The Wire presents Into The Vortex, a three day festival (9-11 October) featuring some of the best music out there curated by The Wire and hosted by London's excellent Vortex Jazz Club. Regular tickets are available at £12 a night or £30 for the entire weekend here. But, if you're a subscriber to The Wire, we've organised an exclusive discount of £10 a night or £25 for the weekend! Click here if you're a subscriber to get your discounted tickets (Please bring along your subscriber number with you to the event along with your discounted tickets)

9 October: NEW PLANES OF ECSTASY
Richard Youngs & Heather Leigh Murray
Astral Social Club
The Skaters

10 October: NEW STATES OF SONG
The One Ensemble
Band Of Holy Joy
Alasdair Roberts

11 October: NEW REALMS OF THE UNCANNY
Broadcast (live) & Julian House (Ghost Box) (film)
The Caretaker
Thomas Ankersmit

All of this + The Wire Sound System DJs spinning selections of the best new sounds out there!

Electronic musician, programmer, researcher and one half of Leaf laptoppers Icarus presents an installation of a "sonic ecosystem model of the artificial evolution and diversification of a population of sonic agents and their susceptibility to being affected by changes to their environment." London Shunt Vaults, London Bridge, 12-15 August.

Artists Taryn Takahashi and Hyo Myoung Kim are calling out for people to help with their project about work songs. Participants are asked to visit them at the Primo Alonso gallery space in East London from 12-5PM on weekends throughout August (15-16, 22-23 & 29-30) and perform their interpretation of what a work song is live. Participants may also email their recordings to the artists, more details here.

London's premiere community arts radio station is asking the listening public to lend support to a campaign for greater public investment in community radio. The Community Radio Fund was set up in 2004 with a budget of £500'000 to be distributed amongst 14 community radio broadcasters, but since then the fund has had to support an increased number of over 200 community broadcasters with the same budget. Resonance FM is asking all eligible supporters to sign a petition for a budget increase here.

With the September 2009 issue, The Wire has launched Below The Radar, a major new series of free download compilations made available exclusively to all the magazine's subscribers worldwide.

Compiled and produced by The Wire staff, each volume of Below The Radar will act as a showcase for all manner of underground, outsider and experimental sounds.

Below The Radar Volume 1, released to subscribers via the carrier sheet accompanying their September issue, features new or exclusive tracks by: Concern, Starving Weirdos, Harappian Night Recordings, Dredd Foole & Ed Yazijian, Mark Wastell, James Ferraro, Uton, Ghedalia Tazartes, Richard Skelton, Brian Morant, Sudden Infant, Gareth Davis & Steven R Smith, LSD March, Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, The Hunter Gracchus, Seymour Wright, and more...

The first volume in the series coincides with the publication of the September 2009 issue. Subsequent volumes will be issued on a quarterly basis.

Here's how it will work: with their copy of the September 2009 issue, all subscribers will be issued with a url for a dedicated Below The Radar webpage, plus a user name and password. Once logged in to the webpage, they will be able to download all the tracks on the compilation. The webpage will also include a set of sleevenotes that will contain biographies and images, links and contact information for all the featured musicians. Logged in subscribers will be able to view the sleevenotes online and/or download them as a pdf file.

To make sure you get access to the first volume of Below The Radar, subscribe now: thewire.co.uk/subscribe

NB the second volume of Below The Radar will be made available to subscribers to coincide with the publication of the January 2010 issue of The Wire.

Former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper died of leukaemia on 7 June 2009. He was 64 years old. Starting out as Soft Machine’s road manager, he joined the group on bass after Kevin Ayers’s departure in 1969, and recorded with them from Volume Two through to Six. Since the release of his 1973 debut solo album, 1984, an inspired mix of loops and hefty James Brown basslines, he has released more than 30 albums, either under his own name or as part of a range of projects including Hopper Tunity Box, Soft Heap, Soft Machine Legacy, Soft Mountain and Clear Frame. To mark his passing we have reproduced Julian Cowley's Hugh Hopper article from September 2005 (The Wire 259). You can also listen again to these unreleased tracks featuring the musician.

Musician, author and contributor to The Wire David Toop has curated an online exhibition of archival materials related to the London Musicians Collective. Comprised of four sections, "Music Context", Public & Private", "Space & Performance" and "Technology", Sound Traces investigates the LMCs history since its beginnings in the mid 1970s with examples of their leaflets, posters, pamphlets, photographs and other material produced over the years. Hosted by London College Of Communication's Creative Research Into Sound Art Practice.

Printed in white on a black shirt with The Wire url printed in white on the right sleeve. Limited edition of 100 shirts. Price (including postage and packing): £20 for UK, £22 elsewhere. Subscriber discount: £2 off per shirt. Click here to visit our online shop.

Tatsuya Yoshida is one of the most innovative drummer/composer/improvisors in the Japanese avant garde, pushing a unique brand of high energy music that is a mixture of contemporary composition, hardcore and Prog rock.

Best known for fronting the drums and bass duo Ruins, Yoshida has led many other groups and collaborated with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide, Acid Mothers Temple and many more members of music's experimental jet set.

Over the weekend of 8 & 9 August, Yoshida takes up a two day residency at Cafe Oto in East London, where he will be playing solo (drums, vocal, electronics) as Ruins - Alone, and collaborating with various special guests drawn from the UK underground.

Tickets for each night normally cost £8, or £14 for a two day pass.

But in an exclusive offer, readers of The Wire can get a special discount on tickets, ie £6 per night, or just £10 for a two day pass.

For more information on the event click here: http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/

To buy discounted tickets, click on the links below.

Tatsuya Yoshida, Sat 8 Aug: £6.00

Tatsuya Yoshida, Sun 9 Aug 09: £6.00

Tatsuya Yoshida, two day pass: £10.00

In March 2009 Leaf released a download sampler called Don't Run Over The Birds, Please. The compilation is now available as a budget-priced download from the likes of iTunes, Bleep, Boomkat, eMusic and Other Music. But the sampler will also be available for FREE to subscribers of Leaf's newsletter until the end of August. To be added to The Leaf Label’s info mailing list sign up at: http://leaf.greedbag.com/subscribe/ and follow the instructions to get the free downloads.