Richard Thomas weathers obscure, dilapidated venues and relcalcitrant promoters to take the pulse of NIFI – Non-Idiomatic Free Improvisation music

Clive Bell looks at the resurgent interest in near forgotten 1960s Cambodian pop music, before the Khmer Rouge came to power.

Writer, musician and Sub Jam label runner Yan Jun tells a story about Chinglish music and what happens when the King Kongs and Godzillas of world music collide.

All aboard with Clive Bell: "Musicians love trains. They sing about them, imitate their sounds, and scamper, instrument in hand, for the last departure homebound after a show."

Clive Bell takes a look at the Tweets, the column inches, the bitching and the I’m-above-all-this-nonsense that music competitions attract.

Who gives a toot about the flute anymore? A panegyric by Clive Bell on the once potent pipes of Pan, and some green shoots of hope for this currently degraded wind instrument.

Philip Clark visits the Proms and witnesses a clash between New Music and the fancy-dress patriotism of populist classical music culture.

Clive Bell on the continuing appeal of the music box, from inventive Polish packaging, high street trinkets and grown up toys like the German Polyphon.

Nathan Budzinski on the ascendency of art galleries as music venues – pleasure at what cost?

Philip Clark asks why London has always been "re" rather than "pro" active towards trends in composed music.

"Retail is retail, whether it’s a cup of coffee or an Eliane Radigue CD" says Mark Wastell to Mr Bell.

Philip Clark muses the death of composer Steve Martland and the identikit obituary.

Clive Bell looks at the threatened ecology of instruments and the people who still play them.

Fetishising female pioneers of electronic music risks banishing them to glass cases, away from the main exhibits in the museum of musical history, says Abi Bliss.

In his latest column, Philip Clark asks whether the piano is still relevant – have things dropped off since Debussy, Ravel and Janáček?

In his first column for The Wire online, Philip Clark looks at unhinged egos, unanswered emails and other occupational hazards of life as a working composer – and musicians who don't want to be noticed.

Abi Bliss takes a look at the recent plethora of live soundtracking and the Sturm und Drang that kicks off when musician meets movie.

Clive Bell on the recent glut of monumentally proportioned music, and imagining the person who forks out hard-earned cash for an "obese release"

Nick Cain examines the inward looking spatial sonics of Florian Hecker's recent piece Chimerization.