Júníus Meyvant: Color Decay

The Smiths get covered, DJ DB Burkeman on the Rolling Stones and more in this week's look at music

Already in heavy rotation in his native Iceland, Júníus Meyvant (né Unnar Gísli Sigurmundsson) caught the attention of listeners on both sides of the Atlantic with his crisply produced folk-pop debut single “Color Decay.” Meyvant’s stoic rasp calls to mind Father John Misty while the calculated horn placement suggests a distant relation to Beirut at his loudest. In true Icelandic form, the song is cheerful …

Woolfy vs Projections: Ask (The Smiths Cover)

The Smiths get covered, DJ DB Burkeman on the Rolling Stones and more in this week's look at music

While California’s Woolfy vs Projections (aka Simon James and Dan Hastie) have been working in tandem and as solo artists for well over a decade, their 2012 album—The Return Of Love, on label Permanent Vacation—put them on the (ever-so-slightly) mainstream map. Fans of their work will immediately recognize their take on The Smiths’ song “Ask,” which uplifts Morrissey’s more somber tone and elucidates the vocals …

Replacing Inkblots with Plastic Bags

The New Yorker's archives freely unfold, space plant photography, the science behind tattoos and more in our weekly look at the web

The epitome of “open to interpretation,” Rorschach Tests have been used by psychoanalysts since the 1920s with arguable validity. Whatever their clinical efficacy, the inkblots have worked their way into pop culture and general knowledge over the years and it’s no secret why—analyzing the abstract shapes is addictive. Now artist Kyung-Woo Han’s latest project substitutes cheap plastic shopping bags for ink in his latest series …