New music pioneer Butch Morris has passed away at 65 after a battle with cancer. The inventor of “conduction”—“an improvised duet for ensemble and conductor”—he has worked with an array of artists, from Christian Marclay and John Zorn to Burnt Sugar.

Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier’s favorite album, the Stones’ Tattoo You, poses questions and codes he wants to crack: “Why are these guitars so rough? Why is everything so ragged?” And, of the “sassy” Mick Jagger, “Why is he so excited to be yelling in this part?”

A team of USC researchers is analyzing the science of beatboxing: Using MRI technology, they aim to document the array of sounds produced by a bilingual LA rapper and, ultimately, compare noises with those produced in different global languages.

Steve Kramer, accordionist and frontman for the ‘80s punk-polka group the Wallets, has died at age 59. Prior to the Wallets, he played with James Chance and the Contortions, including a gig at the legendary Walker-copresented M-80 Festival in 1979.

With music widely banned in Islamist-controlled areas of Mali, the Glastonbury Festival announced it’ll be highlighting Malian musicians this year, with Rokia Traoré—who played the Walker in 2004—kicking off the event.

In a recent edition of “The Source,” artist Doug Aitken talks with experimental music duo Lucky Dragons (Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara, who visited the Walker in 2009) about sonic and emotional resonance, looping, and music as a form of research.

Celebrating his 66th birthday, David Bowie released the new single “Where Are We Now?” Tuesday. Teasing a new album due in March, the tune is accompanied by a video directed by Tony Oursler (last at the Walker in 2006 for Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty).

Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, who performs John Cage’s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week, tells Elliott Sharp he loved Cage’s minimal approach: “What is the composer doing when the composer is hardly doing anything? It’s like a Zen poem.”