NPR offers a “first listen” to the new album by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (guitar) and Jozef Van Wissem (lute). The Mystery of Heaven is “gritty but not in-your-face; it’s pretty, but there’s nothing delicate about it. It’s a rich, appropriately cinematic sound.”

“This is an exhibition as Gesamkunstwerk,” writes Andrea Kirsh of the Philadelphia Museum’s Philippe Parreno–designed show Dancing Around the Bride, which explores the interconnected lives of Duchamp, Cunningham, Cage, and others.

The two members of Pussy Riot who remain imprisoned in Russia face Soviet-era prison conditions, according to freed member Yekaterina Samutsevich. With no medicine or hot water, “they can die,” she says.

After pop polymath Nick Zammuto ends his current tour at the Walker on November 10, his thoughts will turn from the stage to the definitiveness of winter as he readies his homestead for a season that “gets a little hairy where we are in Vermont.” In a new interview he discusses life after the vaunted experimental duo the Books and how he balances making art and living off the land (and grid).

Laurie Anderson’s genius, writes Mark Swed, “is to find the music and theater to capture that space between the real and the unreal, which she says has become increasingly unclear.” She brings her work Dirtday! to the Walker Nov. 2–4.

Minneapolis rapper P.O.S.—who performed with Doomtree at Rock the Garden 2012—canceled his tour this week, announcing that his “kidneys are garbage.” On dialysis for a month, he’s seeking a new kidney. A fund has been set up to help pay medical bills.

Amid the clamor of Super PAC–powered politicians duking it out on a whole new level this election season, Laurie Anderson’s Dirtday! offers a timely, quietly powerful rejoinder. An artist who normally steers clear of directly addressing politics in her work, she recently discussed her motivations in applying the “sharp tools” of her art to the topics of peace, politics, and never-ending war.

Pianist Vijay Iyer took home a whopping five prizes from Downbeat critics this spring, yet the prizewinning CD hasn’t, like most jazz releases, racked up many sales. Are efforts like Iyer’s at audience-expanding “outreach” on the right track?

Joy Division’s iconic album cover for Unknown Pleasures has become ubiquitous. But what exactly is it? Designer Peter Saville explains the design’s origin as an image of a pulsar found in a science textbook brought to him by the band.