The Wire, May 2026

A must for any underground music fan, The Wire reports on alternative, underground and non-mainstream musics, ‘waging war on the mundane and the mediocre.’

In this issue:

Inside the magazine: Sunn O))): The robed pair get lost in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for their new album. By Rob Turner; Delphine Dora: The French multi-instrumentalist fuses made up language and spiritual texts in her metaphysical music. By Miloš Hroch; Jair-Rohm Parker Wells: The bassist and composer channels the vibrations of ECM into his low end explorations. By Phil Freeman; The Sleeves: Guitarists Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper take a scalpel to indie pop. By Lucy Thraves; Brion Gysin: Collaborator Ramuntcho Matta reflects on the artist’s freshly reissued Dreamachine album. By Daniel Spicer; Invisible Jukebox: Irmin Schmidt: Will the Can founder doo right by The Wire’s mystery record selection? Tested by Leah Kardos; Regan Bowering: Under the drumskin. By Derek Walmsley; Holy Sun Opera House: Sounding the corridors of the unconscious. By Stephanie Phillips; Global Ear: Battle of the bells in Moretonhampstead. By Clive Bell; Unlimited Editions: Outernational sounds by way of Brighton’s Hive Mind label. By Daniel Spicer; The Inner Sleeve: MIC on Black Sheep Wall’s I’m Going To Kill Myself. Against The Grain: Deborah Nash on the transportive power of the jukebox; Epiphanies: Young Adam Bohman’s pocket money opens up a world of improvised music. Plus 37 pages of reviews including: Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D Oberland: Trauma response. By James Gui; Simon Hanes: Gargantuan sounds. By Leah Kardos; La Musica: Mainline to the Tokyo underground. By Louis Pattison; Love Magic Power Danger Bliss: Yoko Ono And The Avant-Garde Diaspora: 20th century woman. By Mark Webber; I Hear Freedom: The Great Migration, Free Jazz, And Black Power: Urban renewal. By Andy Hamilton; bAdBLUEbirdz: Mono no aware. By Anla Li; GLARCIVERSARY: GLARCing around in Glasgow and London. By Claire Biddles, and much more.