Taste It

London based Daniel Brereton has directed the brilliant new music video for Daniel Avery's track Taste It off his EP Need Electric. Brereton says, "I don't want reveal how this is done before you watch it, so watch it first. It might be easy to tell but this was all done an an everyday scanner, I just had the idea to do a video full of scanned images. So i just got the girls to move scan by scan, like in stop-frame animation. They didn't really "get" what was going on at times, but that is cool as it creates mistakes, and i often asked them what they thought would look good."

Kisses Return with Funny Heartbeats

After two years of touring the world and recording, Kisses, comprised of couple Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson, have unveiled their latest single. Funny Heartbeat, a track about love and high anxiety that calls attention to the end of Summer and a new chapter for Kisses. While putting the finishing touches on the duo's second LP, with production work from Saint Etienne's Pete Wiggs and Tim Larcombe, the group decided to release a song that sits between the disco sheen of The Heart of The Nightlife and the pulsing freestyle beats of their forthcoming LP.

Free Pussy Riot

Russian punk band and feminist collective Pussy Riot are facing up to 7 years in prison for "hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred" after singing a peaceful protest song in Russia's main orthodox church. The detained include Maria Alekhina, 24, poet and student at the Institute of Journalism and creative writing; she is also a mother of 5 year-old boy, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, visual artist and 4th year philosophy student, and mother of 4 year-old girl, and Ekaterina Samucevich, 29, visual Artist, degree from the Alexander Rodchenko school of photography and multimedia. To help in the legal defense to release three young women simply standing up for their beliefs and freedom click here.

Harmony Korine's Caput in Los Angeles

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LA-based duo Io Echo is playing tomorrow, August 9 at Dilettante - featuring a special screening of the new short film by Harmony Korine Caput. Caput is scored in part by Io Echo.  RSVP to io.echo.la@gmail.com, Dilettante 120 North Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles

Alec Soth's Looking for Love

Now availble for preorder on Kominek publishers, Alec Soth‘s photobook Looking for Love, 1996,including his photo series of the same name, looks back to the time of the beginning, the time when everything is still open and exciting, when everything gently falls into place. It's the phase of the beginning, that forms the basis not only of a new love, but also of each new photographic project. It‘s a book about searching, about the curious and intuitive approach to people and their stories. About falling in love to a medium that opens insights to worlds that would otherwise stay hidden – intensive and haunting like an interminable night at the bar. Looking for Love, 1996 will officially be available this September. 

Patric Fallon is Courtship

I was intrigued at first by the hopeful sounding name of the album: Hope; and then by the title of one of the tracks: Dishwater Blonde. Courtship (a.k.a. Brooklyn resident Patric Fallon) has just released his latest EP, the seven-track Hope, as a free download. Over a year in the making, the Hope EP is the first installment of Courtship's Virtues trilogy, which will soon be followed by the Faith and Grace EPs. Hope was written by Fallon throughout San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Chicago, and is a pop-focused meditation on the ideas of hopefulness and hopelessness. The EP has a few gems like the track My View and My Friends and Patric Fallon's voice has just the right amount of angst riding over his melodious beats. Fallon is also certainly an artist to keep on your radar and if a record label gave him the right amount of time and money his music will just keep getting better. You can stream and download the Hope EP for free via  Courtship's bandcamp page.

RIP CHAVELA VARGAS

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Our love to revered Mexican folk singer Chavela Vargas, pictured above kissing director Pedro Almodovar, who passed away last night in Mexico City at the age of 93. In her youth, she dressed as a man, smoked cigars, drank heavily, carried a gun and was known for her characteristic red jorongo, which she still wore in performances. She was even rumored to have once carried on a romantic relationship with artist Frida Kahlo.

Man Ray and Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism

A beautiful portrait of Lee Miller by Man Ray. Man Ray |Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism consists of approximately 115 photographs, paintings, drawings and manuscripts that explore the creative interaction between Man Ray and Lee Miller, two giants of European Surrealism. This is the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the pair’s artistic relationship. On view at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco until October 14, 2012. 

Guidepost to the New Space by Yayoi Kusama

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Exhibition view of Yayoi Kusama's Guidepost to the New Space. To mark Kusama’s retrospective at the Whitney, the Museum has collaborated with the Hudson River Park Trust and Gagosian Gallery to present a special art project near the Whitney Museum’s new building site in the Meatpacking District.