Applications for In The Dark's Sound Bank funding scheme are now open. The three grants of between £500 and £1500 aim to fund new audio works of between three to 15 minutes, and the scheme is open to first time producers and students as well as those with existing experience. Deadline for submissions is 19 November.

More details here.

Another Timbre has released a six CD box set of work by composers in or around the Cageian Wandelweiser collective of composers and performers, including unreleased pieces by founder Antoine Beuger, plus Michael Pisaro, Radu Malfatti, Manfred Werder, plus work by Johnny Chang, Sam Sfirri, Stefan Thut, Taylan Susam and others.

The box set, Wandelweiser Und So Weiter, is not intended as an anthology, and the sleevenotes include a roundtable discussion with Antoine Beuger, Michael Pisaro, Dominic Lash and Philip Thomas. More details here.

Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil has just compiled a book of his Trip Or Squeek comic strips, all of which originally appeared in the pages of The Wire.

According to Pouncey, the roots of the strip, which first appeared in The Wire 216 February 2002, "are deeply embedded in the late 70s, during the time that punk happened. Urged by music journalist Vivien Goldman to show my cartoons to Sounds editor Alan Lewis, I was somewhat astonished and thrilled when he started tearing out pages from my sketchbook and laying them out for the next edition." After Sounds folded in 1991, Pouncey took the strip – titled Rock N' Roll Zoo – to Tower Record's house journal Top, until that too went under.

Pouncey relates how The Wire's Tony Herrington then asked him to contribute a new cartoon strip to the magazine: "'Do whatever you want' was his only demand. How could I possibly refuse such a generous invitation. It was almost akin to to Mega Therion Aleister Crowley's command 'Do What Thou Whilt'."

Trip Or Squeek's Big Amplifier is published by Strange Attractor Press, and contains more than 100 strips from the past ten years, an ‘illuminated’ introduction by Gary Panter and a special Trip Or Squeek discography. The Wire book shop now has copies of the book in stock, all exclusively embossed and signed by Savage Pencil. Click here to buy.

Avant garde jazz pianist Borah Bergman has died at the age of 85 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Born in 1926 to Russian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, Bergman learnt the piano and clarinet as a child. After joining the army in 1945 and being stationed in Germany (where he was made to play in a band for his fellow soldiers), Bergman returned to the US and studied to become a dentist. When his father died, Bergman relates, in The Wire 235, "I became more impetuous and decided to actually study piano." Influenced by jazz pianists like Earl Hines, Lennie Tristano, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, Bergman at first played bebop, but when he "heard Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry in a record store, I felt that this was some of the sanest music I had heard in a long time."

Bergman was well known for his "ambi-ideation" technique, where he trained his left hand to be as dextrous as his right when playing, spending long periods composing and improvising exclusively with his left hand.

During much of his career Bergman taught music while performing more mainstream jazz. In the 70s Bergman started releasing solo recordings, most importantly the ones made for producer Hank O'Neal and his Chiascuro label. Up until the 1990s Bergman recorded solo, but later started collaborating with people like Evan Parker, Oliver Lake and Lol Coxhill, and releasing albums on Knitting Factory Works and John Zorn's Tzadik label.

Free jazz tenor saxophonist David S Ware has died at the age of 62 after prolonged dialysis treatment and a kidney transplant in 2009.

Following a stint at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Ware moved to New York City in the late 60s, and ended up working extensively with drummer Andrew Cyrille, then pianist Cecil Taylor in the late 70s. By the 80s Ware's luck had made a turn for the worse, driving taxi cabs to make a living. Ware came back to prominence with a string of solo releases recorded with pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, reinterpreting the ecstatic mysticism and Black sci-fi strands in the earlier experiments of artists like Coltrane, Ayler and Pharoah Sanders.

Following a series of records on labels like Sweden's Silkheart, Homestead and Southern, Ware signed a record deal with Columbia in 1999, but more recently released work through smaller labels such as Aum Fidelity and Thirsty Ear. Aum Fidelity's website says that they will announce information about a memorial service soon. Ware has been covered in The Wire over the years and we'll soon be posting an article from our archives.

Has Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy's beard finally met its match? Drag City have announced plans to release a split 7" shared between Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Will Oldham) and ZZ Top's guitarist Billy Gibbons. As yet, the only information to hand is that Drag City will release Oh Well b/w Storms on 5 November 2012.

In March this year Cafe Oto founder Hamish Dunbar was awarded £25,000 via the Genesis Prize. That money went into an Associated Artists Programme, announced this week. Oto have selected five UK musicians to work with over the next 12 months, developing collaborations and projects, plus providing the facilities for them to present new work. The inaugural associated artists are violinist Angharad Davies, sound artist Rie Nakajima, composer and improvisors Tom James Scott and Alex Ward, plus double bass player Guillaume Viltard.

Watch a video of a Rie Nakajima piece below. More details on individual artists here.

Norwegian percussionist Terje Isungset is taking his ice instruments on tour around rural England this winter. Isungset's instruments are carved from solid blocks of ice, and for this tour he'll be performing with vocalist Maria Skranes.

The venues include Appledore Baptist Church in Devon; one of only two stické tennis courts in the world at Hartham Park in Wiltshire; late Victorian era working museum Cogges Manor Farm Museum in Oxfordshire, and the village hall at Grampound in the valley of the River Fal in Cornwall. Each performance will also include bonfires and candlelit processions as organised by the individual promoters at each show.

Dates are as follows. Grampound Village Hall (29 November), Appledore Baptist Church (30 November), Hartham Park Stické Tennis Court (1 December), Witney Cogges Manor Farm (2 December). More details, including ticket links here.

Danish–Congolese saxophonist John Tchicai passed away on 8 October from complications following a stroke. Tchicai was a performer, composer and teacher, and played on John Coltrane's Ascension. He got his break from touring the European festival circuit, in the 1950s and early 60s. Encouraged by Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon, in 1963 he moved to New York to play in Dixon's band.

Tchicai then played in the New York Contemporary Five with Shepp, Don Cherry, JC Moses and Don Moore, and led the New York Art Quartet between 1964–5 with Milford Graves and Roswell Rudd. The latter group, although short lived (operating between 1964–65), was credited with being one of the most important improvising units of its time. In 1965 Tchicai played on Coltrane's Ascension, and said of the experience: "You can find intensity in different ways, not just through that kind of cacophonous method. Coltrane knew that religiousness was needed as the basis of the music."

In 1966 he headed back to Copenhagen where he received a grant, and led the large ensemble Cadentia Nova Danica of over 20 Danish musicians, which produced the crucial Afrodisiaca, among other albums. In the 70s Tchicai retreated from performance, researching eastern musical forms, and concentrating on yoga and teaching.

In the 80s he played with in Strange Brothers, and in 1990 Tchicai became the first jazz musician to receive a lifetime grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture. The following year he moved to California in 1991 at which time he began playing with The Archetypes, and guesting with other Bay Area groups.

Supersonic festival is holding a record amnesty to help build Lucas Abela's Vinyl Rally installation, in which you drive a remote control car with stylus attached to the underside over a track made of vinyl records. To help build the track, Supersonic organisers Capsule are asking for your unwanted records.

Records can be dropped at Birmingham Zine Festival's Independent Publishing Fair (125–127 Hurst Street, Birmingham) on 13 October, 12–6pm, or you can contact admin@capsule.org. Watch a video of the installation in action below.