American site Free Music Archive will close down later this month. The archive was founded in 2009 by New Jersey broadcaster's WFMU, and offered an interactive library of high quality, legal audio downloads, curated in collaboration with artists, radio stations, netlabels, venues, museums, music festivals and more.

However due to a funding shortage the FMA has announced it is set to close, perhaps as early as 9 November. “The future of the archive is uncertain,” they say, “but we have done everything we can to ensure that our files will not disappear from the web forever. The full audio collection will be backed up and available at archive.org/details/freemusicarchive (some of the collection is already there; feel free to go browse).”

They are also working in partnership with Archive-It to preserve a current copy of it's pages in the Wayback Machine, and later in 2019 audio will also be added to the Creative Commons project CC Search.

They have also suggested ways for users to help preserve the FMA, including a crowdsourced repository via webrecorder.io and saving URLs on Wayback's homepage.

Furthermore, the team want to hear from those able to help with web development, funding, nonprofit status, or general suggestions of ways to save the archive. More information can be found on their website.

Next year marks 20 years of Berlin’s CTM festival. Through a series of concerts, club nights, exhibitions and talks, the event has invited artists and collaborators both old and new, with this year's theme, as announced earlier in the year, being Persistence. “It’s not only a fitting allegory for our 20th birthday,” they say, “but also describes an attempt to consider what is worth being persistent about, and how.”

So far announced are 700 Bliss, 9T Antiope & Rainer Kohlberger, Actress + Young Paint, A Tribe Called Red, Colin Self, Curl, DJ Haram, Eartheater, Erwan Keravec, Gazelle Twin, Kai Whiston, Khyam Allami, Lotic, Lucy Railton, Mina & MC Bryte, Rabih Beaini & Pouja Pouramin Ensemble, Riobamba, Stefan Fraunberger, Temp Illusion, Thomas Ankersmit, Tirzah and Yves Tumor.

Two open calls for artists to submit new work are approaching their deadline: CTM 2019 MusicMakers Hacklab Open Call hosted by Peter Kirn of CDM, and the Research Networking Day 2019, both of which close on 2 December. Venues this year include regular partners such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Festsaal Kreuzberg, Heimathafen, Astra and SchwuZ, and new ones DAAD Gallery, nGbK, and Grießmühle. Festival passes are available now.

Steve Barker – broadcaster, legendary record head, roots reggae authority, and last but not least, The Wire’s longstanding dub columnist – will take to the stage in London this week for a rare appearance. Walthamstow Rock ’n’ Roll Book Club in conjunction with London dub club General Echo will present an evening of discussion and tunes looking back over Steve’s career, including his epic stint at BBC Lancashire – his On The Wire show debuted 40 years ago this year, making it one of the longest running shows on UK radio.

The event on Thursday 8 November follows a recent audio documentary on Steve’s life and work, which discussed his anarchic and influential radio show, one of the first outposts for house and techno in the North West, as well as a love affair with music which saw Steve in the thick of the action in the psychedelic and post-punk eras and beyond.

Steve will be in discussion with Tony Naylor, discussing his extraordinary life in music with as many anecdotes as he can fit in. He’ll also join General Echo residents at the turntables. The event marks General Echo’s third anniversary at Walthamstow venue The Victoria, and they’ll have special celebratory hand-stamped mixtapes available to celebrate the occasion. Tickets are available here.

A major box set of compositions by French electronic composer Éliane Radigue has been released by Ina-GRM. The mid-price release features 14 CDs spanning 1987's Jetsun Mila through to the 1998's Les Chants De Milarepa and 2013’s Ψ 847. It also features an 80 page bilingual booklet in French and English.

Included on the release is: Chry-ptus (versions 2001 and 2006); Geelriandre & Arthesis; Biogenesis; Ψ 847 (concert versio); Adnos I, II & III; Les Chants De Milarepa with “Mila’s Song In The Rain”, “Song Of The Path Guides”, “Elimination Of Desires”, “Symbols For Yogic Experience”, and “Mila’s Journey Inspired By A Dream”; Jetsun Mila (over two CDs); L’Île Re-sonante, and Trilogie De La Mort with “Kyema”, “Kailasha”, and “Koumé”.

Œuvres Électroniques is is available now.

A new festival is set to hit Bucharest this month. Running between 8–10 November, the Automata festival will combine local and international artists in a series of live concerts, freshly commissioned visual works, DJ sets, workshops and artist talks.

“Automata is a festival dedicated to electronic music and digital arts, conceived as a multidisciplinary catalyst of human-technology interaction, that puts forth not a foretelling of the future, but a better understanding of the present,” declare the organisers. The line-up features Croatian Amor, Cosmin Nicolae with Dreamrec, Borusiade, Bogman, Huerco S, Carla dal Forno, Alessandro Cortini, Patricia, Elena Colombi, Luca Lozano, Eirwud Mudwasser, Dragos Rusu, Minus & Șerb, Alexandra, and more.

You can grab tickets via eventbook.ro.

The Residents' composer/arranger and founder member Hardy Fox has died, it has been announced by the Cryptic Corporation via Facebook.

“It is with great sorrow and regrets that The Cryptic Corporation announces the passing of longtime friend and associate, Hardy Fox,” reads the statement. “As president of the corporation from 1982-2016, the company benefitted from Hardy’s instinct for leadership and direction, but his true value came from his longtime association with The Residents. As the group’s producer, engineer, as well as a co-creator and collaborator on much of their material, Fox’s influence on The Residents was indelible; despite any formal training, his musicality was nevertheless unique, highly refined and prolific. Blessed with a vital sense of aesthetics, a keen ear, and an exquisite love of the absurd, Hardy’s smiling face was a constant source of joy to those around him. He was loved immeasurably and will be missed dearly.

“After a series of recent health problems, Hardy succumbed to a brief illness. He is survived by his husband, Steven Kloman. An announcement regarding memorial services will be forthcoming.”

The news that he was unwell came by way of an announcement on 23 September, written by Fox himself and shared by way of The Residents. “Our hearts are heavy but let us celebrate our brother, our friend, Hardy Fox,” read The Residents' post which linked to Fox's own statement.

It read: “From the desk of Hardy Fox: Hi from me, Hardy. Yes got sick, making my pass out of this world, but it is ‘all’ OK. I have something in my brain that will last to a brief end. I am 73 as you might know. Brains go down.” He continues, “Doctors have put me on drugs, LOL, for right now.

“Thanks for checking in. Love you all,” his statement ends.

Hardy Winfred Fox, or just Hardy Fox, or Charles Bobuck as one pseudonym would have him, grew up in Texas. He later moved to San Francisco and co-founded the cult art collective-cum-rock band The Residents in the early 1970s, serving as their primary composer. As Fox himself described them in Theory Of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents, “The Residents are actually film makers; failed film makers.” Then there is their label-cum-group handlers The Cryptic Corporation, with Homer Flynn as spokesperson.

The group founded Ralph Records in 1972, and their first release proper was a double 7" called Santa Dog. In 2010 the label folded and the group adopted individual stage names. “At that point the façade of the faceless four had gotten kind of stale,” Flynn told Sam Lefebvre in The Residents’ cover story in The Wire 398. “The idea of creating personalities behind the façade became intriguing, and it’s more the nature of the culture, at least in terms of how the culture is changing – with everyone acquiring their own mini-website on Facebook.”

“The Residents is not a band,” declared Fox in his digital and somewhat cryptic book The Wax And The Wane Of Charles Bobuck. “But for the sake of touring, a band has proven to be a very handy form to assume. For The Residents, forming a ‘Residents cover band’ was easier, so The Residents, instead of becoming a band, formed a cover band made up of Randy, Chuck and Bob, none of which are real people.”

Fox himself enjoyed being a musician removed from the limelight. Keen on remaining anonymous, he almost completely avoided the public eye – he even kept his artistic pursuits secret from friends and neighbours. “I like participating without the need for attention. For over 40 years The Residents idea was satisfying,” he said about his pre-Chuck times.

In the early 2000s, and with the album Demons Dance Alone, the collective felt they had reached a pinnacle. The alias Charles Bobuck, said Fox, was no less fake than his given birth name. That name aside, around 2008 he began releasing solo albums as The Residents, as well as Sonidos de la Noche, Chuck and the Bobuck character.

Following Demons Dance Alone, The Residents’ Talking Light show demonstrated a new sound. “My set-up was computer based. I had programmed what I imaginatively called my ‘space machine’. I had prerecorded hundreds of two-minute loops and had instantaneous access to them by punching buttons and twiddling knobs. I ran a local area network from an Apple Airport hidden under my table that gave me wireless access to a shitload of noise,” Bobuck explained. He later described his input as “a guy named Chuck who played keyboards in a rock band. I don’t play keyboard, I press plastic slivers rhythmically, often resulting in rude noises.”

“The TL [Talking Light] tour began with my genuine concern on whether the audience would accept this new, more abstract, sound. But as it travelled, night after night, I gradually conquered my possibilities and started presenting a controlled and predicable result from the millions of random possibilities. Bob and I discovered a simpatico in our noises, often surprising ourselves.”

Hardy Fox retired from The Residents in 2016 but continued to compose for the group through to 2018.

It's been announced that Nkisi's debut album will be released by UIQ on 18 January. 7 Directions is based on the writings of Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau. As she explains to Meg Woof in The Wire 417, “I guess the starting point was this amazing book [African Cosmology Of The Bantu-Kongo: Tying The Spiritual Knot, Principles of Life & Living by Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau]. They believe in this idea that to be able to walk as a human being in the world, you have to be able to walk in seven directions. I took the seven directions and kind of translated them into seven rhythms – it’s basically seven tracks where I explore those ideas.”

She continues, referring to her recently completed Masters Degree at London’s Birkbeck college. “My books do a lot of the work. There’s a lot of reading and conceptual work, though I just finished my dissertation and now I’m even more confirmed that I want to do music! All the concepts and reading, I feel like I can let it loose in music.

“My dissertation was kind of about transmitting knowledge and knowledge production. I was trying to argue the case for bringing back the body in knowledge production, and therefore better understand what it is to be human. I feel like music is the best space for that, to experience stuff through the body. There’s too much focus on rationality and objectivity. I guess it’s kind of weird to write a dissertation that tries to critique scientific method, it was difficult!”

7 Directions is released on vinyl and MP3 on 18 January by UIQ. Listen to the track “VII”.

The album’s artwork was directed by Nkisi and realised by Dave Gaskarth. Nkisi will curate the opening party at the Geneva Biennale. A new live collaboration with John T Gast is also forthcoming. She will also take up residency at London’s Cafe Oto in March 2019. Subscribers can read the Invisible Jukebox with Nkisi, tested by Meg Woof, via Exact Editions.

A documentary is in the making about US born, Canadian raised musician and singer Beverly Glenn-Copeland, who has just embarked on his first world tour in light of the reissue of 1986 album Keyboard Fantasies last year.

“Our film Keyboard Fantasies”, says Director Posy Dixon, “tells the time-travelling story of this talented musician and vocalist, as the present finally catches up with him and he embarks on his first global tour at the age of 74. Capturing five decades of relentless musical output and shifting manifestations of gender and sexual identity set against a backdrop of profound social change, the film celebrates the unpredictable rhythms of life.”

The film is set to three acts. The first tells the story of Glenn-Copeland's upbringing in Philadelphia and discrimination faced as an African-American lesbian at the University of Montreal. The second act looks as Glenn-Copland's largely unknown career as musician, composer and children’s TV star. The final section will act as a fly-on-the-wall affair as Glenn-Copland embarks on an international tour. The producers have launched a Kickstarter to raise funds to complete filming. Money is also needed for post-production costs and to license archival footage from the LGBT+ archives from Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Keyboard Fantasies was directed by Posy Dixon, produced by Liv Proctor and edited by Tim Beeston. Watch a trailer below. Glenn-Copeland will perform at Le Guess Who? in November.

Starting in November, Tresor will reissue five key techno works from their back catalogue. The first one will be Jeff Mills's Waveform Transmission Vol 3 (originally released in 1994) on 2 November. That will be followed by Juan Atkins as Infiniti with Skynet (16 November), Scion’s Arrange And Process Basic Channel Tracks (23 November), Drexciya’s Neptune’s Lair (30 November), and Robert Hood's Internal Empire on 1 February 2019.

Listen to some extracts from Waveform Transmission Vol 3.

The fifth edition in Jeff Mill's Outer Space series on NTS radio has also just aired. This time it's called Deep Thinkers, and it’s inspired by the life and works of Leonardo Da Vinci. The broadcast premiers 60 minutes of new Mills music, including a performance of his composition for theremin player Carolina Eyck. The show also features a discussion with Irina Metzl from the Da Vinci residence Château du Clos Lucé, where Leonardo died in 1519. You can listen back to all Jeff Mills’s shows on NTS radio.

The Wire contributor and musician Noel Meek has announced he is launching a new label in partnership with Astral Spirits. Called God In The Music, it will be “a totally different feel” to his End Of The Alphabet imprint, says Meek. The first release will be From The Land Of The Wicked King, from the trio consisting of Meek himself, Arrington de Dionyso and Rodrigo Rico. It was recorded in Seattle “after a series of stonking gigs”, enthuses Meek. Future releases are all New Zealand/international collaborations, including one from Donald McPherson & Tetuzi Akiyama. “I like to think it's part of the internationalist strains of free music and it's definitely intended as an opening of musical borders while national borders are clamping down left right and centre (in all, it'll be a much more politically minded project),” concludes Meek.

From The Land Of The Wicked King will be released in early December.