La Monte Young credited Dennis Johnson's 1959 piece November with inspiring The Well Tuned Piano, but no transcription of it existed until now. The only recording was a hiss-filled 100 minute long cassette (of a piece Young said could "theoretically" be six hours long). Kyle Gann has now constructed a score from the original cassette recording, which requires the performer (in this case pianist R Andrew Lee) to improvise against several pages of Gann's short musical score.

November was the magnum opus of a heavily abbreviated career, but one that left a largely uncredited mark on the development of minimalist composition. Nobody knows Johnson's whereabouts, he took himself out of radio contact years ago, and it's not known if a transcription of the piece ever existed. He also wrote a piece titled The Second Machine, but soon after abandoned music and went into computer science.

R Andrew Lee's performance of November is being released by Penultimate Press and Irritable Hedgehog as a 4CD box set. The piece will be performed by Lee in on 9 March at London's Cafe Oto, and Gann has written a piece about reconstructing the piece here. Listen to an excerpt below.

Following a brief nod to its existence last month, full details of Wire's Drill events in London have been announced. The series, put together by Wire and The Quietus, will run at The Lexington, Cafe Oto and Heaven on 21–24 March, in the run up to the release of Wire's new album Change Becomes Us.

The series acts as a showcase for artists connected to Wire, plus new acts. Line ups include Colin Newman's partner Malka Spigel playing at The Lexington, with a backing band that consists of Newman, Ronald Lippok, Gil Luz and Uri Frost. Also playing The Lexington is new Wire guitarist Matt Simms's group It Hugs Back.

Among the other acts playing are Toy, Klara Lewis, Land Observations, Scanner performing with Gazelle Twin. Full details here.

Wire also play London's Heaven on 24 March, the day before Change Becomes Us is released. Line up for 23 March have not been announced yet. Updates here as they come in.

Kevin Ayers has died aged 68 at his home in the South of France. As a teenager in the early 60s Ayers gravitated towards Robert Wyatt's parents's house, at Lydden near Canterbury. He became a vocalist and songwriter in the earliest incarnation of The Wilde Flowers, a group he left in 1965. He then travelled to Ibiza with Daevid Allen, where they met an American millionaire who gave them money to form a group. On returning to Canterbury in 1966 Allen and Ayers started the Soft Machine with Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt.

After touring twice in the support slot for Jimi Hendrix in early 1968, the group recorded their first album, after which which Ayers left. He began releasing solo material, and recorded with Lol Coxhill and a teenage Mike Oldfield, among others. Always on the brink of a commercial breakthrough, but with "an extraordinary ability to drink, and an extraordinary ability to rejuvenate himself" (according to Daevid Allen), Ayers appeared to lose his way by the early 80s, by which time he was living and recording in Spain. In later years he lived a reclusive life in France. He released his final album The Unfairground in 2007.

Maja Ratkje, Efterklang, accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen and Swedish duo The Knife are in the 12 strong shortlist for the the Nordic Council Music Prize. Also nominated are vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, violinist Pekka Kuusisto, accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen, chamber ensemble Nordic Affect, Mezzoforte, pianist Håkon Austbø, string trio Trio ZPR, vocalist Eivør Pálsdóttir, and pianist Vladimir Shafranov.

The 12 shortlisted artists are nominated by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, The Faroe Islands and Åland. One winner is chosen, who receives €47,000.

This year's winner will be announced on 30 October in Oslo. Previous winners have included Mats Gustafsson, Björk and Bent Sørensen. More details here.

Louise Gray will be giving a talk on 19 May at Brussels Huis 23 space based on her Primer article on John Cage that appeared in The Wire 161. The event is the second in an occasional series of talks being presented at Huis 23 that will draw on the series of Primer articles that have been running in the magazine since issue 154, some of which were anthologised in the 2009 Verso book, The Wire Primers: A Guide To Modern Music. Edwin Pouncey’s talk on Subterranean Metal, based on his Primer in issue 252, began the series last December.

Louise Gray: The Wire Primer: John Cage takes place at Huis 23 (Ancienne Belgique, Steenstraat 23, 1000 Brussels) Belgium, 19 May, 5pm, free, but reserve a place by emailing reservationshuis23@abconcerts.be and putting ‘Cage’ in the subject line. More details here.

The second edition of Counterflows takes place in Glasgow in April. The line up for this year's festival includes Peter Brötzmann, Paal Nilssen-Love, Anat Ben-David, Thomas Ankersmit, Phill Niblock and more.

Loren Connors and Suzanne Langille will perform solo and as a duo on 5 April, and on the same night Trembling Bells's Alex Neilson will perform with Kan Mikami. The following evening Thomas Ankersmit and Phill Niblock perform together acompanied by Niblock's films, on the same bill as Lina Lapelyte's Candy Shop, an exploration on the male dominated language of hiphop, which features Anat Ben-David, Angharad Davies, Sharon Gal and Rebecca La Horrox. Later on the same night Jandek plays, with a collection of folk including Richard Youngs, and the Sunday closes with Peter Brötzmann with Paal Nilssen-Love, Annette Krebs and Death Shanties, among others.

The first edition of Counterflows took place last year across various venues, with a Glasgow and London arm, and this year's takes place across venues in Glasgow. A full festival listing for 2013, with all artists performing and timings is online here.

Dutch avant garde vocalist Jaap Blonk is going on tour in Australia and New Zealand. Blonk will be playing a total of 19 shows, including solo performances, improvisations with local musicians, workshops plus lectures.

Blonk's dates in New Zealand run 27 February–2 March, and from 4–20 March he'll be in Australia. A full list of dates and details can be found on his site here.

Canada's Mutek festival has announced the first wave of acts for its 2013 festival, which takes place in Montreal 29 May–2 June. Confirmed so far are Matthew Herbert, Jamie Lidell, Robert Hood, Ryoichi Kurokawa, John Talabot, Andy Stott, pianist Nils Frahm, Ghislain Poirier, Ame, Boundary, Franck Vigroux & Antoine Schmitt, Juju & Jordash and Martyn.

The opening night of the festival will be a 20th anniversary party for the Kompakt label, with Michael Mayer headlining and the rest of the bill to be announced. Matthew Herbert will be performing three times across the long weekend: an improvised set using a ten second recording made by a war photojournalist in Libya, a DJ set as Wishmountain, plus his One Pig piece documenting the life cycle of a pig.

More details will be announced in the coming weeks. Watch a video of Franck Vigroux and Antoine Schmitt performing below.

franck vigroux-antoine schmitt : tempest from dautrescordes on Vimeo.

A quick heads up on a rare performance in London this summer. Nazoranai, the trio of Keiji Haino, Stephen O'Malley and Oren Ambarchi are booked in to shake the foundations of London's Scala on 11 July.

Nazoranai released their first, self-titled album last year, which featured Haino on synth, vocals and guitar, O'Malley on bass and Ambarchi on "battery", with typical Haino track names (eg "Getting A Bit Blurry, Brush Up Your Cartel And Devote It To Something").

Tickets are available here, and for more information, check the Miles Of Smiles site.

Guitarist John Russell's regular improvisation night Mopomoso is going on tour around the country for the first time. The tour runs from 26–30 April, and will stop off in Oxford, Bristol, Newcastle, Birmingham, Brighton, Sheffield and Manchester.

On each night of the tour local musicians will join the improvisations. Musicians appearing include Kay Grant and Alex Ward, Alison Blunt, David Leahy, Benedict Taylor, Pat Thomas, Keith Tippett, plus Evan Parker, John Edwards and John Russell as House Full of Floors.

Mopomoso (which stands for MOdernismPOstMOdernism SO what?) reaches its 21st year in 2013, and its regular night is held at The Vortex in Dalston, London. Full tour details on the Mopomoso site here, and at Sound And Music.