The Wire #493 - March 2025

The Wire #493 - March 2025 

Inside our brand new issue:

Masma Dream World: Devi Mambouka channels the voices of the spirits on new album PLEASE COME TO ME. By Emily Pothast

Louis Laurain: The French cornettist cooks up fresh brass constructions on new album C(or)N(e)T. By Clive Bell

Caxtrinho: The Brazilian guitarist maps Rio’s outer regions through his dense, cubist songwriting. By Derek Walmsley

Able Noise: The European duo forge meticulous deconstructions of rock’s conventions. By Abi Bliss

Polonius: Soundtracking the imagination. By Miloš Hroch

Macie Stewart: Moving staircases. By Peter Margasak

Chris Cundy: Wild flowers. By Julian Cowley

Invisible Jukebox: Lydia Lunch: Will the no wave legend get jerked around by The Wire’s mystery record selection? Tested by Claire Biddles

Unlimited Editions: Pointless Geometry explores every angle of the Polish underground scene. By Daryl Worthington

The Inner Sleeve: Jules Reidy on Chris Abrahams’s Play Scar

Global Ear: Tijuana’s Static Discos label sits at the crossroads of electronica in the Americas

Against The Grain: In a new opinion column, George Rayner-Law argues folk music has always been an act of storytelling

Epiphanies: Sachiko M experiences a creative reboot at a European festival

Soundcheck: Ambrose Akinmusire, Marshall Allen, aya, Pierre Bastien & Louis Laurain, Mari Boine, Califone, Xhosa Cole, Daimon, Richard Dawson, Dream Brigade, DSR Lines, Hugues Dufourt/Marilyn Nonken/NYU Contemporary Orchestra, David Edren, Lawrence English, Nina Garcia, General Magic, Golem Mecanique, Phillip Golub, Darin Gray/Pak Yan Lau/Steve Noble/Alan Wilkinson, Keiji Haino & Jun Morita, Keiji Haino & Natsuki Tamura, Bridget Hayden & The Apparitions, Tim Hecker, Immersion & Suss, Jones Rowden, Jacob Kirkegaard, Cindy Lee, Edvard Graham Lewis, James Brandon Lewis Trio, Damon Locks, Mike Majkowski, Joe McPhee, numün, Orion Music Workshop, Maja Osojnik, Charlemagne Palestine & Seppe Gebruers, Han-earl Park/Lara Jones/Pat Thomas, Park Jiha, Ivo Perelman & Tyshawn Sorey, Rangers, Rattle, Peter Rehberg, Jules Reidy, Jules Reidy & Andrea Belfi, The Residents, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Zach Rowden & Laurentju Coţac, Bruce Russell & Thierry Monnier via Fermata Ark, Saint Etienne, Shelter & Orion with Turner Williams Jr, Sunfear, Sun Ra Arkestra, The Third Circle, Tone Vitmn C, Alex Ward/Dominic Lash/Mark Sanders, Wardruna, Die Wilde Jagd & Metropole Orkest, Nate Wooley, Raed Yassin

The Columns: Avant Rock by Edwin Pouncey; Dub & Reggae by Steve Barker; Electronics by Steph Kretowicz; Global by Francis Gooding; Hiphop & R&B by Mosi Reeves; Jazz & Improv by Stewart Smith; Size Matters by Byron Coley

The Boomerang: Robbie Basho; Peter Brötzmann/John Edwards/Steve Noble/Jason Adasiewicz; Marilyn Crispell; Dub Syndicate; You Ishihara; Annette Peacock; Gianfranco Reverberi; Terre Thaemlitz; Various Bonus Beats: Rare & Unreleased Finnish Electro 1990–2002

Print Run: A Year Of Deep Listening: 365 Text Scores For Pauline Oliveros edited by Stephanie Loveless; I Feel Famous: Punk Diaries 1977–1981 by Angela Jaeger; Forever Changes: The Authorized Biography Of Arthur Lee & Love by John Einarson; Peter Jefferies: The Other Side Of Reason by Andrew Schmidt; RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ (Racing For Thunder) edited by Maxwell Wolf & Jeff Mao; Semi-Conducting: Rambles Through The Post-Cagean Thicket by Nicholas Collins; Olivier Messiaen: A Critical Biography by Robert Sholl

On Screen: Scanner: Harry Smith At 100; Eva Aridjis Fuentes Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives Of Q Lazzarus

On Location: Lord Spikeheart + bela, London, UK; DJ Haram, Leeds, UK; GIOfest XVI: International Festival Of Improvisation, Glasgow, UK; London Contemporary Music Festival 2024, London, UK; Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield, UK; Han Bennink, London, UK; Le Guess Who?, Utrecht, Netherlands; Unsound New York, New York, US; Arika Episode 11, Glasgow, UK; Jazzfest Berlin 2024, Berlin, Germany; Lunchmeat Festival, Prague, Czech Republic; Another Subculture: Attempting Something, London, UK; Always, Already There: An Incubator For Afrodiasporic New Music, Berlin, Germany

On site: Mike Kelley, Ghost And Spirit, London, UK; Andrew Chalk, Dreams Unseen, Manchester, UK

Plus: Letters, Charts, Out There

About The Wire

The Wire is an independent print and online music magazine covering a wide range of global alternative, underground and experimental musics. The Wire celebrates and interrogates the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, past and present, in the realms of avant rock, electronic music, hiphop, new jazz, improvised music, modern composition, traditional musics and more. Passionate, intelligent and provocative, The Wire wages war on the mundane and the mediocre. Its office is based in London, but it serves an international readership.