a Fox, aka O Ghettão, curate an exclusive mix of unreleased material

Tracks

Wire mix: dälek

Wire mix: dälek

To complement their cover feature in The Wire 505, Will Brooks and Mike Manteca aka dälek curate a special Wire mix, while Joseph Stannard shares additional quotes from his interview with the New Jersey duo

Tracks

Office Ambience 505

Office Ambience 505

Stream a selection of tracks from releases we listened to during the making of our March 2026 issue

Download

Below The Radar Special Edition: SHAPE+ 2025

Below The Radar Special Edition: SHAPE+ 2025

After ten years the European SHAPE+ project has concluded. This is the final collection of new electronic and experimental music by artists associated with the project compiled and annotated by SHAPE+ for The Wire

Like all releases in the Below The Radar series, this edition can be downloaded by both print and digital subscribers to The Wire.

Essay

A line in the sand

A line in the sand

As AI use spreads further into the creative industries, platforms like Bandcamp must be bold in their efforts to sort the good faith from the bad, argues Erick Bradshaw

Essay

Authorship under automation

Authorship under automation

In the first essay of a short series exploring Bandcamp’s ban on AI-generated music, Vicki Bennett argues that the platform’s decision rests on the belief in a stable binary between computer and human made music

Tracks

Wire mix: Hilary Woods

Wire mix: Hilary Woods

To complement her interview in The Wire 503/504, Irish composer and filmmaker Hilary Woods curates an exclusive Wire mix

Essay

Colin Stetson: Hot Breath and Dark Tones

Colin Stetson: Hot Breath and Dark Tones

Philip Brophy analyses Colin Stetson’s use of the saxophone’s physical dimensions to evoke the disturbed voices and bodies of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and Hereditary (2018)

Tracks

Wire playlist: Alpha Maid

Wire playlist: Alpha Maid

Leisha Thomas – aka Alpha Maid – compiles an annotated playlist that charts her work alongside and within the South London experimental scene that also includes Mica Levi and Coby Sey

Essay

Process of Time

Process of Time

To make sense of ongoing tech revolutions, a new generation of musicians is making music that metabolises electronic processes through analogue forms, argues Ryan Meehan

Essay

Hybrid Vigour

Hybrid Vigour

Far beyond novelty or experiment, 2025 was the year that crossover projects rejected genre labels for endless sonic possibilities, writes Stewart Smith in The Wire 503/504

Essay

Extended Play

Extended Play

In The Wire 503/504, Xenia Benivolski writes that as the speed of events and information flows increases, drone based slowness offers another mode of perception

Essay

Time out of Joint

Time out of Joint

Traditional instruments, folk cultures and mythic ideas of futurity offer slip roads exiting AI’s highway to a hollow future, argues Daryl Worthington in The Wire 503/504

Essay

Arch Rivals

Arch Rivals

London’s extensive railway infrastructure is both a refuge for DIY nightlife and under threat from gentrification, writes Deborah Nash in The Wire 503/504

Essay

Style Counsel

Style Counsel

In The Wire 503/504, Lucy Thraves argues that luxury labels and conglomerates are keen to purchase some avant garde glory, but at a cost to experimental music and the ecosystem that supports it

Essay

Automatic for the People

Automatic for the People

The music industry's uptake of AI complicates the boundaries between listener, artist and music in troubling new ways, argues DeForrest Brown, Jr

Essay

Against the Stream

Against the Stream

DIY online radio stations allow humanity and personality to surface in a tide of soulless and reductive algorithmic playlists, argues Paul Rekret in The Wire 503/504

On Air

Shane Woolman presents Adventures In Sound And Music

Shane Woolman presents Adventures In Sound And Music

The 18 December edition of The Wire’s weekly radio show on Resonance FM and Resonance Extra featured music from The Wire's Top 50 Releases of the Year, including Natural Information Society, DJ Haram and Valentina Magaletti & YPY

Charts

2025 Rewind: Contributors’ Charts

2025 Rewind: Contributors’ Charts

The Wire’s Releases of the Year chart for 2025 was compiled from the individual votes of the magazine’s staff and contributors – here are those votes in full

Tracks

The Wire’s Releases of the Year 2025 playlist

The Wire’s Releases of the Year 2025 playlist

Listen to a selection of tracks from our Top 50 Releases of the Year, as voted for by The Wire’s team of staff and contributors. You can read more about the albums featured in our chart, as well as those featured in the Top 50 Archive Releases of the Year, in The Wire 503/504

Download

Below The Radar 49

Below The Radar 49

Volume 49 of The Wire’s subscriber only download compilation includes tracks by Hilary Woods, Lo Egin, Nika Ticciati & Beth Veasey, S280F, Deer Park, Yuhan Su, otta & Powerplant and more

Tracks

Office Ambience 502

Office Ambience 502

Stream a selection of tracks from releases we listened to during the making of our December 2025 issue

The Portal

Jack DeJohnette (9 August 1942–26 October 2025)

Jack DeJohnette (9 August 1942–26 October 2025)

The US drummer, pianist and composer died on 26 October aged 83. In the February 1989 issue of The Wire, he was interviewed by the magazine’s then editor Richard Cook. As a tribute, we have made that article free to read in our online library

Tracks

Wire playlist: Alien Territory Archives

Wire playlist: Alien Territory Archives

Nyahh Records’ label runner Willie Stewart compiles a playlist to accompany new boxset The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection Of Radical, Experimental & Irrelevant Music From 1970s San Diego, a companion to Bill Perrine’s book of the same name

On Air

Shane Woolman presents Adventures In Sound And Music

Shane Woolman presents Adventures In Sound And Music

The 23 October edition of The Wire’s weekly radio show on Resonance FM and Resonance Extra included a special guest mix by Cairo-based DJ, producer and multidisciplinary artist El Kontessa, plus tracks by Alien Trackers, Sanaa Moussa and more

Tracks

Wire playlist: Sonny Simmons

Wire playlist: Sonny Simmons

Pierre Crépon selects tracks from the catalogue of US saxophonist Sonny Simmons, with input from Marc Chaloin, co-author of new autobiography Better Do It Now Before You Die Later

Tracks

Wire mix: Kinlaw & Franco Franco

Wire mix: Kinlaw & Franco Franco

To accompany their interview in The Wire 501, Bristol duo Kinlaw & Franco Franco curates an exclusive Wire mix of celestial musings, cyber-noir, and trappist beats

Tracks

Office Ambience 501

Office Ambience 501

Stream a selection of tracks from releases we listened to during the making of our November 2025 issue

Essay

Why listen to animals?

Why listen to animals?

A new Foley based production at London's Royal Court Theatre invites us into the sound-making world of animals, writes Giles Bailey