On 26 July Hyperdub will launch a new sub-label with an audio-essay written by Justin Barton and the late Mark Fisher in 2006. On Vanishing Land is described as being about “a micropolitics of escape” as it recalls a walk along the Suffolk coastline between Felixstowe container port (“a nerve ganglion of capitalism”) and the Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo. “A walk under immense skies, through zones of deep time and within sunlit, liminal terrains, into the eerie.”

On Vanishing Land was initially part of an exhibition commissioned by The Otolith Collective and The Showroom in London and followed Fisher and Barton's first audio work Londonunderlondon in 2005. For this release newly composed tracks by John Foxx, Gazelle Twin, Baron Mordant, Raime, Pete Wiseman, Farmers of Vega, Skjolbrot, Eerie Anglia, Ekoplekz and Dolly Dolly act as a backdrop to the essay. It also includes a short essay by Barton, and a photograph taken by Fisher is used as the sleeve art.

On Vanishing Land is released digitally and on vinyl on 26 July. A listening session will take place before the release on 23 July at The Castle Cinema in East London.

Curated by OTO Projects, Music and Other Living Creatures is a new series at Cafe OTO running on various dates between 23 June and 5 December. It's dedicated to “music about, with, or by other living creatures”. That's birds, tigers, chickens, insects and more explored through a variety of methods from sound-walks and commissioned performances to live responses and discussions.

Events include Evan Parker with birds (Evan Parker / John Coxon / Ashley Wales / Mark Sanders) + Seymour Wright performs Anthony Braxton's Dog on 26 July; a night hosted by David Toop titled Other Creatures, Entities and Faint Beings on 28 August; Animal Music featuring Lara Cory, Tobias Fischer and others on 12 September; Mark Harwood of Penultimate Press presenting Henning Christiansen's work Symphonie Natura – a collage of electronic drones and animal sounds recorded at the Zoo in Rome in 1985; and Apartment House Play Animals. With 11 events in total, full programme can be found on the the Cafe Oto website.

Swedish sound artist, composer and performer Hanna Hartman has been announced as Composer in Residence at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival for this year's event. Her work focuses on field recordings and found objects, with new pieces at the event featuring a 40 minute composition commissioned by the festival and performed solo by the artist herself on 17 November.

Also announced is a performance from German string quartet SONAR with soprano Juliet Fraser on the opening night – they'll be presenting a world premiere of an hcmf-commissioned work from composer Naomi Pinnock. Also that night will be a UK premiere of Heinz Holliger’s Increschantum, a six-movement setting of poems by Luisa Famos, while The Riot Ensemble present a portrait concert of the Irish composer Ann Cleare who recently received the Ernst von Siemens Prize.

hcmf takes place between 15–24 November. Other artists set to perform will be announced soon.

A new release from Seekersinternational features fields recording from a workshop on field-stripping, the process of disassembly and reassembly a gun for the purpose of cleaning. The recordings were made during a demonstration by a Cold War veteran at a military surplus shop and features a Colt British Service Pistol, a Glock 34 Competition Pistol, a Kalashnikov 1967 Soviet Rifle and a Springfield M1 Garand Rifle.

The album is made as a pacifist dub statement making it clear its aim is not to romanticise gun use. Crucially not a single shot is fired on the record.

The Guncontrolla is released by ICS Library Records.

The winners of the 2019 Oram Awards were announced on BBC Radio 3 Late Junction on 13 June. Now in its third year, the awards were set up in honour of Daphne Oram to recognise emerging female and non-binary artists working with music and sound.

The six winners are Ain Bailey, Andie Brown, Cee Haines (CHAINES), Natalie Sharp, Nwando Ebizie (Lady Vendredi) and Steph Horak (SheIsRevolting).

The awards ceremony is to take place on 15 June at Kings Place as part of Venus Unwrapped and is hosted by Tina Edwards (Worldwide FM). Artists performing are former award winners Klein, Loraine James and Sally Golding, this year's winner Lady Vendredi, and Beatrice Dillon playing a DJ set. Awards are presented by Matthew Herbert, the composer and director of The New BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

You can listen to an Oram Awards playlist featuring Ewa Justka, Klein, Lone Taxidermist and others on Spotify.

Numero Group have release a homage to 1980s gaming. Escape From Synth City was originally conceived and released as a synth based compilation with video game concept packaging, but now it's been realised into a full 1980s style side scrolling platform video game.

Inspired by NES classics the game takes its player on a quest to Synth City. “Across 6 levels you uncover the sinister undertakings of a corporation over-exploiting the city’s natural resources. You become intertwined with the destiny of the city and its inhabitants, unwittingly leading the charge against the powers that be,” says Numero, confirming it as a manifestation on their Cabinet of Curiosities series.

The game's characters come from across the Numero universe and feature appearances from Laraaji, Isabelle Antena, Terry Ork and others.

The game was developed by Ali Najdi and Thomas McCloskey, a pixel artist based in Northern Ireland. The soundtrack is made up of chiptune renditions of the original Escape From Synth City record release earlier this year and was arranged by Ireland's Ansonix.

Its officially released and freely available to play online within the first two weeks of July. Collectors can purchase a limited edition NES inspired controller and the game's soundtrack on 7”.

A previously unheard Miles Davis album is set for release in September. It was recorded in October 1985, the year that Davis left Columbia Records to join Warner Bros Records. Davis began recording Rubberband in Los Angeles at Ameraycan Studios with producers Randy Hall and Zane Giles. Planned vocalists set to appear included Al Jarreau and Chaka Khan, however the album was shelved and its tracked remained untouched for over 30 years. The following year Davis would release Tutu.

Last year a four-track EP of the same name was put out on Record Store Day. This September however will see the full 11-track LP released on CD, LP and digitally. It was finished by the original producers Hall and Giles and Davis’ nephew Vince Wilburn Jr who also played drums on the original session recordings. New vocals have been recorded by Lalah Hathaway and Ledisi.

Davis plays both trumpet and keyboards on the album and is joined by keyboardists Adam Holzman, Neil Larsen and Wayne Linsey, percussionist Steve Reid, saxophonist Glen Burris, and Vince Wilburn Jr on drums.

Listen to “Rubberband Of Life” featuring Ledisi on Spotify.

Rubberband is released on 6 September on Rhino/Warner. It will include liner notes from The Last Miles writer George Cole.

Deathprod is releasing a new album this autumn marking 15 years since the artist, real name Helge Sten, has released a solo work. Back in 2015 he and Biosphere put out Stator on Touch, but his last solo album proper was Morals And Dogma in 2004 on Rune Grammofon. Morals And Dogma was reissued on Smalltown Supersound in 2017 as part of a Deathprod vinyl reissue campaign that included Treetop Drive (1994) and Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha (1996).

To mark the event he's playing a special concert on 10 November at Oslo’s Opera House, a building that is rarely used for music outside of opera circles.

The new release–title and exact release date unknown–will come out via Smalltown Supersound in October 2019.

Julian Cowley chatted to Deathprod in The Wire 228 in an article about Norwegian quartet Supersilent. Subscribers can read that article on Exact Editions.

French guitarist Jean-Marc Montera has written a monograph on Derek Bailey. Montera, co-founder of the GRIM in Marseille in 1978, notes Bailey’s influence on his own career, stating Bailey inspired Montera to reconsider his position on music and how to practise it. His 110 page Bailey book is published in French by Lenka Lente.

News also comes in via Twitter that Jin Yufeng and experimental musician Wei Wei (aka Vavabond) have translated Derek Bailey’s Improvisation: Its Nature And Practice In Music into Chinese. Edited by the Shenzhen shop and record label Old Heaven Books, Improvisation is published by China Academy Of Art Press. Its publication was marked by a Bailey tribute, Improvisation For Improvisation, that closed this year’s Tomorrow Festival on 19 May, featuring Tomorrow Improvisation Unit with bassist Mamer, guitarist Li Jianhong, saxophonist/flautist Lao Dan, saxophonist Wang Ziheng and members of Guru Guru.

Originally published in 1980, Bailey’s Improvisation examined the meaning and methods of improvising music in all its forms, drawing on conversations with Han Bennink, John Zorn, Jerry Garcia, Steve Howe, Steve Lacy and more. The cover art (above) of the Chinese edition was done by woodcut artist Liu Qingyuan, who also produced the artwork for Shenzhen’s 2nd Tomorrow Festival back in 2015.

Apart from translating Bailey, Wei Wei has been busy recording her new album Non Serviam, which will be released by playrec in July.

Josh Feola wrote an article about the translator Wei Wei and her partner, the guitarist Li Jianhong in The Wire 406. Subscribers can read that on Exact Editions.

The first in a series of concerts by the Aural Diversity project will take place in July. Supported by GNResound Ltd, Aural Diversity was conceived by Andrew Hugill in 2018. It takes its name from a term coined by John Levack Drever, who adapted it from the word neurodiversity. Drever himself no longer has what he describes as “auraltypical hearing” due to tinnitus in his right ear. The project seeks to explore different ways of listening for diverse hearing profiles.

All music at the event is described in a written programme, and sound will be delivered through various media ranging from hearing aids and cochlear implants to vibrating surfaces, video evocations and signing.

The first event will happen on 6 July at The Old Barn on Kelston Roundhill, featuring performances by Anya Ustaszewski, Ruth Mallalieu, Simon Allen, Andrew Hugill, John Drever and Matthew Spring.

The project invites others to present Aural Diversity concerts in line with the rules detailed on their website.