Peter Brötzmann is being honoured with a German jazz prize for his life's work in the free jazz scene. The award will be given after a performance by Full Blast Trio (Brötzmann with electric bassist Marino Pliakas and whirling dervish drummer Michael Wertümller) at the Akademie der Künste Berlin, 18 September. Further information here in German only.
Glasgow Music's 2011/2012 season launches in September with two nights of new music and art installations. Land artist Jim Buchanan will show his new work Labyrinth Of Light, a maze of water and light at the Old Fruitmarket, and the Sound Of The Labyrinth show features interpretations of the work with performances by Craig Armstrong, Alex Smoke, Icebreaker and AGF.
Space exploration is the theme at City Halls and is part of Glasgow Music's Family Fun Music Day. Man High, a piece of music accompanying film footage of Joseph Kittinger's pre–space age balloon jump to test astronaut equipment is included in the line up with performances by Music At The Brewhouse, Icebreaker and works by Brian Eno. Throughout the events there are various interactive activities and workshops including a scary room, how to be a radio presenter, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Present: A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Orchestra and more. Full listings here. Glasgow various venues, 23–24 September.
Bill Kouligas's Pan label has been run from London and Berlin for the last four years and its LPs – or actions – are instantly identifiable with their clean geometric designs and gliding PVC covers. Pan has faithfully documented some of the weirdest and wildest corners of modern musique concrete, Noise, sound poetry and synthesizer abuse, with records by Keith Fullerton Whitman, Trevor Wishart and Los Angeles Free Music Society's Joseph Hammer.
But the label also traces connections between the most unexpected areas of modern music, delving into the bastardised House of Heatsick, the outsider songforms of Ghédalia Tazartès, and collisions of acoustic/electronic improvisation and noise with Evan Parker and John Wiese. Mixing high art and gutter sound terrorism, Derek Walmsley will be playing new, old, unreleased and forthcoming music from the full gamut of the Pan spectrum. Music from Kouhei Matsunaga/NHKyx, Heatsick, Eli Keszler, Ben Vida, Andre Vida, Bill Kouligas, and Marginal Consort (their last performance from 2008).
A trio of Pan's artwork has been featured on The Wire's Tumblr, Sleeves Received.
AIMM is broadcast every Thursday 9pm–10:30pm (BST), 104.4 FM for Londoners. Streamed live at resonancefm.com for the rest of the world.
Funkystepz have uploaded a preview of their forthcoming EP Trouble to Soundcloud. The EP features three tracks, "Trouble", "Dirty Dutch", and "John Wayne", and will be released on 3 October on Hyperdub.
Funkystepz were interviewed by Lisa Blanning for The Wire 326, and a Funkyztepz mix was featured on The Wire's Resonance FM show in April (archived here). Listen to the Trouble preview below:
Tompkins Square is following up its 2009 compilation Fire In My Bones: Raw & Rare & Other-Worldly African American Gospel (1944–2007). This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel On 45RPM (1957–1982) will be released on 20 September.
Tracks from the compilation are collected and compiled by Mike McGonigal and released on 45s in the 60s and 70s. McGonigal has also compiled records for Portland's Mississippi Records, runs Social Music label and is editorial director of Yeti Publications. McGonigal says the collection is entirely short run 45s because at the time "almost anyone could raise enough money to release a seven-inch single". More info here. Listen to a track from This May Be My Last Time Singing below, and tracks from the first compilation Fire In My Bones here.
"This May Be My Last Time Singing" by Missionary Mami Sample by TompkinsSquare
In response to riots across the country, Tate Modern are hosting a free screening of the Black Audio Film Collective's film Handsworth Songs, followed by three members of the collective - John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul and David Lawson - in conversation with Wire contributor Kodwo Eshun.
Handsworth Songs was released in 1986 as a cultural response to social unrest in Birmingham and London in October 1985, looking at the way events unfolded, the two deaths (that of elderly black woman Joy Gardner and white policeman Keith Blakelock), and the subsequent media reaction. London Tate Modern, 26 August, 7pm, free.
Curating John Zorn's The Stone in New York this October will be Thirsty Ear's Blue Series president Peter Gordon, who picks the acts from 1–15 October. As well as The Stone curatorship, Thirsty Ear will also be hosting a clutch of group and solo performances.
The series opens with Vernon Reid on 1 October, followed by Lafayette Gilchrist. Musicians playing will largely be previewing forthcoming releases, including Matthew Shipp, who plays two nights showcasing material from this year's Art Of The Improviser and Elastic Aspects, scheduled for release in 2012. Other artists previewing material are Greg Ward's Phonic Juggernaut, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone, Dawn Of Midi, plus a trio of Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson, and Peter Evans.
Outside of The Stone shows, Matt Maneri will lead four group performances, Lafeyette Gilchrist and Elliott Sharp will lead two each, and there will be performances from Jessica Pavone, the Mara Rosenbloom Quartet, High Priest (of Anti-Pop Consortium), and DJ Spooky and the Antarctica Ensemble’s The Book of Ice.
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO have announced a series of UK shows, scheduled to coincide with the release of an as yet unnamed new album. To keep up with news on the new release, check the Riot Season website.
Dates are as follows: Cambridge The Portland (4 November), Birmingham Hare & Hounds (5), Nottingham Bodega (6), Manchester Ruby Lounge (7), Hebden Bridge Trades Club (8), Glasgow Nice N Sleazy (9), Belfast Auntie Annies (10), Dublin Crawdaddy (11), Bridgend Hobos (14), Bristol Thekla (15), Oxford Jericho (16), London Corsica Studios (17), Brighton Hectors House (18), London Cafe Oto (Makoto Kawabata solo + Tsuyama Atsushi solo, 19).
Wolfgang Voigt's Kafkatrax project, a trio of limited edition 12" EPs released on his resurrected Profan label are being released on CD (all three 12"s are now sold out). The project is based around a Franz Kafka audiobook with all sounds sourced from the voice recording except a bass drum. The recited text is disassembled, processed and put back together, with vocals layered and shifted up and down five octaves. The series began in May with Kafkatrax 1. The CD version contains all eleven tracks from the three Kafkatrax 12" releases and will be released on CD on 10 October, later than the original July date given back in May.
Here Press's first book launch has been rescheduled for later this week, after being cancelled as a result of the riots. The launch of Seba Kurtis's Drowned will no longer feature Brian Shimkovitz (aka Awesome Tapes From Africa), but to make up for his absence Shimkovitz has compiled a mix, which you can find here. A short film projection is still planned, along with book signing. Here Press in a publishing house founded by The Wire's art director Ben Weaver and Harry Hardie. London Cafe Oto, 24 August, 7pm.