Tusk festival returns to Sage Gateshead this year with a fresh selection of acts due to take to the stage. The first wave to be announced are Terry Riley, Sarah Davachi, Otomo Yoshihide, Konstrukt, 75 Dollar Bill and Ceramic Hobs (see The Wire 408).

Loads more artists are still to be confirmed, and its programme will also includes the usual extras: films, talks, installations and exhibitions at both The Old Police House and Workplace Gallery.

Tusk takes place in Gateshead from 12–14 October. Early bird tickets go on sale at 10am on 9 March for £60. Once they've gone it'll be £70 for a weekend ticket with day tickets on sale in September.

A new novel and CD soundtrack The Happy Jug, featuring music by Kepla aka UK-based musician Jon Davies, and words by writer and artist Nathan Jones, is forthcoming on Entr’acte this month. The work combines verbatim text, fiction, granular synthesis and speculative philosophy in order to reflect on austerity politics and the aftermath of the 2015 general election in the UK.

“I brought the happy jug home the day I found out about a grant, which would eventually lead me to write this novel. The grant is a Paul Auster-style narrative device, in that it makes me unanswerable to material demands, and projects my life into a boundedlessness vertigo… the happy jug a concrete marker of my vulnerable but precise re-emergence into the world of matteringlessness: theory,” says the text. “At this time, Nina has migraines. She goes for an MRI scan but we hear nothing, her exhaustion apparently just an example of the general pressure of living under austerity. This austerity is due to be relieved when a left-leaning coalition gain control of government. A year later, I smash the jug. The MRI scan is transformed. Nina now has a brain tumour which has been growing for more than fifteen years. The result of the general election is also rewritten.”

Sound was produced by Kepla and features spoken word by Nathan Jones and his wife Nina.

The Happy Jug comes as limited edition of 150 copies and is available for pre-order now. Listen to an extract below.

Bizarre Rituals have scored the soundtrack to a new film The Sermon. Written and directed by Dean Puckett, it follows the life of church goer Ella, and a secret that unravels a dark tale of oppression, faith and sexuality in her isolated church community. The folk horror was shot on 35mm film and inspired by British cinema and the Unholy Trinity trio of films consisting of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man, Piers Haggard's The Blood On Satan's Claw, and Michael Reeves's The Witchfinder General. “Not only meant to be an engaging drama about our protagonist Ella's secret life, but also a political fable which seeks to reflect, through metaphor, the current British and US socio-political climate,” explains Puckett. “Written in a frustrated daze after the double whammy of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, the film is set in a kind of 'nowhere time', a parallel reality almost like a dream that could be in the past or perhaps, if we are not careful, our future.”

The score, written by Bizarre Rituals's Brain Rays and Cape Khoboi, was made mostly using a church pipe organ, a double bass, some old synths and a Korg MS-20. “It has been quite a collaborative project for us as a crew,” explains Brain Rays, “because Stoogie Houzer worked on the titles and the VFX and features in the film alongside French Tony.”

You can watch the trailer below. It will be screen as part of the Altered States selection of short films (programmed by Michael Blyth) at BFI Flare 2018 on 24 and 25 March. Subscribers can read an interview with Bizarre Rituals in The Wire 384 via the online archive.

Rie Nakajima has a new exhibition coming up at Birmingham's IKON gallery. Called Cyclic, it will feature a new installation as well as a series of events and performances curated by the artist.

“I work/communicate with architectural environments, and there is always something new to discover with sounds and objects,” says Nakajima. “I would like to make the exhibition at Ikon flexible and open, with the potential to change and transform at any moment.”

Nakajima has made a number of visits to Birmingham in preparation for the event, and, much like the 2014 exhibition at London's noshowspace, Nakajima has been gathering an assortment of found objects, this time from the Brindley Place estate in the city.

Cyclic also features a series of performances curated by the artist, including her own project O YAMA O with Keiko Yamamoto on 21 April. Other collaborations include Nakajima with David Cunningham (11 April), Akira Sakata (1 May), David Toop (22 May) and Pierre Berthet (3 June). An opening reception on 21 March will feature Nakajima solo, and the closing event on 3 June is programmed with London's Cafe Oto, acts still to be confirmed.

Cyclic will take place from 21 March – 3 June.

London based group The Fish Police are crowdfunding their tour to Austin's South by Southwest festival, in which they have been invited to perform and host a panel discussion on music and neurodiversity. Taking place on 14 March, the talk will feature artists and musicians with lived experience of autism and neurodiversity, and their collaborators, in order to explore the different ways in which musicians interact with music.

The Fish Police came together through London's creative arts company Heart N Soul, who focus on supporting artists with learning disabilities. The outfit consists of Dean Rodney Jr, Matthew Howe, Charles Stuart and Andrew Mclean – Rodney Jr and Howe both have autism – and in 2013 they released The Marzipan Transformations on Heart N Soul's label.

The campaign has already reached target, though they will be accepting donations until 11 March. More information can be found via Justgiving. The Fish Police have also announced that a new EP is on the way, and you can listen to “Cactus” below.

Rewire has announced its full programme for this year's three day event. New artists added to the bill include Maryam Saleh, Maurice Louca & Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. As well as that there will be premieres of special projects by Mia Zabelka, James Plotkin & Benjamin Finger, and Elysia Crampton. Artists already confirmed include Laurie Anderson, Nina Kraviz, Panda Bear, Juliana Huxtable, Chino Amobi, Beatriz Ferreyra, and Sophie.

Still to be confirmed is the complete programme of talks and workshops, but we can reveal that The Wire’s Deputy Editor Emily Bick will be in conversation with Laurie Anderson, who recently released her new album Landfall with San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet. Anderson will also present a new book and performance All The Things I Lost In The Flood at Rewire.

Full details of the Rewire line-up can be found on its website. Tickets are on sale now.

Film makers Marina Gioti and Georges Salameh have made a new film about Alan Bishop and his band, The Invisible Hands. The camera starts rolling after the 2011 uprisings in Egypt and follows Bishop on his trip to Cairo and his subsequent collaboration with Egyptian musicians Aya Hemeda, Cherif El Masri and Adham Zidan. What started off as a one off project to translate some of Bishop's works into Arabic, would then turn into the outfit The Invisible Hands.

The film features documentary and archival footage, as well as diary narrations by Bishop. As well as The Invisible Hands members, also making an appearance in the film are: Richard Bishop, Hani El Masri, Mahmoud Hemeda, Sam Shalabi, Hany Zaki, Mervat Abou Oaf, Nabil Ali Maher, and Marcus Boon

The Invisible Hands premiered at documenta 14 art exhibition in Athens and Kassel. It will also show in Tokyo on 22 February. Watch a trailer below.

Film maker Molly Dineen has returned with her first documentary in ten years, Being Blacker. Dineen met the music producer and record shop owner Steve ‘Blacker Dread’ Martin nearly 40 years ago when they we both 18 – she was a student when she shot Sound Business in 1981; a film that documented the British incarnations of Jamaica’s Sound Systems, and where she met Blacker Dread. Back in 2014, Blacker Dread had asked Dineen to film his mother's funeral, an experience that would mark the start of this documentary, and the succeeding three years she would spend with the subject documenting events such as his daughter's wedding and his first prison sentence. “Blacker Dread's life has seen him experience three generations of educational inequality, racism, cultural isolation, lack of employment opportunities, crime and violence, but also togetherness, community spirit, and a vibrant musical culture,” notes that synopsis, with this portrait of a major figurehead in South London's Jamaican community also highlighting many of the issues that face black communities in London today.

“When I reconnected with Blacker I stepped into another world”, explains Dineen. “He’s a wonderful character who has lived the most incredible life and Being Blacker looks at the social and cultural issues which have forged his path. Blacker Dread as seen in this film could only exist in this extraordinary world where family and music are at the forefront, but racism and violence are also everyday occurrences. And if you think any of these are things of the past in London then Being Blacker will prove eye-opening to say the very least.”

Screenings will take place throughout March, including London Curzon Soho (1), Oxford Ultimate Picture Palace (3), London Rio Dalston and Peckhamplex (4), London BFI (5), Manchester Home (7), London Bertha Dochouse (9), London The Lexi Cinema (11), and London Somerset House (12). It will also be broadcast on BBC2 on 12 March, 9pm. Full details of screenings are on the Being Blacker website.

You can watch the trailer below.

This year Occupy The Pianos festival is curated by pianist and composer Rolf Hind. Taking place this April, concerts will feature new works and fresh interpretations, with radical piano music at the festival's core.

The two themes to be investigated include Protest – from feminism to prisoner rights, animal welfare and queer music, and The Journey Within which will feature audience participation and a led meditation with Eliza McCarthy.

“St Johns’s Smith Square is only a stone’s throw from Parliament Square, site of protest and agitation for hundreds of years” explains Hind. “In keeping with our name, this year’s programming considers politics and protest. At the same time – reflecting the beautiful, serene space in which we find ourselves in this church, the festival’s 2nd day will move towards spirituality and the journey within, offering new ways for the audience to encounter music and their experience of it.”

The line up includes over a dozen new works, some of which are the fruits of an open call for new scores. Also taking place will be a workshop on writing music for piano, and two of Radulescu's sound icons (a grand piano laid on its side) will be housed in the crypt and offer members of the public a chance to improvise.

Occupy The Pianos will take place between 20–22 April. A full list of performances and events can be found on their website.

Tom Rapp died on 11 February in Melbourne, Florida. Born in North Dakota in 1947, Rapp was given his first guitar at a young age after his family had moved to Minnesota. His family later moved to Pennsylvania and then on to Florida.

Rapp had a short but influential career as the founder and frontman of psychedelic folk rock outfit Pearls Before Swine. The group formed while Rapp was at school with fellow pupils Wayne Harley, Roger Crissinger and Lane Lederer. They went on to release their debut album One Nation Underground in 1967 (reissued in 2017 by Drag City). They followed it with five more albums, keeping the Pearls Before Swine name even though band members varied, before Rapp left to embark on a brief solo career in the early 1970s.

He later returned to education and became a civil rights lawyer. In 1999 he released a solo album called A Journal Of The Plague Year (Woronzow).