New Zealand-born Marlon Williams’ evocative voice is the centerpiece of his self-titled solo debut. Williams returned to his family home from Melbourne, Australia to record with long-time producer Ben Edwards, who had previously worked with Williams and his former band The Unfaithful Ways, as well as on his three duo albums with Delaney Davidson. The result is a tribute to the quality of Williams’ songwriting, of which he says, “Each song is a character. I don’t really ever sing out of character. Even if it’s a very personal song, once it’s written it doesn’t belong to me.”

via Dead Oceans

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The latest in a long collaborative relationship, Jesu/Sun Kil Moon is the newest joint album from Sun Kil Moon frontman Mark Kozelek and Jesu (moniker of Justin K. Broadrick). The tracklist includes titles such as “Last Night I Rocked The Room Like Elvis And Had Them Laughing Like Richard Pryor” and features appearances from venerable greats Will Oldham, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, and members of the bands Low and Slowdive.

A founding member of British metal band Godflesh, Broadrick has released his music under post-metal project Jesu since 2004. Kozelek recently released his seventh album with San Francisco-based Sun Kil Moon, Universal Themes. Together, their project stays close to Sun Kil Moon’s mellow instrumentation imbued with Kozelek’s digressive storytelling lyrics and warm baritone.

via Caldo Verde / Rough Trade

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Since the launch of his brand in 1975, Armani has challenged and shaped fashion history, becoming Italy’s most successful fashion designer and the regarded pioneer of red carpet fashion. His androgynous designs actively explore the modern confluence of identities and cultures, highlighting the strength of women while refining the delicate sensuality of men. Some of fashion’s greatest photographers, including Steven Meisel, Mario Testino and Annie Leibovitz, have produced Armani’s iconic menswear and womenswear campaigns and magazine spreads. Giorgio Armani: Radical Gender, written by Italian fashion journalist and television host Giusi Ferré, compiles the best of these images in a testament to Armani’s innovative and overarching presence through the decades.

via Marsilio

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Julius Shulman photographed Los Angeles and its environs from the late 1930s through the 1980s, capturing a specific era of California Mid-century modern architecture and making it iconic. In Julius Sulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis, the photographer shares four decades of his renowned work—from his quintessential Los Angeles images, like the Stahl House or Chinese Theater, to lesser-known images from his personal archives including LA’s emerging neighborhoods, its surrounding deserts and mountains. This definitive collection, a collaboration with Shulman before his 2009 death, creates a living, evolving portrait of a burgeoning city and its variably dynamic and desolate neighborhoods, homes and landscapes. Author Sam Lubell expresses, “We began this book with Julius and are sad that he did not get to see it’s completion. Los Angeles was near and dear to him and he was excited to share these rare images.”

via Rizzoli

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The Snails, the side project of Future Islands’ Sam Herring and William Cashion, release their debut album Songs From the Shoebox to stream via Bandcamp. The Baltimore, Maryland-based project has been around since 2013, when they released their EP Worth the Wait. Future Islands, meanwhile, has released four albums since 2008, and gained considerable acclaim with 2014’s Singles.

›› ISSUE Feature: Fan-sourced interview & images of Future Islands

A collaborative series of photographs by LA-based artist Alexandra Grant and actor Keanu Reeves, Shadows will open at ACME. gallery, Los Angeles, from February 13 to March 12, with an accompanying book to be released later this month. Their mysterious and often haunting images depict Reeves’ shadow in the midst of movement, capturing the interplay of darkness and light as it echoes the physicality of his unseen body. Grant then inverts the images so that what were once shadows glow brightly against a dark background. Isolating the phenomenon of shadow in an intimate performance, Grant and Reeves consider the shadow’s narratives through metaphor, psychology and projection.

The forthcoming Shadows book is printed on large-scale velour paper and includes texts written by Reeves exploring further the nature and reality of its subject matter. The project also includes a series of limited edition color prints published at The Lapis Press. A selection of Grant’s color prints will be on view at ACME., and Grant and Reeves will hold a book signing on at the gallery on February 20.

›› ISSUE Fashion: View our collaborative fashion series photographed by Alexandra Grant, and inspired by Shadows

via Steidl

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The brainchild of Terence Winter, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen and Mick Jagger, Vinyl takes on the tumultuous landscape of the ’70s music scene just as rock is relinquishing its heyday to punk. Bobby Cannavale (who starred in Winter and Scorsese’s last television hit Boardwalk Empire) plays the hustling music exec Richie Finestra, with a supporting cast of Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano, Ato Essandoh, Juno Temple and many more. Vinyl will premiere on HBO.

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Lighthearted and deeply resonant, Tumbledown is the debut feature from wife-husband duo writer Desi van Til and director Sean Mewshaw. Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis are supported by a vibrant cast including Blythe Danner, Richard Masur, Griffin Dunne, Dianna Agron and Joe Manganiello. Hall plays an isolated young widow mourning her late husband, who died in a hiking accident after releasing one stunning debut folk album and gaining a cult following. As she attempts to write his biography, an unwelcome New York professor (Sudeikis) arrives in her small town with a mission to collect information for his own book. Together, they grapple with loss while closing in on personal revelations. Set against the stunning alpine backdrop of Maine in winter, Tumbledown strikes a tender balance between levity and gravity as Hall navigates a wilderness of grief toward new possibilities.

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