Former Negativland member Ian Allen has died from complications during heart valve replacement surgery at the age of 56. Allen was a part of the outfit from 1981 for around six years, when health problems forced him to slow down activities, although he remained a close friend and collaborator of the group, helping to articulate their idea of "culture jamming”.

Allen contributed to points (1981) and A Big 10-8 Place (1983), the group's first concept LP. A full statement from the collective has been posted on Facebook.

Joke Lanz is celebrating his 50th birthday with a party at Berlin’s Roter Salon on 5 April, including a programme of live performances and DJ sets. On the bill are Lanz with his group Sudden Infant (playing as a three piece), Shelley Hirsch, Roger Rotor, Petra Flurr, Parabelles, Warc Meiser playing Loke Janz, plus DJ sets from Andrew Fearn of Sleaford Mods, Bill Kouligas, Rashad Becker and Harbinger Sound label head Steve Underwood.

Sudden Infant also continue their tour with Sleaford Mods, with the next batch of dates in June. More details on Joke’s planned festivities here, and a full listing for the ongoing Sleaford Mods tour here.

Member festivals of the the International Cities Of Advanced Sound (ICAS) network are launching a new, three year project at Berlin’s CTM 2015 festival. Sound Heterogeneous Art and Performance in Europe (SHAPE) brings together 16 European organisations to present an ongoing showcase of performances, exhibitions, lectures and workshops at each festival, and to give support to aspiring musicians and interdisciplinary artists with an interest in sound.

The member organisations are: Paris’s Arcadi, Berlin’s CTM, Dresden’s Cynetart, Rennes’s Festival Maintenant, Tromsø’s Insomnia, Toulouse’s Les Siestes Électroniques, Prague’s Meet Factory, Ljubljana’s Museum For Transitory Art, Graz’s Musikprotokoll, Marseilles’s RIAM, Bucharest’s Rokolectiv, Brussels’s Schiev, Riga’s Skaņu Mežs, The Hague’s TodaysArt, Budapest’s UH Festival and Kraków’s Unsound.

SHAPE officially launches during CTM 2015 with a “meet and greet” at 4pm on 29 January in the Projektraum of Kunstquartier Bethanien. The event includes presentations by several SHAPE members, and two of their participating artists, Berlin producer Yair Elazar Glotman aka Ketev and Romanian DJ/producer Borusiade. The free event is open to the public.

Eight SHAPE artists perform or exhibit their work at CTM, including Marco Donnarumma, Matthijs Munnik, Zamilska, Paul Régimbeau aka Mondkopf, Gábor Lázár, Lorenzo Senni, RSS Boys and Ketev.

In total, SHAPE will present 48 artists through 2015, and the next member festivals will be Rokolectiv in Bucharest and Cynetart in Dresden. More details on the SHAPE website and on the CTM site.

To mark the 50th anniversary of its inception, Moog Music are going back into production of their modular synthesizer. They will be building a limited run of three large modular synthesizers: the System 55, the System 35 and the Model 15, all of which were originally produced in 1973. They have also filmed a short documentary featuring input from Suzanne Ciani, Malcolm Cecil, David Borden, M Geddes Gengras and others. Watch it below

Prix Ars electronica has begun accepting entries for its 2015 award. This year it's the turn of digital music and sound art in the Austrian organisation's rotating sequence of biennial categories, and the theme for the under 19 category is Create Your World. As well as the Golden Nica trophy, winners will receive prize money of up to €10,000 per category, and an opportunity to play at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. Deadline for submissions is 6 March.

Past winners of the digital music and sound art category include Jo Thomas, Jana Winderen, Ryoichi Kurokawa and others. More details on how to enter here.

Roy Harper’s trial has begun at Worcester Crown Court. Harper, now aged 73, has been charged with four counts of indecent assault, four of indecency with a child, and two of having sexual intercourse with an underage girl. He denies all charges.

Harper was originally interviewed by police in 2013, and later that year was issued with a summons to appear in court. Reports suggest the trial will last around a fortnight. Full story on the BBC here.

UPDATE: Roy Harper has been acquitted of assulting an 11 year old girl after the jury failed to come to a majority decision. More details via BBC news.

An early announcement just in for a new festival at London’s Southbank Centre taking place next year, with a focus on the work of female composers. In June 2016, the festival, titled Deep Minimalism will include performances of works by Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, Éliane Radigue, Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya. The Southbank is currently hosting both Oliver Coates and Mica Levi (The Wire 372) as artists in residence, with Coates programming the festival and a performance by Levi taking place.

More details on the Deep Minimalism festival will be announced via the Southbank site in the coming months.

Faber will be publishing the memoirs of ex-Fall member Brix Start-Smith next year. The book, titled The Rise, The Fall & The Rise, is due to be published in early 2016. It will trace Start-Smith’s time in The Fall and with Mark E Smith from the early 80s and also her subsequent relationship with violinist Nigel Kennedy, along with her day spent in Hole, through to her marriage to Philip Start, with whom she runs a string of fashion boutiques, and more.

More details on the book here.

Beijing based musician and Wire contributor Yan Jun’s book, The Beastly Archives: An Anthology Of Essays And Reviews On Underground Rock And Other Musics, is being translated into English. The book brings together Jun’s writings from 1996–2008 and, at almost 400 pages long, is an in-depth account of Chinese underground music from one of its best known figures. Translator Mark Ge has posted a table of contents plus an excerpt from the first essay here. He is currently looking for a publisher for the book.

Taking The Dog For A Walk, a feature length documentary about the London improv scene, is released on DVD this month by Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu. The film was premiered at the East London Film Festival in 2014 and reviewed in The Wire 367. Including interviews conducted by Stewart Lee and Tony Bevan with Eddie Prévost, Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Alex Ward, Maggie Nicols, Phil Minton and more, as well as archive footage, Antoine Prum’s film looks at how London’s network of small venues and labels has helped shape the music. The DVD release will be marked with a screening at London’s Café Oto on 25 January.