On music: London Musicians' Collective

There has been a new buzz about the City's improvised music scene for some time now. It goes further than the rise of a generation of jazz venues, or the steadily increasing profile of all the classical styles of other continents that used to be shoved into the 'world music' pigeonhole. This month's teeming, not to say overcrowded programme for the London Jazz Festival made the title seem too limited for what is now a wide-ranging survey of improvised genres. And as the spotlight shifts towards the London Musicians' Collective for its annual spring bank holiday weekend of experimental music, you might be surprised by what it gets up to now - especially if your last encounter with the LMC was a few years back.

In 1993, it hauled in some contemporary classical performers and had Radio 3 recording there. This time around, the accent at Conway Hall is on an international spread of radical music-making. It isn't for the faint-hearted or nostalgic. You will hear 'Japanese urban overload' from Otomo Yoshihide and Yamatsuka Eye, 400 multi-tracks on an eight-speaker diffusion system from Paul Dolden, the subversively low-tech Stock, Hausen and Walkman, and the man LMC calls 'the Hendrix of the violin', Jon Rose. Some of the survivors look in, including AMM, now in their 27th year. Otherwise you take your gamble on anything from free-style piano to plant biorhythms and environmental intrusions. There is only one rule: expect the unexpected.

London Musicians' Collective bank holiday festival, Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq, WC1, 7pm nightly, 27-30 May

(Photograph omitted)