Masaki Batoh
To achieve satori in Tokyo's psychedelic rock underground, you could do worse than visit the Ghost House, the enigmatic residence of Japan's mystical songwriting guru. By Edwin Pouncey

Bites
Christoph Heeman Sonic stalker Surgeon Doctoring the beats Mark Cunningham Barcelona bloodlines Label lore: Compost Records

Global ear: Indonesia
Asia's tiger economies are causing new musical hybrids to form overnight. Peter Culshaw decamps to Jakarta and unearths some ecstatic variations on the indigenous sounds of the Pacific Rim

Vienna's digital underground
Austria's laidback capital is getting wired to the world thanks to the efforts of Patrick Pulsinger, Erdem Tunakan, Farmers Manual, Curd Duca, Mause, and the Cheap, Mego and Sabotage labels. By Rob Young

Liquid Liquid
The missing link between Bronx rap and NY's boho scene, this forgotten early 80s cult group have caught the attention of 90s beatmongers Mo' Wax and The Beastie Boys. By Sasha Frere-Jones

Charles Hayward
The powerhouse avant rock drummer and singer who provided the big beat for This Heat and Camberwell Now is currently putting his fans in the Accidents & Emergencies ward. By Phil England

Haruomi Hosono
The tropical dandy who founded Yello Magic Orchestra not only laid plans for retro-lounge exotica - his Daisyworld label flows breezy Electronica into Bill Laswell's dark Ambient. By Clive Bell

Invisible Jukebox: Arto Lindsay
Disrupting the Mundo Civilizado of New York No Wave's dreamiest guitarist with tracks by Caetano Veloso, Nick Cave, Ryuichi Sakamoto, George Crumb and more. Tested by Biba Kopf

Once upon a time in the East
Philip Brophy discovers how Japanese film composers broke with Hollywood's bad musical habits by replacing soundtrack conventions with intriguing sound designs