Global Ear: Laos
Clive Bell goes shopping for Laos's national instrument, the khene - a bizarre bamboo mouth-organ - and gets serenaded by the Far East equivalent of Tom Waits

Bites
Panacea Breakbeat barbarian Le Quan Ninh Different drummer Taylor Deupree & Savvas Ysatis Dancing to architecture Label lore: PSF

Mixtape Masters
This might be the MTV age, but the lowly cassette, loaded with pirate DJ mixes and sold right under the music industry's nose, is still the deadliest disseminator of the HipHop virus. By Peter Shapiro

Toshinori Kondo
THe Kon-fusion chronicles of the legendary Japanese trumpeter and sometime gangster actor, taking in his jazz rock group IMA, and his collaboration with turntable terrorizer DJ Krush. By Rob Young

Terry Callier
The missing link between Bob Dylan and John Coltrane, this self-described "Lazarus Man" is making a triumphant return after nearly two decades out of music. By David Keenan

The Secret History of Film Music
Horror movies like The Shining and avant garde composers like Penderecki have more in common than a passion for shrieking. They're both grounded in cruelty, says Philip Brophy

Future Sound Of Berlin
Built on the foundations of the Basic Channel label, the house of Chain Reaction is redefining electronic music. Porter Ricks, Vainqueur, Monolake, Substance and Various Artists wax hard to Kodwo Eshun

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
When Nigeria's greatest musician died last August, Africa was robbed of one of its most controversial and revolutionary cultural figures. Lindsay Barrett chronicles the life of the Godfather of Afro-beat

Invisible Jukebox: Suicide
New York's legendary electro-minimalists try to identify tracks by Elvis, Thelonious Monk, Larry Young, The New York Dolls, Kraftwerk, Lou Reed and more. Tested by Edwin Pouncey

Buckethead
The man in the plastic mask is America's fingerlickin'-good guitar hero, a grotesque cartoon character animating the worlds of Bill Laswell, Bootsy Collins, John Zorn and Derek Bailey. By James Rotondi