30 minute improvisation with Syd Barrett included on new box set The Early Years 1965–1972

The multilayered contexts and playful durations deployed across a new generation of video albums such as Beyoncé’s Lemonade and gallery installations including Ragnar Kjartansson’s Take Me Here By The Dishwasher recreate the quirks and tensions of old school listening habits.

“It was life and death at times”. Following Daniel Spicer's Primer on Spontaneous Music Ensemble in The Wire 392, Trevor Watts reflects on bizarre encounters and key moments from a life of gigging

From toadfish grunts in Panama to ice fields in Greenland, check out sounds, images and notes from the recordist’s expeditions around the globe

Clive Bell unties some new historical knots binding centuries-old Celtic chants, Mediterranean piping, and more

Andy Hamilton visits St Johns Church in Seaham, County Durham, to watch the New York ensemble perform a new composition commissioned to mark the town's mining history

Stefhan Caddick and Farm Hand's Noctule creates an environment incorporating the sounds of cavers, bats and echoes in a Welsh cave. The Wire's Deputy Editor Emily Bick talks to them in advance of their appearance at the Green Man Festival

The New York trumpeter and composer celebrates the USA’s lesser known maverick composers

Edwin Pouncey recalls a walk in Manhattan with the Suicide vocalist

Phil England speaks to soundscape ecologist and author Bernie Krause about the relationship between humans and natural soundscapes at the opening of a new exhibition in Paris inspired by his work.

“It’s a strange thing, to wake in the morning and find yourself instantly severed from a collective ideal that has shaped your whole life in such a dramatic way,” reflects Unsound festival founder Mat Schulz, disconcerted to see Unsound autumn edition’s Dislocation theme politically derailed by UK Brexit’s victory

Ahead of this weekend's DEEP∞MINIMALISM festival and her world premiere performance of Daphne Oram’s Still Point, Shiva Feshareki has made us a playlist of her favourite minimalist compositions

The Wire’s Deputy Editor Emily Bick speaks to Mike from Cassetteboy, in advance of their performance on Friday 3 June at London’s Splice festival of AV art.

Jennifer Walshe's Aisteach Foundation fakes a history of Irish avant garde activity to cover for the lack of a real one. By Clive Bell

Could the success of Leicester City FC be down to the ancient power of South East Asian music, asks Clive Bell

In the last in a series of articles on Prince, The Wire's Deputy Editor Joseph Stannard recalls five instances of Prince-related intensity

The songs Prince made under a female alias are the pinnacle of his career, says Derek Walmsley

DJ and producer Kirk Degiorgio talks with Detroit’s finest to uncover the inspirational influence of Prince on techno

Cartoonist Hazel Newlevant discusses Wendy & Lisa’s contribution to Prince’s legacy

Alan Licht surveys the late composer and artist Tony Conrad’s film work, which ranged from structuralist classics to public access TV