"On the cover: Mike Watt: From Minutemen to fIREHOSE, the San Pedro bass man has charted an unclassifiable career through the heart of US punk and improv scenes. Interview by Alan Licht, plus: Mike Watt Eight Pack: Eight places to start with the bassist’s back catalogue. By Byron Coley. Inside: The Primer: Aphex Twin: A user’s guide to the music of the shapeshifting, mercurial mainstay of the UK electronic underground. By Derek Walmsley; You and Me Festival: The Beijing free festival offers a place for experimental performance in the shadow of the connected society. By Drew Daniel; Kaja Draksler: The Slovenian pianist’s chafing against jazz orthodoxy leads to thrilling innovations. By Peter Margasak; Invisible Jukebox: Pamela Z: Will the US vocalist and composer breeze to the end of The Wire’s mystery record selection? Tested by Marc Weidenbaum; Truck Violence: Montreal four-piece drive masculinity in new directions. By Miloš Hroch; Finn Loxbo: The Swedish guitarist’s fingerpicking figures. By Stewart Smith; Global Ear: New music by the lake at Slovenia’s Bled Contemporary Music Week. By Keith Potter; Unlimited Editions: Belgium’s Aspen Edities’ unique brand of Northern European pastoralism. By Peter Margasak; The Inner Sleeve: Yuko Mohri on Yuming’s Pearl Pierce; Against The Grain: Listening in the shadow of Palantir. By Stephen Roddy; Secret History of Film Music: Philip Brophy’s column returns to the pages of The Wire appraising Jon Brion’s work for Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and more; Epiphanies: Corey Mwamba on threading his vibraphone with washing line. And in the reviews sections: Immersion: Happy returns. By Leah Kardos; Francisco Mela: Caribbean carnivals. By Daniel Spicer; Funkadelic: Mind/body connections. By John Morrison; Building A Voice: Sound, Surface, Skin: Vocal ranges. By Matthew Blackwell; Darius Jones & Otomo Yoshihide Quintet: Cosmic couriers. By Gabriel Bristow, and more."
