Asian Dub Foundation
Rooted in Community Music, the East London posse have built a broad popular base for their sample-loaded and politically charged music, bringing down barriers between high/low and East/West. By David Stubbs

2002 Rewind: Records of the Year
The Wire'ssurvey of the past 12 months in music and beyond: charting the best releases of 2002; plus musicians and writers tell us their Pros and Cons of the year

Albert Ayler
In this 1970 interview, which appears here for the first time in English, the legendary free jazz saxophonist talked to Daniel Caux about his childhood, his GI tour of duty, life in Scandinavia, and playing at Coltrane's funeral

Shandar
During the early 1970s, Paris's Shandar Records provided a home for such uncompromising artists as Albert Ayler, La Monte Young, Sun Ra and others. Edwin Pouncey talks to Daniel Caux, architect of its adventurous A&R policy

Invisible Jukebox: John Sinclair
The former MC5 manager and White Panther leader attempts to pick out jams by Thelonious Monk, Archie Shepp, Grateful Dead, Bukka White, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, The Up and more. Tested by Edwin Pouncey

Schimpfluch
The Zürich-based extreme noise collective, which includes Rudolf Eb.er, Runzelstirn & Gurglestocck, Sudden Infant, G*Park and others, attempt to tear down the walls of Jericho with ass trumpets and dead fish. By Drew Daniel

Henry Grimes
The bassist who provided the pulse for Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor vanished from the scene in 1967. Tracking him down to Los Angeles, Marshall Marrotte discovers that reports of his death are greatly exaggerated

Oxbow
Biba Kopf chews the fat with the flagrantly vociferous but equally well-mannered Oakland quartet

Gert-Jan Prins
The Dutch electronic improvisor makes music that 'clean[s] the club walls with the sound system'. Phil England investigates

Global Ear
On the trail of bootleggers and non-Westernised music in Beijing

Epiphanies
For Tom Perchard, KRS-One opened the doors of modernist perception

Print Run
The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America 1900-1933, by Emily Thompson; The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, edited by David Nicholls; Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music By Henry Cowell, edited by Dick Higgins; Blues With a Feeling: The Little Walter Story, by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks & Ward Gaines; Jazz and Death: Medical Profiles of Jazz Greats, by Frederick J Spencer, MD; The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD: Sixth Edition, by Richard Cook & Brian Morton

Cross Platform
The CD-ROM format proves perfect for the memory layers and resonances in the filmic art of Chris Marker. By Ian Penman
Plus: Reviews of: Band Wagon Jumping; Eyes and Ears: The Other Minds Film Festival; Shirin Neshat: Logic Of the Birds; 242.Pilots DVD

On Location
The Wire 20, Paris Instants Chavirés; Sun City Girls, New York Knitting Factory; Fricties, Ghent Vooruit, Belgium; Instal, Glasgow The Arches, UK; SF Jazz Festival, San Francisco Various Venues, USA; Adventures In Sound, London Queen Elizabeth Hall; Evan Parker and the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, Huddersfield Lawrence Batley Theatre, UK; Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield St Paul's Hall/ Town Hall, UK