Francisco Lopez has launched a Kickstarter funding project for his Mamori Sound Project, the annual fortnight long artist’s residency and workshop in the Amazon rainforest. In exchange for funds pledged to take eight US sound artists into the rainforest, Lopez offers a digital diary, original photographs, MP3 audio clips of up to 24 hours long of sound recordings made by the workshop’s participants.

The Mamori Sound Project has been in existence since 2005 (although the global financial squeeze meant last year was cancelled), and is run jointly by Lopez and Mamori ArtLab, and includes field recording, discussions and session of laptop based studio work. For more info head to Mamori Sound Project Kickstarter Project page.

The Arts Council funding announcement has left a mixed bag of increases and cuts. One big winner is Resonance FM with a 64% increase in funding, but there’s bad news for Sound And Music, who face a 48% reduction in funding.

Larger venues had mixed results: the Barbican had a whopping 108.7% funding increase, while the ICA faces a 42.5% cut and the Southbank Centre loses 15%. It’s worth noting that the Barbican has been receiving something in the region of £250,000 per year while the ICA has been receiving over £1m in funding per year. Electra Productions retains its funding but with a 13.6% reduction, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival receives a 14% increase and Artangel a 19.3% increase. The Roundhouse faces an 11% cut and Rich Mix a 59.1% reduction, while the Arcola theatre receives an 82.1% increase.

New National Portfolio Organisations who will be receiving funding include Auto Italia, Voltaire/IntoArts, Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery, Phoenix Arts, Peer, Workplace Gallery, Spike Island, and Project Space Leeds.

For all the gory details, lock in to the Google spreadsheet here. (Note: All percentages quoted are real percentage change (Oct inflation estimates), as opposed to percentage cash change)

Schmogasboard Records, a new Bristol-based label launched by Oli Warwick, will kick off its release schedule in April with a 12" from Appleblim & October (Laurie Osborne and Julian Smith). NY Fizzzzz / Fountains Of Paradise will be released on 11 April.

Schmorgasbord aims to bring about otherwise unlikely collaborations, and as yet there’s just this 12” on the roadmap, plus a four track 12” featuring UK bass act Spatial and German house act S-Max. Label boss Oli Warwick told Resident Advisor: “I certainly don't want the label to disappear in a foggy haze of experimentalism, after all it's a dance music label with 12-inches to be played out in clubs, but the raison d'etre of the whole thing is testing boundaries and trying to push things in different directions.”

Head here to read the full interview with Warwick, or to the Schmorgasbord Records Facebook page.

Another batch of the line up for Eastern Electrics May Bank Holiday extravaganza has been announced, this time adding Virgo as the headliners for the Deviation room. Also announced is Lone, added to DJ Koze, Clive Henry, Geddes, James Holden, The Bug, Loefah, Braiden and more. London Great Suffolk Street Warehouse, 29 May, 10pm–6am, £18.

The next Yo La Tengo tour kicks off in June, where the first 45 minutes of every show will be decided by the spin of a wheel of fortune. At the beginning of the night Yo La Tengo will roll out the wheel of fortune on stage, where it will be given a spin to pick one of eight sets, which includes a Q&A, a set of songs with people’s names in, the acting out of a classic sitcom, a Condo Fucks set, and a set consisting of nothing but Yo La Tengo songs that begin with the letter S.

The audience could also be treated to a set from James McNew's side project Dump, or half of Yo La Tengo's The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science film score. The band says: "For our next UK tour, we’ve decided to take the advice of Blood, Sweat & Tears to 'ride a painted pony/let the spinning wheel spin.'"

Edinburgh Queens Hall (6 June), The Sage Gateshead (7), Leeds Cockpit (8) Birmingham O2 Academy 2 (9), Oxford O2 Academy (10), London Royal Festival Hall (12).

Adventures In Modern Music this week plugs into the past, present and possible futures of electroacoustic improvisation with the Erstwhile label.

Jon Abbey's NYC label has explored the boundaries of group improvisation since the late 1990s, transposing the laminal dynamics of AMM into the era of laptops, real-time digital processing and no-input mixing desks. Its quietly mesmeric music has been honed in partnership with fellow travellers such as AMM guitar improvisor Keith Rowe and members of the Japanese onkyo school of improvisation, and Erstwhile has engineered a number of specially convened and one-off collaborations within this diverse cast of players, including a forthcoming triple CD documenting the first meeting of Rowe and Austrian reductionist trombonist Radu Malfatti. Erstwhile’s exacting and sometimes austere music has divided opinion within the improvisation community, but across nearly 70 releases it has documented some of the most consistently forward-thinking improvisation of the last decade. Derek Walmsley will be talking to Jon Abbey about the label, its music and philosophy, and playing a selection of Erstwhile recordings old and brand new.

Adventures in Modern Music is broadcast every Thursday 21:00-22:30 (BST), 104.4 FM for Londoners, streamed live at resonancefm.com for the rest of the world.

Hardcore musician turned visual artist Nico Vascellari’s Three Days Of Struggle festival’s fourth incarnation is around the corner. The last one was during Christmas – this time it’s Easter. 22–24th April Vascellari’s studio Codalunga in the small town in Northern Italy Vittorio Veneto opens its doors for the likes of Carlos Casas, Guiseppe Ielasi, Allon Kaye, Mortuary Drape, Modern Witch, Magic Towers, Under The Snow, Sissy Basin and others. His group/project/show Lago Morto opens at Fondazione Remotti on the 16th of April and later on installing a piece at Vienna’s MAK with Prurient based on GG Allin and Klaus Kinski, entitled Jesus.

Rose Quartz has put together a digital download album to raise funds for relief and recovery after the earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand. The album is available as a free download, and Rose Quartz asks for donations via the Red Cross link.

The Rose Quartz fundraiser compilation includes unreleased material from Thurston Moore, Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Wet Wings and Shocking Pinks; new tracks from Dolphins Into The Future, Sun Araw, and Mount Pleasant, plus a Grouper live recording. Download here.

Ekkehard Ehlers has posted 11 live recordings from the Lux Aeterna festival on Soundcloud, including The Wire contributor Mark Fisher’s lecture Birth, School, Work, Death And Music, which looks at hauntology both aurally, with reference to Burial and Ghost Box, and also the sociological state of the nation, with ideas drawn from his book Capitalist Realism.

Also available for your listening pleasure are performances from Vindicatrix, Kammerflimmer Kollektief with Evan Parker, Kevin Drumm, Ernst Surberg playing John Cage, a talk from German novelist Dietmar Dath (in German) and more. Listen on Soundcloud.

Berlin based Mancunian Holy Other's debut EP will be released on Tri-Angle Records in summer, and one track from the EP is now available for download via Soundcloud. With U will be available on CD and as a digital download on 6 June.

Holy Other - Touch by TriAngleRecords