Grace Jones has been confirmed as guest curator of London Southbank's Meltdown 2020. Her appointment follows her participation in Massive Attack's 2008 Meltdown, when she performed a two hour set at Royal Festival Hall. She also appeared alongside Nick Cave, Shane McGowan and others in a Disney song special curated by Jarvis Cocker.

“I am honoured to be curating next year’s Meltdown festival,” said Jones. “Year after year, the festival continues to spread its colourful wings, allowing its curators to bring together an array of diverse talent not seen anywhere else. It’s about time I was asked to curate Meltdown darling, don’t you think?!”

Running from 12–21 June at various London Southbank venues, the line-up has yet to be announced.

Exorcism of people infected with an uncontrollable urge to dance is the subject of Tarantismo: Odyssey Of An Italian Ritual, a double LP and bilingual hardback book published by the self-described “cultural engineering platform” FLEE. They say that the word tarantismo, describing that uncontrollable urge, is derived from the phenomenon of tarantism, a state of being most often cited in 16th and 17th century literature from the province of Taranto in Apulia, southern Italy. Legend has it that those bitten by a tarantula become hysterical and dance frantically.

The double LP features original recordings of exorcists from Puglia made in the 1950s by Diego Carpitella, Ernesto de Martino and Alan Lomax, all sourced in collaboration with the Academia Nationale Santa Cecilia. It also includes six reworks by Bjorn Torske & Trym Søvdsnes, LNS, UFFE, KMRU, Bottin and Don’t DJ. The book includes original photographs plus nine contributions by specialists Chiara Samugheo, Edoardo Winspeare, Luigi Chiriatti, Don Antonio Santoro, Claudia Atimonelli and Pamela Diamante.

“Dedicated to the documentation and enhancement of hybrid cultures”, FLEE was founded in 2017 by Alan Marzo, Olivier Duport and Carl Åhnebrink as a record label, publishing house and exhibition organiser.

Tarantismo: Odyssey Of An Italian Ritual is released on 27 November. Pre-order on their website.

Recorded in the US and New Zealand on a pair of four-track Tascams, Roy Montgomery’s debut album Scenes From The South Island was originally released in 1995 by the West Coast label Drunken Fish. “Several elements converged or aligned for the making of Scenes From The South Island in late 1994, early 1995,” recalls Montgomery. “Landing in San Francisco where things felt different but the same. The play of light, the odd ornamental pohutakawa or ti kouka sprouted from tiny front yards and waving silently at me in this neighbourhood or that. The wind.”

A longtime rare and hard to find item, it’s now being reissued by Liz Harris aka Grouper’s Yellow Electric label.

Listen to “Along The Main Divide”.

Released on 29 November, it's available to pre-order in double LP or digital formats via Bandcamp.

Longrunning London jazz venue Ronnie Scott’s has been awarded an English Heritage blue plaque at 39 Gerrard Street, where Ronnie Scott and fellow saxophonist Pete King opened their basement club on 30 October 1959.

“The English Heritage Blue Plaque is the well deserved jewel in the crown of recognition for his lifetime contribution to jazz,” commented Scott’s widow Mary. “I am grateful to have lived long enough to see this happen and am overjoyed and honoured to be a part of the celebration.”

The club is now based in Frith Street, where it recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Anthony Braxton’s massive Sonic Genome unit featuring 60 musicians launch this year's Jazzfest Berlin at Gropius Bau on Thursday 31 October.

Happening at various venues across the city, Friday’s programme features pianist Brian Marsella, drummer Christian Lillinger presenting Open Form For Society, The Australian Art Orchestra performing compositions by Peter Knight and Julia Reidy, Elliot Galvin, Angel Bat Dawid & The Brothahood, Kaos Puls, Mopcut and Moskus, and The Young Mothers. Plus Angel Bat Dawid, Jean Cook, Peter Knight, Liz Kozack, Julia Neupert and Emma Warren participating in the panel discussion “Beyond Individualism?: Communities & Collectives In Jazz And Improvised Music”.

The festival continues on Saturday with Anthony Braxton and James Fei in conversation, plus performances from Eve Risser, Ambrose Akinmusire, hr-Bigband with Joachim Kühn & Michel Portal, Melissa Aldana Quartet, T (r) opic, São Paulo Underground, COCO, and the James Brandon Lewis UnRuly Quintet. Sunday features KIM Collective, Anthony Braxton's ZIM Music and Marc Ribot; plus a series of concerts featuring Max Andrzejewski, Paul Berberich, Brad Henkel, Isabelle Klemt, Miles Okazaki, Dora Osterloh, Julia Reidy, Otis Sandsjö, Fabiana Striffler and Dan Peter Sundland performing in various non-music venues including a barber shop, a wine shop and a gallery.

Tickets for the event are still available on Jazzfest Berlin website. For those of you not in Berlin, visit The Wire's Facebook page on 31 October at 6.30pm for a live stream of Anthony Braxton's Sonic Genome’s six hour concert.

Easterndaze x Berlin festival takes place at various venues across the city from 28–30 November. This year’s edition pairs the collectives Serious Serious from Estonia, PARADAIZ from Romania and Mechta from Belarus with Berlin based artists Conditional, Voodoohop and Forbidden Planet, respectively. Easterndaze has also offered Wire readers a chance to win one of two pairs of tickets to the 28 November gig with Conditional & Serious Serious at Acud macht Neu. The line-up for that night includes Steph Horak & Renick Bell, Jennifer Walton, Daniel Katinsky, Ratkiller, Benzokai and Kisling. To enter, email us with the subject line: Easterndaze x Berlin festival competition.

Starting life as a blog, Easterndaze was launched in 2010 by Lucia Udvardyova and Peter Gonda to map DIY scenes in Eastern and Central Europe through interviews and radio shows. The platform launched its first festival in Berlin in 2016, followed by a second edition in 2018.

Tickets and full line-up are available at Resident Advisor.

This competition has now closed.

This month's cover star Kevin Martin has been collaborating with Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit. The pair first met during an improv session for BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, and now they're going to perform together for the first time at this year's Le Guess Who? festival. To mark the occasion they've offered Wire readers an exclusive listen to “After The Storm”, a track that started life at the BBC session before being completed at Martin’s studio in Berlin.

“[Hatis Noit’s] impressionistic approach, tonal brilliance and kaleidoscopic spectrum, evoked voices I had loved in the past,” says Martin. “Whether it echoed the mood of Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares or the beauty of Liz Fraser, it even navigated the eerie spaciousness of Japanese Gagaku traditions that I enjoy so much, so I just knew I was happy to collaborate with her, as she had outgrown her influences and blossomed into an extraordinary talent.

“In these times of climatic turbulence and socio-political upheaval, its deep seismic sonic flow and haunting melodies are a hymn to the stranded, offering comfort to those in need of solace.”

Hatis Noit adds. “As a solo vocalist and voice artist, I’d always dreamed of floating and being drowned in a beautiful sonic storm. And then I met Kevin Martin.”

To receive a free download of the track sign up to Le Guess Who?'s newsletter before 1 November when they will email recipients a link to it.

Le Guess Who? runs from 7–10 November. In December Hatis Noit will perform with London Contemporary Orchestra at London Southbank Centre, the final show in the year-long series Erased Tapes x LCO.

In the November issue of The Wire Kevin Martin and Stephen O’Malley met in Paris to dissect heavyweight sounds for an article mediated by Mike Barnes. Also in that issue: Francis Gooding decodes the conceptually minded Ideologic Organ label; Abi Bliss talks to choreographer Gisèle Vienne; Phil Freeman speaks to Martin’s close associate Justin Broadrick; and Joe Muggs discusses The Bug’s MC collaborators. Subscribers can read that issue on Exact Editions. Everyone else can either buy a copy in our shop or visit their local newsagent.

Unsound returns to New York next month. The main event is an all-day takeover of the Knockdown Center. Artists on that bill are Amnesia Scanner, Caterina Barbieri, Felicita & Śląsk Song with the Dance Ensemble, Further Reductions, January Hunt & Octonomy, Abby Echiveri & Leisure Muffin, Nivhek, Pedestrian Deposit, Rrao & Clay Wilson, Shredded Nerve & Jackson Pratt, The Bug & Miss Red, Tim Hecker & Konoyo Ensemble, and Via App & Bookworms present Asthyna. The day before they'll be at St Peter's Church, Chelsea, for a free concert from Polish artists Księżyc who will be performing in the US for the first time.

Advance tickets are on sale now starting at $25.

Mixcloud and Shure have announced a list of 24 producers, podcasters, radio hosts, engineers or field recordists, who, in their words, make up a “definitive list of creators pushing audio culture forward”. The artists were chosen by a panel featuring Holly Herndon, Yuri Suzuki, James Lavelle and Santigold. In addition, public votes will decide the winners of the Audience Choice Awards. The top four will receive a mentoring session and the opportunity to create a podcast detailing their personal story.

Nominees are: Counterpoint, Shy One, Miyu Hosoi, Hannah Brodrick, Otoboke Beaver, Maggie Andrew, Kyoka, Freshie, Velvet Negroni, Jules Gimbrone, Chal Ravens, Skinny Pelembe, Ailbhe Máiréad, Two Fresh, Channel Tres, Hibotep, C’est Qui, New Models Podcast, Miink, Fran Lobo, Lullatone, Debit, Bergsonist and Choker.

More information on the artists and how to vote can be found on Shure's website.

Compiled by The Wire contributor Jason Weiss, New Improvised Music From Buenos Aires includes unreleased or hard to find tracks by Ramiro Molina Duo, Agustí Fernández, Pablo Ledesma, Mono Hurtado and Norris Trio, among other artists discussed in Jason’s 2017 Wire feature about the free music scene in Argentina.

“As in European and American cities, the music survives on a DIY homemade spirit to subvert conventions and construct a kind of presence. But the struggle is waged against greater odds," says Jason, explaining that recent years have seen a government crackdown on the city’s smaller cultural spaces through the enforcement of the kinds of regulations previously imposed on larger venues. “Many places couldn’t afford to stay open, while others became more clandestine.”

ESP-Disk’, the label releasing the album, has its own history with the country, having issued Gato Barbieri's first international LP, In Search Of The Mystery, and Steve Lacy’s The Forest And The Zoo (both 1967), which was recorded at the Instituto Di Tella, Centro de Experimentation Audio-Visual in Buenos Aires.

New Improvised Music From Buenos Aires is released on 25 October and comes with a 16 page booklet including biographical notes and a Jason Weiss essay adapted from his feature in The Wire 399 (May 2017).