On the cover: Peter Brötzmann (A two-part special on the visionary improviser and visual artist who is still shaking the foundations of free music half a century into his career); The Primer: A user's guide to Brötzmann's sprawling catalogue of solo and collaborative recordings; Global Ear: Basque Country (New punk and hardcore groups uphold the legacy of the autonomous region's 1980s Radical Rock movement); Cross Platform: Beatrice Gibson (Julian Cowley hears how Cornelius Cardew's scores inspire the filmmaker's visual compositions); Invisible Jukebox: Loren Connors & Suzanne Langille (The first couple of avant blues take the test of The Wire's mystery record selection); Niney The Observer (Derek Walmsley meets the elusive roots producer and traces his story through the studios and streets of Kingston, Jamaica); Stuart Wynn Jones (Advertising man by day, avant garde filmmaker by night, this radical hobbyist was part of a UK postwar boom in amateur sound and vision experiments); Epiphanies: Jonny Greenwood learns a lesson about sound, space and listening at a Penderecki concert.