Derek Walmsley journeys through the new worlds sketched out by jazz from the mid-1950s onwards

The Argentinian guitarist on performing with musicians with learning difficulties and what they bring to the experimental music scene

"Is there some synergistic link between UK improv and comedy? To the headphone-clad listener deeply immersed in an AMM album, the answer might be no. To the audience chuckling at an Alan Tomlinson trombone solo, it’s clearly yes."

Join Derek Walmsley on his journey through the jazz that imagined liberation through distant places and spaces, from Africa and the Far East to the cosmos.

Derek Walmsley journeys through the jazz that imagined liberation through distant places and spaces

The second stop in Derek Walmsley's journey through the jazz that imagined liberation through distant places and spaces, from Africa and the Far East to the cosmos.

Helen Morris braves encroaching tides and shifting sands to attend the Fanø Free Folk Festival, and asks what – or who – “experimental folk” might be?

From newly independent nations of Africa to locations in the Far East and remote cosmos, jazz from the mid-1950s onwards imagined liberation through distant places and spaces. In a new series, Derek Walmsley journeys through the sketches of these new worlds. First call: Lee Morgan's "Search For The New Land"

Q: What album was so important that ten million copies of it needed to be pressed at once? A: Songs Of The Humpback Whale. Musician and writer David Rothenberg wonders at the complex beauty of whale song

Philip Brophy listens in to the occultic meanderings of Ben Rivers and Ben Russell's experimental film and finds the secret power of audiovision.

Kasper Opstrup cracks open the Third Mind and gets into the vibe with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, Matmos, Jennifer Walshe, Tomomi Adachi, Kouhei Matsunaga and more

Sarah Angliss traces the vocal-throwing art's continued persistence in the face of obsolescence, and the peculiar relationship between performers and their knee pals.

Tony Herrington decodes the covers of two radical political book publishers with musical roots

Reasserting the roots of Kraftwerk’s sound in African-American R&B and jazz reveals how the soul of electronic dance music is being throttled by the dead hand of the culture industry. By Tony Herrington

Ergot Records label head Adrian Rew finds readymade plunderphonics and corporate mind control on the gambling floor.

The Polish experimental musician and composer Zbigniew Karkowski died on 12 December 2013. Richard Whitelaw remembers an artist whose music could "suck the soul out of your body".

The Polish experimental musician and composer Zbigniew Karkowski died on 12 December 2013. Atau Tanaka writes an open letter to an artist of "vision and principle".

Jazz is radical music, so why is it funded by big business? asks Dan Spicer.

When funding bodies treat culture as a business enterprise, their insistence on results discriminates against music’s true value, argues Richards.

Lou Reed died 27 October, 2013. Here Mark E Smith eulogises – on being a criminally devout Velvet Underground fan. Not a 'Velvets' or 'Lou Reed' fan.