Electronic music pioneer Max Mathews died of pneumonia at the age of 84 on 21 April in San Francisco. In 1957, while working at Bell Laboratories, he wrote MUSIC – one of the first music generation programs. He became director of the Bell Labs Acoustical and Behavioral Research Center in 1962, and Professor of Music at Stanford University in 1987.

Mathews's composition of digital voice ditty "Daisy Bell" appeared in 2001: A Space Odyssey after Arthur C Clarke saw it performed at Bell Laboratories and asked Kubrick to include it in the film. He invented and built a number of electronic instruments, including a violin made of sheet metal that transmitted sound from a pickup under each string, and the radio baton, which used two baton controllers and a base to receive a signal and convert it into instructions for synthesis when the batons were moved.

Mathews collaborated with Edgard Varèse, John Cage, and was the Scientific Advisor to the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique which he helped start with Pierre Boulez. He told Wired magazine earlier this year: "A violin always sounds like a violin, but a computer is unlimited in terms of timbre it can make, so it can enrich music… Computers are so powerful and inexpensive, but nobody knows how to take advantage of it in music."

Mathews is included in the NAMM Oral History Project, and detailed obituaries can be read at the New York Times and Synthtopia.

SoundFjord are looking for sound works to be included in the ICA's Museums At Night programme in May. SoundFjord is looking for works addressing themes "the sublimated landscape" and "sonic topology". Submissions must be in stereo WAV or AIFF, and AV work is preferred in HD. Send bio and a paragraph explaining the work to info[at]soundfjord.org.uk. Snail mail can be sent to SoundFjord, Unit 3b - Studio 28, 28 Lawrence Road, London, N15 4ER, and must be received before 6 May.

Poly Styrene (born Marian Joan Elliott-Said) of X Ray Spex has died aged 53. Styrene formed X Ray Spex in 1976 after seeing the Sex Pistols perform on Hastings Pier, but left the group in 1979, exhausted by touring after the release of Germ Free Adolescents.

Styrene was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 70s and was sectioned for several months. She released a solo record, Translucence in 1980. In the early 80s she had a daughter and converted to Hare Krishna, and lived as a devotee in the Bhaktivedanta Manor, which was gifted to the founder of Hare Krishna by George Harrison in 1973. In 1991 she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and in 1995 an attempt to reform X Ray Spex was cut short after she was hit by a fire engine.

Styrene released a solo album, Generation Indigo, on 28 March this year. She was being treated for an advanced form of breast cancer when she passed away on Monday 25 April.

Aum Fidelity's Steven Joerg is curating a fortnight at John Zorn's New York venue The Stone in June. Playing various shows are William Parker, Cooper-Moore, Matthew Shipp, Sabir Mateen, Karl Berger's Stone Workshop, and David S Ware. Zorn plays on 25, and Darius Jones Quartet play closing night.

The new video for John Maus's "Believer" has hit YouTube. The video is directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford, who explains that it's made using some "rare vintage video equipment". We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves is out on Upset The Rhythm on 27 June in the UK. Watch and listen (download here):

The first overview of the work of The Velvet Underground's original drummer Angus MacLise takes place in New York in May. The starting point for the exhibition is a suitcase of work left with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela 30 years ago, which contained artwork, writings, and over 100 hours of recordings. The opening party is on 10 May at 521 W23rd Street, where the exhibition features manuscripts, calligraphy, ephemera, photography, memorabilia, posters and handbills. A sound piece will be installed at 265 Canal Street Suite 601, and films will be shown at the Anthology Film Archives on 12 May at 8pm.

MacLise worked with Fluxus, Theatre of the Ridiculous and Jack Smith, and established the Dead Language Press and the Bardo Matrix/Dreamweapon Press with Ira Cohen. He was also a member of La Monte Young's Theater Of Eternal Music, and played with The Velvet Underground in 1965 (although never recorded with the band). MacLise died from hypoglycemia in Kathmandu in 1979, and was cremated on a Tibetan Buddhist funeral pyre.

Two LPs are released on the Boo-Hooray imprint and will be sold at the opening party. More info at the Boo-Hooray site. Intro video below:

Ray Smith, founder of Ray’s Jazz in London, died of cancer on 17 April aged 76. The funeral will be held at the Golders Green Crematorium on 27 April at 12pm, followed by a gathering at the Spice Of Life, on Moor Street, Soho.

Smith started out working for Collet's bookshop at 21, where he occupied the basement selling jazz records and playing drums, sometimes hosting impromptu performances. He has a cameo appearance dancing the Twist in Ken Russell's 1962 documentary Pop Goes The Easel, and played cricket in a team comprised of faces from the London jazz scene at the time, including Wally Fawkes, Mick Mulligan, and Frank Parr.

Smith started the Shaftesbury Avenue iteration of Ray's Jazz in 1975. He eventually caved to increasing rents and sold up in 2002, after which he retired to watch test cricket. Ray's Jazz is now a part of the Foyles flagship store on Charing Cross Road.

Applications for Binaural's 2012 Nodar Artist Residency Programme are now open. This year’s residency asks artists to propose a site specific piece exploring landscape, architecture and sound in the Gralheira Mountains, São Pedro do Sul, Portugal.

Applications close 15 September 2011, and 12 projects will then be selected and announced by 31 October. Individuals or collectives can apply, and the project may include the participation of experts in other disciplines such as archeology and anthropology. For more info about how to apply, and the location this year’s project focuses on, head to the Nodar site.

Krakow’s Unsound festival has announced its theme for 2011: the futurist Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock. Unsound will look at the Toffler-penned concept of ‘information overload’, and aims to “reimagine an idea of the future from the vantage point of the past, filtered through the present via the use of outmoded technology or context”.

For the first time Unsound has an open call for entries, and is accepting proposals from musicians, hackers, filmmakers, artists and others. To get the ball rolling Unsound has started a Future Shock Tumblr, and a 1972 documentary on Future Shock is available to watch on YouTube (part one below). The closing date for entries is 31 May, and Unsound will accept DVDs, CDs, or websites, plus a brief proposal. All work must be submitted via snail mail (in keeping with the pre-email publication date of the book). For more info head here.

Yma Sumac’s 1954 exotica staple Mambo (And More) is being given the deluxe vinyl treatment by Rev-Ola records. Mambo (And More), Sumac’s fifth album, will reissued for release in June this year. For full tracklisting and ordering details head here.