Cross Rhythms — Sho Baraka to release independent album on 1st January more info

Guardian Music — By dragging the rapper to court for his incendiary lyrics, the state isn't silencing him, it is drawing attention to his workSince the initial popularity of Moroccan rapper El Haqed's incendiary lyrics calling out police corruption and the oppression... more info

Impose Magazine — Netherfriends is the inexhaustable brainchild of Shawn Rosenblatt. Mr. Rosenblatt has one interest and a ruthless dedication to that interest, which has left him jobless and homeless. But that's a square's perspective on Netherfriends' li... more info

Guardian Music — Tacuma Rendezvous Suite (Jazzwerkstatt)Berlin's Jazzwerkstatt label is similarly celebrating dreams with this partnership between the great American saxophonist and bass clarinetist David Murray, and sometime Ornette Coleman alter ego on bass guitar,... more info

Totally Fuzzy — Today's Live Performance is from Dead Can Dance (sometimes referred to as DCD), an ethereal neoclassical duo formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981, by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. A new DCD album has been announced for next year, unt... more info

LargeHeartedBoy — Financial Times profiles Mark E Smith of the Fall. The New York Times interviews poet Philip Levine. Amiri Baraka lost the title of New Jersey's poet laureate after publishing a poem in which he suggested that Israel was complicit in... more info

Guardian Music — (HatHut)The writer Amiri Baraka described the scorching sax sound of Albert Ayler – the free-jazz saxophonist who died in 1970, aged 34, in New York's East River – as "like the singing from a black hole". But for all its stark expressionism, Ayle... more info

Pop Crunch — Baraka Given that movies are a wholly visual artform, it’s surprising more of them aren’t…well…beautiful. Sure, plenty are nice to look at, but the focus is usually either on the [...] more info

Impose Magazine — The wait for a follow-up to Tarot Sport is over. Benjamin John Power of the Fuck Buttons under the pseudonym of Blanck Mass has made atmospheric music that inspire stories and land masses that you assemble in your head. In a 10 song cycle, you will b... more info

Guardian Music — African-American poet and musician whose political awareness led him to celebrate black culture in influential recordingsIn 1970, the American poet and jazz musician Gil Scott-Heron, who has died aged 62 after falling ill on returning from a trip to ... more info