Morr Music have released a film about groups local to Reykjavik who are on the Morr Music roster. Featuring performances by Múm, FM Belfast, Sin Fang, Hjaltalín, Retro Stefson, Reykjavík!, and Borko, Backyard: The Movie was orchestrated by Árni Rúnar Hlö∂versson (of FM Belfast) and filmed by documentary maker Árni Sveinsson, who invited the artists to perform in Hlö∂versson's back yard and recorded the results.

The DVD release is packaged with a CD of live performances. More info here.

WFMU's 31 day autumnal marathon fundraiser Shock & Awetober is in full swing. Pledges are rewarded with a choice of T-shirts, compilations and other WFMU branded ephemera, and throughout the month the station will be hosting live guests, listener meet ups, and a record fair.

Guests lined up to appear on the station include Kreayshawn (12 October), Destination:Out's Jeff Golick (14), Dave Q, Starscream, Alan Watts, Olivia Tremor Control (16), Zounds and Wild Flag (22), Real Estate (23) and more. For full radio listings and swag available, head here.

Something that's slipped through the net here: the vinyl release of Black Sabbath's early demos from 1969, when they were still called Earth. The vinyl, The Coming Of The Heavy Lords, is a split LP of Earth and The Flying Hat Band, and is released by Acid Nightmare records. It's the first time this has been available on vinyl (with some speculating this could be a bootleg). The Earth side features four tracks, one a cover of "Blue Suede Shoes", and the Flying Hat Band (Glenn Tipton's band before Judas Priest) side features a demo from 1973.

There's very little in the way of official information about, but there is more info at the Piccadilly Records site here.

Camden’s 176 gallery is inviting musicians to contribute to a multi-disciplinary mashup on 20 October, as part of this year’s The Big Draw festival.

Musicians are asked to interact with the work of artists from other disciplines like performance, poetry, music and drawing during a one-off workshop. For more information, click here.

Touch have launched a free app for iPhone and iPad, catalogue number TAPP 01. The app contains a news feed, tracks and information from the Touch back catalogue, Jon Wozencroft's cover art to save as wallpaper, the Touch Recipe Book, and all 69 episodes of Touch Radio, which has included broadcasts from Phill Niblock, Philip Jeck, Chris Watson, Biosphere, People Like Us and more.

The app has been developed by Dave Knapik and Tim Medcalf, and is designed by Rebels In Control, with images by Jon Wozencroft. For more info head here.

David Bedford, the modern composer, teacher, performer and musical arranger died on 1 October of lung cancer.

Bedford's musical education began with his family; his mother Lesley Duff was an opera singer, his grandmother Liza Lehmann an Edwardian songwriter and Bedford along with his two other brothers played musical instruments from an early age. Bedford attended the Royal Academy Of Music until 1961, and furthered his education in Venice studying under Italian avant garde composer Luigi Nono. Returning to the UK, he wrote various pieces of modern composition.

Partly through economic necessity, his career shifted track, and he became well known in the rock world. Working as an arranger for EMI he was approached to arrange the Kevin Ayers debut solo album Joy Of A Toy (1969). He toured with Ayers in the group The Whole World in 1970 along with Lol Coxhill and Mike Oldfield, all of whom he continued to work with outside the band. Around this time Bedford played a role in the development of Prog rock by using classical arrangements, evident in his contribution to the Roy Harper albums Stormcock and Valentine. He was also involved in arranging Oldfield's Tubular Bells and music for Elvis Costello and Madness.

Bedford also composed his own works which often included audience participation, such as With 100 Kazoos (1972), or re-interpreted traditional choral structures as in Star Clusters, Nebulae And Places In Devon (1971).

He told Mike Barnes in The Wire 325: "There are signature trademarks in my work, which go from the most violently dissonant pieces to the simplest piece. These would be an interest in texture, an interest in a sort of peace and quiet and large scale textures, and changing things quite slowly but never less allowing for repetition."

David Bedford was interviewed by Mike Barnes in The Wire 325.

Resonance FM has started a Google map of reception problems in and around London on its FM broadcast. At the beginning of this month the radio station had to move one of their London aerials due to building works at the transmitter site, and is asking listeners to report any disturbances or problems, and fill in this short online survey.

View Anecdotal Resonance Reception Reports in a larger map

Sharon Gal is starting a new weekly 'audio diary', on Wednesdays on Resonance FM. Gal says that the show, titled Stereo Cilla, "records and traces my weekly travels in a city I fondly call Babilondon, a truly multicultural place with its multiplicity of languages and urban sounds."

The radio show will use audio collage to trace and repeat particular journeys, incorporating overheard conversations, interviews and voiceover. Stereo Cilla will air at 5-5:30pm on Resonance FM, online and at 104.4FM (in London).

Susanna Wallumrød (of duo Susanna And The Magical Orchestra), has started a digital-only label to release her own material. The label, SusannaSonata, will launch on 1 November with a cover of Roy Harper's "Twelve Hours Of Sunset".

Wallumrød says she has started the label to have a mechanism for releasing single tracks. "I am working with a lot of different music constantly," she says, "and I like to do my own versions of other people's songs, old ones and newer ones, which don't really fit into album formats. It's good for me to have the possibility to put out music faster, more frequently, and at my own pace.

"The releases to come may have been part of a compilation somewhere, or be completely new tracks, as with this Roy Harper cover…I really love this man's music, so this is my humble greeting to him and his work."

Wallumrød says she'll still be releasing on Rune Grammofon, with a new album due next spring. "Twelve Hours Of Sunset" will be released to coincide with Roy Harper's 70th birthday celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall. It's the third Harper cover Wallumrød has recorded, following "Flower Of Evil" in 2008 and "Another Day" in 2009.

Listen to "Forever" By Susanna Wallumrød below. More info on the label will be appearing here in the coming weeks.

Forever by Susanna Wallumroed

Bert Jansch has died at the age of 67 after a long battle with cancer. Jansch played a series of shows in the UK recently, but was forced to cancel a show in Edinburgh in August as he was not well enough to perform.

Jansch was born in Glasgow in 1943, and said he first played a guitar at seven or eight, when a teacher brought one into school. As a teenager he took guitar lessons from Davy Graham's sister Jill Doyle at Edinburgh folk club The Howff, and in 2007 he described to Mike Barnes first hearing Big Bill Broonzy at age 15: "I found a little EP in an Edinburgh store and for the next year that's all I listened to. It was a complete mystery to me at the time, because I was trying to learn guitar, but couldn't understand how you could pick out more than one melody at the same time. I was really intrigued by that. And to this day I wear a thumb pick like he did."

Jansch began performing in London in the early 60s after hitchhiking to the capital from Edinburgh. He recorded his debut self titled album in Camden using borrowed guitars and a reel to reel. It was released on Transatlantic in 1965, and featured protest song "Do You Hear Me Now", which was covered by Donovan. He later teamed up with folk guitarist John Renbourn and recorded the 1966 album Bert And John.

Pentangle formed in 1967 with Jansch and Renbourn adding Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox. The group achieved considerable success but disbanded in 1973. Jansch said of the split: "I think the band broke down because of its own success. I don't think any of us could cope with the amount of success it had, and the manager kept us working all the time. He kept saying we could be the new Modern Jazz Quartet. We went around the world three times, and it was, literally, when you got around once you were off again. After six years or so of it, we were all desperate to do something else."

After Pentangle split, Jansch briefly turned to farming. During the 80s he continued to record but struggled with drink problems. He made a full return to the scene in 1995 when he played a series of shows at London's 12 Bar Club, and in the following years was referenced and asked to play by artists involved with the freak folk scene, prompting a renaissance for Jansch. He released a number of albums, including Crimson Moon in 2000, and Black Swan in 2006, and played with Devendra Banhart, Hope Sandoval, and Bernard Butler, among others.

Pentangle recently reformed to play a series of shows in the UK, including Glastonbury Festival in June this year, and were reported to be working on new material together.

Quotes and facts taken from Mike Barnes's Invisible Jukebox with Bert Jansch in The Wire 276, and Rob Young's Electric Eden.