Brendan Greaves shares an excerpt from his new authorised biography of US musician and visual artist Terry Allen. Chapter 16 recalls Allen’s one-off appearance on the TV show Shindig! on 4 August 1965, two years after Allen and his partner Jo Harvey married and made the move from Lubbock, Texas to Los Angeles.
To mark the 100th birthday of saxophonist Marshall Allen on 25 May, we have made three articles featuring the Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader free to read in our online library: Allen’s Invisible Jukebox from 2004, a 2015 interview by David Keenan, and Val Wilmer’s 2014 essay on Allen's formative time in Paris during the 1940s.
A new compendium reflects on the activity of the German post-club platform and interdisciplinary art hub Creamcake, combining images from its archives with written accounts and new essays
Ahead of a full performance of her new album The Hollow at London ICA, actor and artist Keeley Forsyth talks to Ilia Rogatchevski about Pina Bausch, Béla Tarr, genderless vocals, and perceiving the world as light and shade
On 15 April, Emily Pothast interviewed Steve Albini, Bob Weston and Todd Trainer of US noise rock band Shellac for the cover story of The Wire 484. Following the sudden death of Albini on 7 May, here we publish the full transcript of that interview complete with an introduction by Emily.
30 years ago, in April 1994, Steve Albini took The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox test, offering up his unbridled opinion on tracks by Black Sabbath, John Zorn, Throbbing Gristle, The Raincoats and more. As a tribute to Steve, who died on 7 May, we have made the interview free to read in our online library.
Ahead of the release of her soundtrack for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's new film Evil Does Not Exist, Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi talks to Ilia Rogatchevski about influential composer director partnerships and her own approaches to scoring film
Jez riley French remembers the Japanese sound sculptor, plus tributes from friends and colleagues
Irene Revell speaks with the founders of the Permanent Draft micropress about their new book Basta Now, which compiles the profiles of over 2000 women, trans and non-binary experimental musicians
The Scottish Danish musician maps out the texts, sounds and places that steered and informed the writing of her new album World Of Work
The Wire’s Caroline Whiteley speaks with the acclaimed sound artists ahead of a symposium around Aura Satz’s debut feature length film Preemptive Listening at Tate Modern
Following Shabaka Hutchings’ adoption of the shakuhachi flute, which features heavily in his new album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, Clive Bell discusses other players and significant recordings featuring the instrument
Frank Sinatra’s atmospheric vocal classic finds an unlikely afterlife in reggae’s deepest nyabinghi cuts
Author Pat Thomas selects and annotates spreads from his new book built from the archive of American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg
Mike Barnes recalls his encounters with the experimental vocalist and instant composer who died on 8 February
Alan Tomlinson died on 13 February aged 76. As a tribute to the UK trombonist and improvisor we have made Mike Barnes's 2018 interview from The Wire 413 free to read in our online library.
Contributor Abi Bliss selects pieces of writing from The Wire’s back pages featuring Laurie Anderson, MF DOOM, Robert Wyatt, Matmos, Evan Parker, Iannis Xenakis, Annea Lockwood, and more. All selected articles are available to read in The Wire’s digital library with a Wire print or digital subscription.
Damo Suzuki died on 9 February aged 74. As a tribute we have made Mike Barnes’s 2004 interview with the experimental rock vocalist free to read in our online library.
To mark the recent reissue of FM3’s Buddha Machine, Steve Barker tells the story of its origins, a tale which takes in Chinese temples and a Hong Kong branch of McDonald’s, a Beijing foot massage parlour and dinner with Brian Eno.
As a tribute to writer Neil Kulkarni, who died on 22 January aged 51, we have made a selection of the many articles he wrote for The Wire free to read in our online library for one month