Musician John Mayer has released a new augmented reality video called Battle Studies that places viewers right in the action.

In a move to add a physical connection to the artists we listen to, Matt Brown has created a prototype design for a interchangeable RFID radio system.

A new executive team at MySpace is trying to reignite the brand by focusing on entertainment – music, videos and games – as users leave for “cooler” destinations.

6a Architects has created a multi-use space where library stacks are used to display K-Swiss products.

Musician Daniel Romero has programmed a phenomenal sound environment where the natural motion of Mexican jumping beans trigger sounds on a computer.

With album sales dramatically falling as people increasingly migrate to one-off digital purchases from the likes of iTunes, the music industry is need of creative solutions to reverse this trend. To that end, we found out about one such effort that took place in Brooklyn last night. Musician Langhorne Slim, played a small, secretive show in support of his latest release, “Be Set Free,” where the cost of entry was buying the record.

NME reports that Banksy has collaborated with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and filmmaker Raymond Salvatore Harmon for the video for his new solo song ‘The Hollow Earth’.

After seeing a newspaper photograph depicting birds perched on power lines, Agnelli noticed a distinct resemblance to notes on stanza.

Soul Sampa creates fresh, customized “urban experiences” related to sustainability in terms of design, fashion, street art and music.

Specialists in creating extreme environments, as well as events that bring the DIY community together, a Bushwick-based art duo have constructed a maze within the space, entitled “YOU ARE HERE: THE MAZE”.

For the first time ever, Jem Finer will be leading a live performance of a 1,000 minute section of his 1,000 year-long ‘Longplayer’ at London’s Roundhouse Theatre.

Information recorded by a satellite gets presented as sound and music….

The LA Times reports on some notable shifts going on amongst a handful of book and music retailers. They are seeing more product crossover beginning to happen between independent book sellers and music shops.
Purveyors of paper and text based media such as New York City’s McNally Jackson carry a selection of CDs, mostly because they feature some kind of connection to the literary world, and Easy Street Records in Seattle also has a small book section that features a variety of both music related titles and others:
The decision to carry specific books is based on “cultural relevance, if it connects [...]

Image credit: Getty Images, Art, concept, people, objects/Flickr
For the past decade or so capitalists have struggled to maintain control over the distribution of music. We’ve seen the trend reports, multitudes warning about the demise of the industry. We’ve also seen artists like Radiohead and front man Thom Yorke demonstrating a little optimism by facing the situation head on; see paywhatyouwill pricing and their decision to quit the album format cold turkey. Innovation is present, Mos Def’s T-shirt marketing, leak strategy, and new perspectives on album art included. Quite simply, the business of music is evolving and it is important [...]

In an example of extreme, rapid DIY production, designer Yuri Suzuki recorded and pressed a series of vinyl records all in one night. Teaming up with a trio of Luxembourg punk bands, she produced the messy but beautiful artifacts as part of the Coalition of Amateurs exhibition at Mudam in Luxembourg.

[via design boom]