Hans Joachim Irmler, keyboardist and founding member of German krautrock group Faust, is to perform at the forthcoming Ether festival at London's Southbank Centre. Irmler will join minimal rock outfit To Rococo Rot in debuting their new album Speculation. The performance is part of Berlin Sounds, a night of music from cutting edge artists based in that city including Thomas Fehlmann, Vladislav Delay and Gudrun Gut in collaboration with Antje Greie aka AGF.

Ether festival takes place 16 - 25 April with appearances from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio, Gil Scott-Heron, Chris Cunningham and performances of the complete works of Edgard Varèse.

SuperCollider, an open-source digital program used by musicians, scientists, and artists working with sound, will be holding a symposium in Berlin. The conference is to be a programme of lectures, performances and installations preceded by five days of workshops offering beginning programmers, composers and artists tutelage in the use of this complex and versatile tool. All performances and exhibitions will be open to the public, the symposium takes place 23-26 September.

SuperCollider is also calling out for works, installations, papers and workshops for participation in the symposium; click here for more details. The deadline for submissions is 26 April.

The Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland is calling for submissions of work from artists, experimental musicians, musical neuroscientists, sound artists, cyborg performers, dance-floor divas and harmonic engineers to be considered for inclusion in their forthcoming exhibition, Biorhythm - Music and the Body.The show will take place over a three month period from 1 July to 1 October and will include workshops, installations and performances from an international group of artists and performers.

Each project needs to delivered within a maximum budget of €7,000.00, however a higher budget may be made available in exceptional circumstances. They are also looking for digital proposals, so if your idea is a web-based, a mobile phone application, or can be reworked digitally, then you should let them know. Click here for more information.

The self-styled ice queen of electronic soul, Billie Ray Martin, has released The Crackdown Project Volume I: Sold Out To Disco and The Crackdown Project Volume II: Darkness Restored. Volume II features reinterpretations of the influential Sheffield industrial group Cabaret Voltaire's 1983 album Crackdown. Martin's album features an overhaul of the title track which includes a vocal contribution from Cabaret Voltaire bassist, Stephen Mallinder.

Check two videos of "Crackdown" below:

"The Crackdown (Original Version) Radio Edit"
"The Crackdown (Phil RetroSpector Mix)"

Warp Records are to bundle all vinyl and CD purchases through their shop on bleep.com with free MP3 versions. The free MP3 download package will only be available for albums and singles released from this year; customers who have already bought any Warp albums or singles released in 2010 will receive the MP3 versions retrospectively.

Eligible releases so far are: Autechre's Oversteps, Gonjasufi's A Sufi And A Killer and Kowboyz&Indians/My Only Friend, Eprom/Eskmo's Hendt/Lands and Bones (feat. Swan), LoneLady's Nerve Up and Intuition, Nice Nice's See Waves and Babe Rainbow's Shaved

Demdike Stare aka Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty have released two new mixes via soundcloud.com. The vinyl-crackle heavy, synthesizer pad laden Moving Metals and Haxan are available for free streaming or download here.

The Manchester-based duo are part of that city's Modern Love label which has also released work by Andy Stott, Pendle Coven and Deep Chord.

A new gallery devoted to the research and exhibition of sound art called SoundFjord is set to open in North London's Seven Sisters area. The space, a collaboration between a sound designer and an artist, aims to redress the lack of space in London specifically for research, experimentation and collaboration in the sonic arts.

The gallery is currently calling out for proposals for work to be included in their exhibition schedule which should begin mid 2010. A series of workshops and lectures are also to be planned to run alongside the shows. For more information and details on the space, email: info@soundfjord.org.uk

SND's 2009 album Atavism has been re-released on a 4 gigabyte SDHC card by the Raster-Noton label. The flash card format, typically used for digital camera and camcorder recording, allows for a quality of sound not usually available through download or on audio CD. Able to stream files at 24 bits, 96kHz per second, the thumb sized chip can contain tracks that are roughly twice the sonic resolution of the 16 bit, 44.1 kHz standard found on CDs. Actually playing the album could be an issue, however, as Raster-Noton are warning potential buyers to make sure their computers can handle the high sample rate before they purchase the card.

The SDHC format Atavism, which was specially mastered by Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering (founded by Basic Channel in 1995) is available at raster-noton.net

A retrospective box set of the influential krautrock group will be available from 10 May on Groenland Records. The set contains four vinyl LP's; NEU!, NEU! 2, NEU! ‘75 and NEU! ‘86 as well as NEU! ‘72, a previously unreleased 17 minute recording of the group rehearsing, and a 36-page picture book with contributions from Anton Corbijn, Peter Lindbergh and others.

Michael Rother, the last remaining member of Neu! after the death of motorik drummer Klaus Dinger in 2008 (legendary producer/sound engineer Konrad "Conny" Plank who died in 1987 also worked on the first three Neu! albums), has remastered all of the releases. Additionally, in the case of NEU! ‘86 (a piece left unfinished due to differences between Rother and Dinger) he has completely reworked the recordings for their very first official pressing.

Barcelona's Sónar festival has announced that the seminal art rockers Roxy Music will be appearing during the next festival instalment on 19 June. Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and their original drummer, Paul Thompson, will be playing at the Sónar By Night segment almost three decades after their last show in Barcelona.

Other acts set to perform at Sónar so far include King Midas Sound, Broadcast, Tristan Perich, Phill Niblock & Carlos Casas, Cluster, LCD Soundsystem, Richie Hawtin's Plastikman, Hot Chip, The Sugarhill Gang, Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus, Joy Orbison, Matthew Herbert’s One Club, Zomby and more.