Pekka Airaksinen (1945–2019) was a pioneer in Finnish electronic music, with a career that would span more than 40 years. “I think making art must be some form of madness,” he would say in an interview with Matt Wuethrich in 2018.

He spent his youth in Helsinki and would learn various instruments throughout his childhood. Airaksinen's uncle worked as leader of an orchestra, although at an early age he decided he would not take a classical path; he wanted to invent. He first became known on the Finnish underground music scene in the 1960s as member and composer for controversial performance collective The Sperm. Active from 1967–1970, they comprised over 20 artists and were under surveillance by the Finnish authorities who treated their use of simulated sex and nudity in performance with suspicion. One artist, Mattijuhani Koponen, found himself sentenced to six months in jail for breaking obscenity laws.

When the group disbanded, Airaksinen would focus on studio based solo works and Buddhist practice. He established the Buddhist Dharma Centre in the West of Finland and translated a number of Buddhist texts into Finnish. He would also use his spiritual side to expand his musical practice. “I came up with a system where I converted these names [of Buddhas] into mathematical information and then into musical equivalents that I used for compositions,” he told Wuethrich. Using this system he would record various releases, for example the 1984 album Buddhas Of Golden Light. In the 1990s Airaksinen founded the Dharmakustannus label that would issue more than 40 releases by the artist himself, including dozens of releases through the 2000s.

Last year Svart released The Sperm box set 50th Erection I. You can read Matt Wuethrich full interview with Airaksinen in The Wire 411 on Exact Editions.

Over the course of three days at London's Iklectik a selection of events will take place in celebration of the Japanese theatre style Butoh.

The main performance is Butoh Techno, a collaboration between pianist and vocalist Aya Ogawa, dancer Mushimaru Fujieda, Polish group Shepherds Of Cats, visual artist Maciej Piatek aka VJ Pietrushka and saxophonist and composer Matylda Gerber. There will also be a piece by Fujieda performing to music by Pascal Savy and Aya Ogawa.

Film screenings include rare footage of the late Sapporo based dancer Yoko Muronoi and a film by Holly Warburton featuring a performance by Yoko Muronoi.

Sunday will host a Butoh workshop called Natural Physical Poetry.

On 14 May Butoh Techno will visit Brighton The Rose Hill, followed by Bradford Fuse Art Space (16), and Sheffield Access Space with Charlie Collins on percussion and Beatrix Ward-Fernandez on violin (21).

The Butoh residency takes place at Iklectik between 15–17 May. Watch a video from a Butoh Techno performance in Poland below.

Running between 25 May and 18 August at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Xenogenesis is a large scale exhibition detailing eight years of The Otolith Group’s projects.

The group, founded in 2002 by artist Anjalika Sagar and theorist Kodwo Eshun, will present artworks produced between 2011 and 2018. The exhibition is named after the trilogy of novels by Octavia Butler, whose work continues to inform the group’s concepts.

Works in the collection will include Anathema (2011), From Left To Night (2015), People To Be Resembling (2012), O Horizon (2018), Statecraft (2014), In The Year Of The Quiet Sun (2012), Medium Earth (2013), Who Does The Earth Think It Is (2013), Sovereign Sisters (2014) and The Third Part Of The Third Measure (2017).

Diamanda Galás has announced her whole back catalogue will be available across the net from 3 May. Before then Bandcamp will be exclusively hosting digital access to her work. The announcement follows a period of negotiation between Galás and BMG, who bought part of Mute's catalogue and held the rights to her albums for several years. Now that their ownership has returned to Galás, it means people will be able to hear her music via Spotify, Tidal, Amazon and elsewhere, after it being unavailable for some time on digital streaming services.

The news also marks the beginning of a new reissue campaign, with physical versions of albums from Galás’s archive forthcoming via her own label Intravenal Sound Operations. First in line is her debut album The Litanies Of Satan, now due for reissue in autumn 2019. It'll be remastered from the original tapes and feature its original Y Records label artwork.

Listen to the title track of Galás’s 1982 debut below.

Audio engineer and composer Rupert Clervaux’s debut solo album will be released by Nic Tasker’s Whities label in May. Called After Masterpieces, it features Clervaux reciting his own poetic texts about ancient mythologies, the origins of language and music, epistemology and ecology, accompanied by guest performances from saxophonist and trumpet player Eben Bull, singer Sian Ahern, and vocal and performance artist artist Anna Homler aka Breadwoman. Artwork is by Alex McCullough and Kia Tasbihgou.

“It’s been a long but sporadic process with the first texts originating over five years ago,” says Clervaux. “It’s been there in the background for many years while I’ve been working on other projects and mastering. In some ways that was premeditated – so, rather than a snapshot of what I’m into or doing at one time, it’s more like a long exposure to a wide variety of musical and literary influences.”

Clervaux has previously released two albums in collaboration with Beatrice Dillon: 2015's Studies I–XVII For Samplers And Percussion and 2016’s Two Changes. Last year he completed the third episode in his Zibaldone Of CVX series, released by Laura Lies In.

After Masterpieces is released on 24 May.

Listen to “In Shadowlands Of Like And Likeness” below.

An album of previously unheard recordings by Philadelphia group Sounds Of Liberation is about to be released. Founded in the early 1970s by vibraphonist Khan Jamal, Sounds Of Liberation featured Billy Mills, Dwight James, Monnette Sudler, Omar Hill and William Brister aka Rashid Salim, with saxophonist flautist Byard Lancaster joining a year later.

Sounds Of Liberation initiated happenings in schools, prisons and community centres throughout Philadelphia. In 1972 they self-released New Horizons (reissued as Sounds Of Liberation by Dogtown, and again in 2010 by Porter Records), In 1973, the group, along with their manager George Gilmore, travelled to New York City for a follow-up recording session at Columbia University, the outcome of which can be heard on the five tracks making up Untitled (Columbia University 1973), all composed by Jamal, Lancaster and guitarist Sudler.

Prepared by the group members in collaboration with Peter ‘Max’ Ochester of Brewerytown Beats Records, the LP features a cover by their original artist Leroy Butler. There will also be a limited edition deluxe version including extra photos and flyers.

Untitled (Columbia University 1973) is released on 3 May by Dogtown Records.

An hour’s worth of Charles Hayward recordings playing a random selection of instruments in the 1970s have been put to cassette. Released by the Hackney based record label Blank Editions, Objects Of Desire documents Hayward at work during the summer of 1975, when he fondly recalls having the house to himself and wanting to get creative.

“I did what I’d always done, work with what was to hand,” he says of Objects Of Desire. “I’d record onto one cassette machine, play that back into the room while also adding something live, ultra-primitive overdubbing. I’d been doing a lot of thinking about how music didn’t really work in an either/or way, it was only our need to put things in boxes that did that, so whatever the next idea, that was what I made.

“I deliberately avoided using the drum kit too much,” he continues. “Instead I focussed on my collection of instruments collected since childhood, junk market finds, radio noise clouds, second hand keyboards advertised in the back of Melody Maker, plastic swanee whistles from Woolworth’s taped together, kazoos, an old tape found in a Soho dustbin. At the same time the simple cassette machines added their own presence to the sound, whispering traffic passing unpredictably, the crude compression breathing; a lot of the work happened inside the machines.”

60 cassettes of Objects Of Desire have been pressed and are available to pre-order now.

Five years after the death of the Chicago footwork producer, aged 34, Teklife photographer and visual artist Ashes57 has published On Tour With DJ Rashad, a commemorative collection of photographs documenting his life and work between 2011–14.

A pioneer of the genre, Rashad Harden was a founder member of Ghettoteknitianz, a group of artists that later went out under the name Teklife. He toured regularly, often with longtime friend DJ Spin, and in the UK worked with labels such as Planet Mu and Hyperdub.

Over 800 photos are featured in the book, all taken by Ashes57, who writes in the preface, “This book is about my friendship with DJ Rashad. It doesn’t cover his entire life, nor his whole music career, nor even all of his tours and DJ shows. The photos in the book are from the time that I spent with Rashad from 2011 to 2014, from the shows he invited me to and the time we spent hanging out in between.”

Ashes57’s On Tour With DJ Rashad is published on 1 May. Pre-orders are being taken now.

Launched in Sydney last year, the Australian deep listening project Longform Editions has just released its second collection for 2019. Sticking to a bi-monthly schedule, it includes an hour long psychedelic guitar piece from Robert Cox’s Rimarimba, vintage Buchla 200 synth minimalism from Lau Nau, a choral work by Lieven Martens, and a piece composed by Kate Carr during her time in Saskatoon, Canada.

The imprint has previously released music by Caterina Barbieri, Matthewdavid’s Mindflight, Midori Hirano and Cruel Diagonals, among many others.

All releases are available on Bandcamp.

Ruf Dug Presents: The Committee is released this week. A collaboration between Ruf Dug and Rhythm Section Int’l, the record is the product of a chance encounter back in 2012. Calling themselves a fictional band, the project features DJ and producer Ruf Dug and has vocals from label founder Bradley Zero, Chris Watson, Natalie Wildgoose, Sienna Mustafa and Nadina. Produced by Mali Baden ­Powell, it was recorded over a two week residency, making it the first record to be created entirely in the South East London label’s studio.

“Authorship is a strange concept at the best of times but this genuinely is a group effort and I very much enjoyed feeling like just one piece of a larger entity ­– the complete opposite to my usual production experience of being all alone in my room for days at a time,” says Ruf Dug. “I had been joking with Bradley that he needed to be on the record somehow and he did appear, playing an egg shaker at one point, but his singing wasn’t in the least bit planned... I got back from lunch, and the next thing you know he just starts singing... So I dragged him reluctantly down the corridor [to the studio] and that’s it, now he’s a pop star!”

Ruf Dug Presents: The Committee is released on 26 April. Check out the video for “Down 2 It” below.