Sufjan Stevens + Lowell Brams: The Runaround

Drawn from Sufjan Stevens’ forthcoming instrumental/new-age/ambient album, Aporia—made in collaboration with his stepfather and Asthmatic Kitty record label co-owner, Lowell Brams—”The Runaround” veers sharply from the artist’s more bombastic works (as well as his quietly devastating ones). Though Stevens’ (modified) voice appears toward the track’s end, the focus here is on the melody and its electronic power. Equally mesmerizing, the music video from abutta492 (aka …

Noga Erez feat. Reo Cragun + ROUSSO: Views

Tel Aviv-based musician Noga Erez may be speaking about her own industry when she drops the lines “People buy views / I know it’s old news / but I got bad news / for everybody” in her latest single, “VIEWS,” but the sentiment applies to self-promotion everywhere. Featuring LA hip-hop artist Reo Cragun, and frequent Erez collaborator ROUSSO, the track confronts over-saturation and does so …

The Perils of Moving the V&A’s Arsenic-Laced Hats

As 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and more from The Victoria and Albert Museum’s archive move from their current Blythe House storage to a new, purpose-built east London facility, dangers abound—including from the textile collection. As the phrase “mad as a hatter” makes reference too, until the 1930s some hat features (like feathers and even whole birds, an Edwardian era trend) were treated with arsenic and …