The Vinyl Factory and Antique Beat have been working with the X-Ray Audio project to make a short documentary about the Soviet X-ray bootleg phenomenon. Based on research done by the bone music historians Stephen Coates and Paul Heartfield, X-Ray Audio – The Documentary tells the story of Cold War era Leningrad’s music obsessives and cultural dealers who cut forbidden grooves into discarded X-Ray sheets. “It was the ultimate act of punk resistance,” declares X-Ray Audio, “a two-fingered salute to the repressive regime that gave a generation of young Soviets access to forbidden Western and Russian music.”

Vinyl Factory’s Anton Spice explains, “Stephen Coates and Paul Heartfield of X-Ray Audio have been working on unearthing these records and tracking down the people behind them for some years, and they approached us last summer to help write, edit and produce a documentary that would tell the story, from the point of view of those involved, for the first time.”

The film features interviews with X-Ray record bootlegger Rudy Fuchs, buyer and amateur dealer Nick Markovitch, and Beatles fanatic Kolya Vasin.

More information about the project can be found at the X-Ray Audio website. A hardback book featuring photographs, essays and interviews called The Strange Story Of Soviet Music 'On The Bone' is available via Antique Beat. And you can watch the film below.

This summer, Mutek festival returns to the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal for its 17th edition. Artists confirmed so far include Ash Koosha, ATOM™, Colleen, Dasha Rush, Franck Vigroux & Kurt D'haeseleer, Jlin, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Lakker, Paul Jebanasam & Tarik Barri, Powell, Tim Hecker, and others. Promised highights include Uwe Schmidt and Bernd Friedmann performing Lollopy Dripper, their first album as Flanger in five years, and Mutek regular Tim Hecker will be there combining material from his forthcoming album Love Streams with a fog and light show designed by MFO.

Mutek takes place at various venues, 1–5 June. More information can be found on their website.

Jack Chuter, author of Storm Static Sleep: A Pathway Through Post-Rock, is compiling a crowdsourced compilation called Brink. Chuter is asking for artists to submit two one-minute tracks, one called “Life” and the other “Death”. He explains: “There is no limitation on the size of the compilation and all submissions are accepted (provided they fulfil the submission guidelines). All styles welcome. No silences are permitted at the beginning or end of each track, meaning that the entire compilation will form one continuous stretch of sound.”

Deadline for entries is 1 June 2016, with more information and guidelines available via the Brink Tumblr.

Last month, Chuter compiled a post-rock playlist for us, which you can listen to here. Storm Static Sleep is out now on Function Books.

Bristol's Full Cycle Records is set to make a come back this March. Founded in 1994 as Roni and Krust's Full Cycle Records, the label made its name through its jungle and drum ’n’ bass output until its closure in 2009. As well as the work of founders Roni Size and Krust, Full Cycle produced records by the likes of DJ Die, Suv, D Product, Flynn & Floraup, and more. To mark its rebirth, Roni Size and Krust are releasing the Formulate EP, their first collaborative work in 15 years. Its title track was originally recorded in the mid-1990s but never released. The EP also features a previously unreleased remix of Roni Size's “Snapshot” by UK producer Swindle. The return of Full Cycle follows on from a spate of Roni Size live shows in 2015. As to Krust, after a short hiatus he returned in 2010 with the launch of his own label Rebel Instinct.

Formulate EP is released on 11 March. The label’s future output will include previously unreleased material, new collaborations and remixes of old classics, along with the digital release of some its back catalogue. A series of dates is also being set for a Full Cycle tour in spring 2016.

Listen to Roni Size & Krust’s “Formulate (original mix)”

On 21 February David Keenan will launch the revised and expanded edition of his book England's Hidden Reverse at London's Cafe Oto. Originally published in 2003, the book explores the history of the English esoteric underground through the works of Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93, among others. Out of print for more than ten years, the original edition has since become a collector’s item. The updated publication comes with two new chapters, including “Crime Calls For Night”, which is described by this second edition’s publisher Strange Attractor as a “daring argument that traces the transgressive urge that animates industrial culture all the way from Palaeolithic cave art through rock ’n’ roll and punk rock and up to contemporary noise music”; and a final summing up of how the culture has changed gear since the title was first published.

The launch event will feature Keenan presenting a talk based on the “Crime Calls For Night” chapter, a DJ set from Helm that promises to be of “industrial strength”, a selection of film screenings connected to early industrial culture, as well as a panel discussion with Keenan, Jill Westwood (Fistfuck/The Wound), Ken Hollings and more TBC. Strange Attractor Press will also be there with copies of the book fresh for signing.

England's Hidden Reverse book launch takes place on 21 February, London Cafe Oto, £4.

Bloc has announced that this year's weekender will be the festival's last. “After ten glorious years – this is it. It’s the final one and we won’t be doing any curtain calls, encores, reunion tours or one-last-jobs,” Bloc stated in a press release published this morning.

This latest update follows a well-documented turbulent period for the festival after the cancellation of their 2012 event at London Pleasure Garden put the company into adminstration. Since then Bloc has hosted a series of events in Hackney Wick, London; and last year saw the popular weekend festival return at Butlin's Minehead (its home since 2009). But this year's event won’t be the last thing the world hears from Bloc, as co-founder Alex Benson explains in an interview with Resident Advisor. “We're going to build a super club. As many of you will know, we started a venue in an ex-industrial building in London, then renovated the surrounding warehouses into music studios and workspace. A community sprung up around it and it has been one of the most rewarding things we have ever been involved in. We want to develop this community and the venue at the heart of it. It will, like the current venue, be called Bloc.”

Bloc 2016 will take place between 11–13 March. The line-up includes Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Space Dimension Controller, Peverelist & Kowton, Slackk, Ceephax Acid Crew, Om Unit, Second Storey and Appleblim, Logos, Ben UFO, Omar S, Holly Herndon, Surgeon & Blawan, Tama Sumo & Lakuti, Andrew Weatherall & Optimo, Steffi, Helena Hauff, Powell, Lone, Objekt, Kahn, Aurora Halal, Laurel Halo, Debonair, and more.

In celebration of Raster-Noton's 20th anniversary, the artist platform and music label has conceived an audiovisual installation called White Circle. Designed as an acoustic-architectural work, it will be performed at ZKM Karlsruhe's Klangdom, translating as sound dome, which is made up of 47 speakers distributed throughout the room and controlled by a piece of software called Zirkonium. Contributing artists include label founders Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto, Olaf Bender aka Byetone, and Frank Bretschneider, alongside Raster-Noton regular Kangding Ray. “Each composition will present an independent, self-contained concept of the respective artist,” explains the label. “All works will be based on the idea of ambient music, a music that wants to make tangible the acoustic space as well as the visual stimulus.”

The installation will be premiered at ZKM's Globale, which takes place on 11–12 March. The night will also include live performances from Bretschneider, Kangding Ray and Kyoka on the 4DSOUND system, a omnidirectional sound environment that was created in 2007 by composer Paul Oomen and technologists Poul Holleman, Luc van Weelden and Salvador Breed. More information can be found at RN's facebook.

The Raster-Noton label was featured on the cover of The Wire 238. Subscribers can read that issue via our digital archive.

Launching the second phase in Fat Out’s Burrow programming residency at Islington Mill is a new series of events called A-Bound. Running from 23–27 March, the events programme has A-Bound collaborating with Now Wave, Cacophonous Sarcophagus, Optimo Music, High Hopes and Brazier Park’s Supernormal festival. Also appearing in March at Islington Mill will be Lydia Lunch with Retrovirus. It promises an “all-star cast of sonic brutarians in a no-holds-barred survey of her musical output from 1977 to the present.”

More information can be found at Fat Out's website.

London’s Café Oto have launched a digital membership service that makes available 30 exclusive live recordings for download, with a new release added every week. Current releases include offerings Wolf Eyes, Alash, and Graham Lambkin, with future releases promised with the likes of Mika Vainio, Charles Gayle and Akira Sakata. Digital membership costs £10 a month and gets you three downloads within that period. Full membership (which also includes cheap gig tickets, early-bird booking and discounts on records and books bought via their shop) is also available.

More details can be found on Cafe Oto's website.

The entire back catalogue post-2003 Psychic TV/PTV3 is now available digitally. Psychic TV/PTV3 reformed in 2003 with new collaborator Edley ODowd (formally of Toilet Boys) joining the group’s original frontman Genesis P’Orridge. Since then the group released two full lengths, Hell Is Invisible...Heaven is Her/e and Mr. Alien Brain vs. The Skinwalkers, alongside a handful of singles and EPs. Bar a limited run of 300 USB sticks that were released last year, Dais Records will be digitally releasing the catalogue for the first time.