Jim O'Rourke
His recent appointment as Sonic Youth's fifth member hasn't cured avant music's most workaholic producer. David Keenan hears about O'Rourke's new LPs of Southern fried boogie and Mego electronica, and why Chicago sucks

Invisible Jukebox: Lol Coxhill
The UK's most mobile saxophonist has played with Improv titans, ska kings and Canterbury scenesters, but can he identify tracks by Tommy McCook, The Damned, Matching Mole, Derek Bailey and more? Tested by Ben Watson

Kaija Saariaho
Now signed to Sony Classical, this Finnish composer distorts the familiar range of orchestral instruments through a prism of ethereal electronics to conjure up her powerful spectral soundworlds. By Andy Hamilton

Tangents: The Soviet noise network
After Sergei Kuryokhin swung to the right in the mid-80s, a new generation of Industrial and noise musicians - some with disturbing nationalistic sympathies - emerged to annex Russia's avant garde. By Anton Nikkilä

The View From Downtown
New York's avant epicentre was caught up in the fallout from the 11 September atrocities. Lee Ranaldo, Stephen Vitiello, Simon Reynolds, Alan Licht, Wordsound's Skiz Fernando and others report back from Ground Zero

Bobby Conn
Ken Hollings finds teenage dreams and mischievous pop exuberance in the suburbs of Chicago

Nagisa Ni te
The Japanese duo make their beach-life a melodically personal and emotive place. By David Keenan

Marina Rosenfeld
The American turntablist speaks to Christoph Cox about her female-inspired musical experimentation

Satoko Fujii
The Japanese pianist and composer bridges an East/West divide with her Japanese quartet and American trio. By Andy Hamilton

Global Ear
Jerry Hopkins gets out of Thailand alive

Epiphanies
Edwin Pouncey finds poetry in Patti Smith

Print Run
Western Music And Its Others: Difference, Representation And Appropriation In Music, edited by Georgina Born & David Hesmondhalgh; Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel: The Rise Of The Superstar DJs, by Dave Haslam; Random Precision: Recording The Music Of Syd Barrett 1965-1974, by David Parker

Ether Talk
Chris Abbott's homages to 80s Commodore 64 game music preserve a breakthrough in sound chip science. By Peter Shapiro

On Location
PJ Harvey, London Brixton Academy, UK; Louie Austen, London Great Eastern Hotel, UK; Sonic Youth + Tom Verlaine, New York Bowery Ballroom, USA; Karlheinz Stockhausen: Elektronic, London Barbican Hall, UK; Masada Quartet + Masada String Trio Feldman/ Friedlander/ Courvoisier/ Mori/ Ibarra + Matthew Shipp & Rob Brown, New York Tonic, USA; X-Tract Chicago, Berlin Podewil, Germany; DEG, Gothenburg Art Sounds Festiival, Sweden