Short-lived yet beloved, The Newsstand was a 2013 conceptual pop-up shop in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Avenue subway stop, hosting over a thousand independently published magazines, books, comics and zines. The underground store was curated by Lele Saveri, the artist and photographer who founded 8-Ball Zines, and situated in a highly egalitarian location frequented by a variety of demographics. More than a retail space, The Newsstand hosted various events and exhibitions, giving artists carte-blanche permission to transform the temporary space.

This year, MOMA’s annual New Photography exhibit featured Saveri’s retrospective of the shop with a built-to-scale recreation of The Newsstand, resplendent with the books and zines sold at the original location. Saveri’s accompanying anthology, The Newsstand, is a comprehensive account of The Newsstand’s existence and continuing impact, with text by curator and author Ken Miller and a forward by Phil Aarons, board president of Printed Matter. The Newsstand includes photographs of original inventory, documentation of events and exhibits, profiles of guest clerks and artists, essays by cultural figures and interviews with publishers, artists, commuters, MTA workers and New York police officers—each influenced by the rare, raw energy of The Newsstand during its seven-month existence.

via Rizzoli

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A three-piece from New York, Wet has been gaining a substantial internet following for the past few years from their 2014 EP Wet, to their former Twitter handle @kanyewet and a little gushing from the Kardashians. Their long-awaited debut album, Don’t You, was recorded in Massachusetts and builds on the smooth, downbeat pop sensibilities of their earlier work.

via Columbia Records

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This lovely debut LP from Florist began to take form in 2014 as the band’s founder, Emily Sprague, recovered from a serious bicycle accident. With a broken neck and arm, Sprague began writing sparse, lonely, deeply personal songs in the isolation of her recovery. These fill the first half of the The Birds Outside Sang, and the second segues into a live performance featuring the whole four-piece band.

via Double Double Whammy

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Austin’s Shearwater collaborated with producer Danny Reisch, composer Brian Reitzell (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation) and Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner for Jet Plane and Oxbow, their seventh full-length release since 1999. The album takes on their ever-changing legacy—of both band members and sound—to produce their hardest-hitting album to date.

via Sub Pop

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UK post-punk outfit Savages follow up their 2013 debut Silence Yourself with the optimistically-titled Adore Life. Clearly not an exercise in saccharine self-affirmation, Adore Life’s lyrics advise pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. Even the album cover is a hard, triumphant fist in the air. According to Savages, “It’s about sticking to your guns and toughing it out. It’s about now, not tomorrow. It’s about recognizing your potential.”

Frontwoman Jehnny Beth’s partner and frequent collaborator Johnny Hostile produced the album, which was mixed by Danish dance producer Trentemøller. Renaissance man Henry Rollins narrated their LP trailer, and the video for the album’s first single, “The Answer,” was directed by Savages’ frequent collaborator Giorgio Testi. Adore Life surpasses the musical and thematic intensity of the band’s debut, and its special brand of hard-nosed optimism is a welcome dose.

via Matador Records

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Eliot Sumner follows up 2014’s celebrated Information EP with an LP of the same name, featuring her stunning alto over minimal, brooding electronic landscapes. The daughter of actress Trudie Styler and musician Sting, London-based Sumner signed to Island Records at age 17 and released one 2010 album, The Constant, under her previous project I Love Coco. Using her given name, Sumner supported Lykke Li on a 2014 tour, making an impression with her androgynous aesthetic and deep, haunting voice. Ostensibly an homage to ’80s new wave, a genre pioneered by her father as frontman of The Police, Information attests to Sumner’s intelligence and authenticity as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist in her own right.

via Island Records

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Ty Segall’s prolific musical output most recently took form in II, the sophomore album from his band Fuzz. Emotional Mugger is the follow-up to 2014’s Manipulator and Segall’s tenth solo album, which he formally announced by sending a VHS to media outlets and releasing a cryptic short video explaining ‘emotional mugging.’ Accompanying Emotional Mugger, his new backing band The Muggers includes frequent collaborators Mikal Cronin, Kyle Thomas, Emmett Kelly, and Cory Hanson and Evan Burrows of the band Wand, which Segall signed to his Drag City imprint GOD? Records.

via Drag City

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