Michael Gira
From public sex god to Angel Of Light: Gira outlines how far he's come since flying away from Swans. By Alan Licht

Invisible Jukebox: Daevid Allen
The psychedelic pixie zooms in from Planet Gong to take this month's blindfold test. Tested by Mike Barnes

Stereo and the Space Age
Ken Hollings meditates on music's obsession with space travel, alien contact, living stereo and the lonesome Echo

Off Site: Japanese whispers
How a Tokyo cafe with noise-sensitive neighbours came to host some of the quietest music on Earth. By Clive Bell

Arne Nordheim
Norway's leading electronic composer reveals his Warsaw pact and explores the poetry of bells. By Julian Cowley

Borbetomagus
25 years down the line, New York's avant-skronk isolationists are refusing to blunt their attack. By David Keenan

Animal Collective
Marc Masters goes down to the woods for some campfire songs with the local fauna

Sam Shalabi
Montréal's psychedelic/ Improv musician and his take on anti/protest music calls Marcus Boon to attention

MF Doom
The original Metal Face has his own convulated Hip Hop lineage. By Mosi Reeves

Global Ear
Matthew Franklin reports on Mexico City's fertile new jazz and Improv scene

Epiphanies
How 1967's civil unrest and rock 'n' roll radio made a riot girl of Lydia Lunch

Print Run
Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, by Greg Tate; Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester 'Pres' Young, by Douglas Henry Daniels; Sounds Heard, by Hugh Davies; A User's Guide To The Fall, by Dave Thompson; Back To a Shadow In the Night: Music Writings and Interviews 1968-2001, by Jonathan Cott; Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music, by Nabeel Zuberi

Cross Platform
Australian sound artists David Chesworth and Sonia Leber lace non-verbal grunts and cries into public space. By Bleddyn Butcher
Plus: Reviews of: Against All Evens: Second Gothenberg Biennale; Mike Kelley & Tony Oursler: The Poetics Project 1977-1997; Phill Niblock DVD. And: Alfreda Benge's Inner Sleeve featuring Martirio

On Location
Le Weekend 2003, Stirling Tolbooth, UK; Movement 03: Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Detroit Hart Plaza/ Various Locations, USA; Jeb Bishop Trio, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Corner House Hotel, UK; An Evening of Music and Poetry With Lou Reed and Fernando Saunders, London Barbican; Sonic Architecture, Utrecht Stadsschowburg, The Netherlands; Trollofon, Bergen Trollofon, Norway; Biting Tongues, London ICA; Fat Cat Records Live, Brighton Gardner Arts Centre, UK