Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe have announced two collaborative albums, Luminal and Lateral, which will be released on June 6 via Verve. One track from each record, Luminal‘s spectral, pop-leaning ‘Suddenly’ and Lateral‘s ambient piece ‘Big Empty Country (Edit)’, is out today. Take a listen below.
Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe met in 2022, when they both gave an SXSW talk about art and climate change, and reconnected while displaying art pieces in London. “Music is about making feelings happen. Some of those feelings are familiar, while others may not be – or may be complex mixtures of several different feelings,” the pair wrote in a press release. “There are many beautiful words for such feelings in other languages and cultures – words that don’t exist in English. By giving a feeling a name, we make that feeling more likely to be felt, more tangible. Art is able to trigger feelings, or feeling mixtures, that we’ve never quite felt before. In this way, a piece of Art can become the ‘mother’ for a type of feeling, and a place you can go to find and re-experience that feeling.”
Luminal Cover Artwork:
Luminal Tracklist:
1. Milky Sleep
2. Hopelessly At Ease
3. My Lovely Days
4. Play On
5. Shhh
6. Suddenly
7. A Ceiling and a Lifeboat
8. And Live Again
9. Breath March
10. Never Was It Now
11. What We Are
Lateral Cover Artwork:
Lateral Tracklist:
1. Big Empty Country – I
2. Big Empty Country – II
3. Big Empty Country – III
4. Big Empty Country – IV
5. Big Empty Country – V
6. Big Empty Country – VI
7. Big Empty Country – VII
8. Big Empty Country – VIII
Tennis, the Denver indie-pop duo of Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, have revealed that their upcoming LP, Face Down in the Garden, will also be their last. The record is out April 25, and the rarities compilation Neutral Poetry: First Recordings, Unreleased Demos 2009-2010 will follow on May 16. Tennis will then embark on a farewell tour of North America, which will wrap up in Saratoga, California on September 4.
’12 Blown Tires’, the latest preview of Tennis’ new album, also serves as their final single. It’s a collage of memories from tour that feels particularly heart-rending in the context of today’s news. “On a cross-country drive at the end of tour, our van and trailer blew four tires in quick succession,” Moore recalled. “That particular stretch of highway was a tire graveyard. I counted the shredded remains of twelve tires from where we sat on the side of the road, swapping out our last spare. Our bad luck was heavily contrasted by the good night we’d just had in Houston. The highs and lows of touring are unnatural, disorienting. On the shoulder of I-40, I began writing the lyrics to “12 Blown Tires.” It is a constellation of memories from the road, and of our marriage, two endeavors that are completely, hopelessly entangled.”
Riley and Moore formed Tennis in 2010 after meeting as students at the University of Colorodo, Denver. “When we recorded ’12 Blown Tires’ a few months later, I had the sense of distilling the past 15 years into four minutes of music,” Moore continued. “It felt like the end of something, though I wasn’t sure what. Patrick and I spent most of our 20s and all of our 30s focused on Tennis. It has been the most joyous, bewildering, challenging, and humbling experience. After finishing Face Down in the Garden, it became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band. This will be our last studio album, at least in this configuration as Tennis. We are ready to pursue other creative projects and to make space in our lives for new things. In that light, the upcoming tour feels more poignant, like a concluding thought. These two kids from Denver who only ever dreamed of playing a few house shows are very fulfilled. Perhaps we’ll see you on the road. As always, thank you.”
Opening up about the album, Moore added:
Face Down In The Garden is our seventh studio album. The inspiration for new work came while we were still on the road touring Pollen. We felt a clear pull to write new music, but ran up against a series of bizarre setbacks. We blew tires and lost an engine. I developed a chronic illness. We took a doomed voyage that culminated in an attempted robbery at sea. Fragments of songs that first arrived like gifts from the universe later refused to be completed. Our days were awash in major and minor crises that dragged the album out endlessly.
Patrick and I felt out of sync with the world, as though we had been ejected from the flow of life. My response was to bury myself in my own memories. Those years weren’t easier or better, but I could make sense of them. In Face Down In The Garden, I trace the arc of my life through a series of vignettes: a first moment of connection, a conversation at a wedding, a night offshore, a tour diary.
Over the years our sound has evolved into three distinct categories: Brill Building, synth-pop, and rock. Face Down In The Garden occupies all of that space. Except for the help of some outside drumming, we worked and recorded alone as we have done for the last few albums. We wanted to write ourselves off the map by doing the unexpected thing, offsetting intuitive melodies with unusual arrangements, to make music that feels familiar but resists convention. Despite being rattled by a strange year, it is our most confident album. We are very excited for you to listen, preferably loud and on headphones.
Face Down in the Garden Cover Artwork:
Face Down in the Garden Tracklist:
1. At the Apartment
2. Weight of Desire
3. At the Wedding
4. Always the Same
5. Sister
6. Through the Mirror
7. I Can Only Describe You
8. 12 Blown Tires
9. In Love (Release The Doves)
Tennis 2025 Tour Dates:
May 26 Las Vegas, NV – Swan Dive
May 17 Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
May 18 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Block Party
May 21 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
May 23 Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed
May 24 Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi Annex
May 25 Cleveland, OH – Globe Iron
May 27 Toronto, Ontario – The Concert Hall
May 30 Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 31 Philadelphia, PA- Franklin Music Hall
Jun 1 New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17
Jun 3 Washington, D.C. – The Anthem
Jun 5 Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
Jun 6 Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
Jun 7 Nashville TN – Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
Jun 9 Dallas, TX – The Factory in Deep Ellum
Jun 10 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
Jun 11 Austin, TX – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Aug 18 San Diego, CA – Humphreys Concerts by the Bay
Aug 20 Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
Aug 22 Pioneertown, CA – Pappy & Harriet’s
Aug 23 Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
Aug 24 Santa Fe, NM – The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing Co.
Aug 26 Denver, CO – The Mission Ballroom
Aug 28 Boise, ID – Treefort Music Hall
Aug 29 Portland, OR – McMenamins Grand Lodge
Aug 30 Vancouver, British Columbia – Malkin Bowl
Sep 2 Sacramento, CA – Channel 24
Sep 4 Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery
Kevin Bacon’s supernatural series The Bondsman has the hallmarks to last for at least a couple of seasons. A charming lead, an intriguing story, a highly digestible format – all the ingredients are there.
Moreover, it became a fan favourite soon after landing on Prime Video, proving there’s plenty of demand for an entertaining horror series. Hopefully, the streaming overlords are paying attention, and The Bondsman will return to fight another day.
The Bondsman Season 2 Release Date
The Bondsman premiered on April 3, 2025. At the time of writing, it hasn’t been officially renewed for more episodes. However, the reviews are good and the audience is on board, so it has a great shot of making a comeback.
The show’s creators seem to think so, too. “I intentionally wrote Season 1 to have an ending that would make it difficult for Amazon not to give Kevin and me more chances to make more episodes. We were evil, devious partners in trying to make sure this show goes the distance,” showrunner Erik Oleson told LA Times.
In case we do get The Bondsman season 2, it will likely premiere sometime in early 2026. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.
The BondsmanCast
Kevin Bacon as Hub Halloran
Jennifer Nettles as Maryanne Dice
Beth Grant as Kitty Halloran
Damon Herriman as Lucky Callahan
Maxwell Jenkins as Cade Halloran
Jolene Purdy as Midge Kusatsu
What Will Happen in The BondsmanSeason 2?
The series stars Kevin Bacon as Hub Halloran, a bounty hunter who gets murdered on the job. As luck will have it, he gets a new chance at life as long as he agrees to work for the devil.
In short, he has to capture demons, and maybe atone for some of his own sins in the process. Add an estranged wife and an abandoned musical career in the mix and you pretty much get the gist of the supernatural shenanigans about to ensue.
The Bondsman mixes action and horror well, sprinkles the occasional humour, and takes viewers on a wild (and gory) ride.
By the end of season 1, Hub is at another crossroads and makes a choice that will likely play out over the course of The Bondsman season 2. Without giving away spoilers, his job description gets even more demanding. We’re eager to see how he gets out of this jam.
Are There Other Shows Like The Bondsman?
If you’re a fan of The Bondsman’s particular flavour of horror, you’ll be happy to know there are a few similar titles you can sample. The list includes Ash vs Evil Dead, Preacher, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
Additionally, you can’t go wrong with Supernatural. That’s 15 seasons brimming with demon possessions and hellish adventures. The brotherly bond is just the cherry on top.
With so many true crime series vying for viewers’ attention, it’s not often that one breaks through the noise. Yet, that’s exactly what happened with Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, a moving three-part docuseries available to stream on Netflix.
The series delves into the chilling case of the Long Island Serial Killer, also known as the Gilgo Beach Killer. The mysterious figure is believed to be responsible for the deaths of multiple women.
The show’s main selling point? Directed by Liz Garbus, it focuses on the lives of the victims and explores how their disappearances were often overlooked by law enforcement and the media. Needless to say, it might very well chill you to the bone.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer Season 2 Release Date
The docuseries premiered on March 31, 2025, and consists of three episodes. It features interviews with families, investigators, journalists, and experts. By the end, it exposes the societal biases that contributed to the delay in solving the case.
The series so gripping that viewers are wondering if there’s more to come. At the time of writing, no plans for Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer Season 2 have been announced.
Even so, new breaks in the case might lead to more episodes. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer Cast
Robert Kolker
Aaron Peck
Dave Schaller
Jaclyn Gallucci
Sara Karnes
Melissa Cann
What Could Happen in Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial KillerSeason 2?
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer is a revealing look at how marginalised women are treated in the justice system. Turns out, persistence is often your strongest weapon in pursuit of the truth.
For those unfamiliar with the case, it began to unfold in December 2010 when police found the remains of multiple women. Many of them were sex workers. Following the macabre discovery, the crimes went unsolved for over a decade.
With each episode, the docuseries traces the evolving investigation and the mounting pressure on the authorities. It also covers the shocking breakthrough that led to the arrest of a suspect years after the initial discovery of the bodies.
As of April 2025, law enforcement zeroed in on a suspect who is now in custody. If Gone Girls:The Long Island Serial Killer Season 2 happens, it could focus on the aftermath of the arrest and the eventual trial.
Are There Other Shows Like Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer?
While there’s no shortage of true crime content on streaming services, Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer stands out for its sensitive portrayal of the victims. Liz Garbus also directed 2020 drama film Lost Girls, which was inspired by the true crime case.
Other similar docuseries include I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and Murder in the Bayou.
With such a provocative title, Dying for Sex was always guaranteed to make a splash, at least among viewers who like their entertainment spicy. The fact that the acting is great and the story incredibly moving is a nice bonus.
The series, inspired by true events, resonated with critics and the audience alike. At only eight episodes, it manages to deliver a complete story that will stay with you for a long time. Even so, you might be wondering whether there’s more to come.
On that front, we’re sorry to be a buzzkill.
Dying for Sex Season 2 Release Date
Dying for Sex is a limited series, so there won’t be any more episodes. The plan has always been to tell the story over the course of a single season.
Additionally, the main character’s arc concludes by the time the final end credits roll, so it’s not like the show leaves viewers with unanswered questions.
Dying for Sex Cast
Michelle Williams as Molly
Jenny Slate as Nikki
Rob Delaney as Neighbor Guy
David Rasche as Dr. Pankowitz
Jay Duplass as Steve
What Could Happen in Dying for Sex Season 2?
Dying for Sex revolves around Molly, a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer. Realising that she’s about to die without ever having experienced an orgasm with another person, she leaves her marriage behind and embarks on an adventure to get the most out of her remaining time.
What follows is a bittersweet exploration of sexual desire. Dying for Sex is funny, sad, and heartfelt, often at the same time. With her best friend Nikki by her side, Molly does her best to live as authentically as possible, even if she won’t get to do for long.
This is the kind of series that makes viewers think about what they would do in the main character’s shoes. Would they follow her bold lead or settle for what they’ve already got? It’s tricky to answer that question without the stakes, but it doesn’t mean you can’t mull it over.
By the end of the final episode, the audience learns how Molly’s story ends. In that sense, Dying for Sex makes for a satisfying binge, with colourful characters you can’t help but fall for.
Given the conclusion, the only way for Dying for Sex season 2 to happen would be to follow Nikki in the aftermath of season 1, or perhaps make the show an anthology and focus on a similar, yet different story. At the time of writing, however, there aren’t any plans to do either.
Is Dying for Sex Based on a True Story?
Yes, Dying for Sex is inspired by Molly Kochan, who received a Stage IV cancer diagnosis, left her husband, and began an exciting path to self-discovery.
She chronicled her story on the podcast Dying for Sex, which came out in 2020 and quickly became a hit. You can listen to it on all podcast platforms. If you want to dig deeper, you can also read Kochan’s memoir, titled Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole.
Emily Sprague has no trouble baring her soul out in her lyrics. Intimacy, like tenderness, has and never will be a difficult thing for the Florist enterprise, or “friendship project,” as they call it, which includes Rick Spataro, Jonnie Baker, and Felix Walworth. The challenge, bigger than ever on their first album since their resplendent 2022 self-titled effort, is sounding at peace with a world hurtling towards catastrophe; staying soft, friendly, and curious when grief continues to bear its mark on you. But the music can also only be as delicate as the line between the threads of consciousness Sprague bounces between – waking, altered, existential – thin enough to let light slip through yet expansive enough to get lost in. For all its quiet optimism and awe, Jellywish is never quite restful or easygoing; much in the same way that, for all its introspection, it never truly stands alone.
1. Levitate
Just as the acoustic fingerpicking begins its ascent, it touches back down, avoiding the suffocating melancholy of something like Daughter’s ‘Smother’. Emily Sprague’s singing is instantly mesmerizing, erasing the gap between “wake/wait” like she’s making up another word, as if the album title is just the start. She attempts to reconcile personal pleasure with the immeasurable tragedy around her, to find a footing amidst the imbalance, the simple proof of life. She recognizes godlike desire – “the pulse between two mouths” – yet craves an impossible intimacy – “the power of love doesn’t seem to come.” Still, she’d keep looking, treasuring the in-between, for the rest of her life.
2. Have Heaven
With the band counting through each repetition of the chorus, the heightened playfulness of Jellywish shines through on ‘Have Heaven’, even as it acknowledges the album’s environmental concerns. “Does it feel like everything is melting here? Are we giving up now?” Sprague wonders, yet it sounds like the band is just now waking to life, anchoring in gentle percussion and ambience to carve a path forward.
3. Jellyfish
Jellyfish always seem a little alien, and the album’s quasi-title track invites us to look at the more familiar things in life from a similar perspective. Take nothing for granted, it seems to argue, with the one exception that makes the whole band pause: “Nothing is guaranteed but death.” But it’s not a full stop; Sprague’s introspection fills out a few more lines, finally landing on a more empowering declaration: “Destroy the feeling you are not enough.”
4. Started to Glow
Imagine freezing in the cold and thinking up a line like “the ice looks like a beautiful face staring up.” ‘Started to Glow’ is a reminder that few bands as pervasively existentialist as Florist create such vividly inviting music. Over strummed chords, subtle atmospherics, and Rick Spataro’s featherlight piano, they make contemplating mortality sound like daydreaming, or an actual dream lingering over your morning ritual. “It doesn’t feel like the end,” she sings, but it’s all a blur, and it’s always coming.
5. This Was a Gift
Right in the middle of the album is a song with a bit more spring in its step, spiked by electric guitar. The tone suits one of the album’s most potent lines, “Only the dead survive,” which Sprague repeats before shifting her attention to the living: “Only the home I have is with you in mind.” Then the “you” becomes more concrete, evidenced by the group’s vibrant performances: “I just want music in my life/ I just want us to sing along.” The reassuring “I’m your guy” would sound at home on every song on the record, but instead she repeats it ten times here, driving the point all the way home.
6. All the Same Light
Florist slightly digitize and distort their typically organic sound, puncturing the surface of this otherwise hushed acoustic ballad. “It’s funny that the start is what shows us to the end and the end is all I am,” Sprague sings, and you’re not quite sure how the song, too, expands from point A to point B. But it’s something to behold.
7. Sparkle Song
As Sprague zooms in on moments of quiet domesticity and love, her feelings seem to determine the sun’s disposition as much as the other way round: “Today the sun is hiding,” “Today the sun is shining.” Even though she still worries about the future, the sparser, cleaner arrangement suggests we’ve passed some sort of spiritual clearing. “How can you be in this reality?” she sings, bemused by this person’s happiness, yet palpably tied to it, the smile in her voice betraying a we.
8. Moon, Sea, Devil
Maybe it’s not the intimacy itselfthat’s so impossible – maybe it’s timing. Maybe succeeding, getting what you want, isn’t about manufacturing but rather succumbing to it – the ineffable concurrence of earthly and supernatural forces. “I want to be family with you,” Sprague admits, “So that means I give it up to the chaos.” The earth is small, she posits, and the song feels like that too; but look how far it can take you, and keep you, restlessly, in awe.
9. Our Hearts in a Room
Jellyfish is tirelessly introverted, but the collective is always hanging above its surface, and finally materializes vocally here with Felix Walworth harmonizing. “Is this all you’ve ever wanted/ Is it all you believe is true/ Is it all our dreams colliding and is that you,” they sing, like believing together can bring reality a little closer.
10. Gloom Designs
The closing track sounds as peaceful as anything else on Jellywish, yet alarms us with a hint of weariness: “Honestly I’m getting kinda sick of talking about this,” she intimates, meaning everything. She doesn’t let the song end there, of course – instead she copes by tripping out, a bit of self-indulgence, a bit of self-neglect. She allows the music to get weirder, threading in samples that attest to life’s randomness. Then she puts everything back into perspective. “It’s been a long time since we laughed until we cried/ It’s been a short time in the entirety of life/ I want to know what exists between the veils/ Make some sounds that no one wants to hear,” she concludes. Maybe none of these sounds made it onto Jellywish – all of it, though, is worth your time.
You all know that friend who is head over heels for a TV series. Whenever there is a new release, they already know. They have subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, and all those streaming services you know about. These kinds of friends may not be hard to please as giving them a suggestion wins over their hearts.
However, on special occasions, you feel like you want to give them something more. Something that really speaks to their heart. That when they look at it, they will just know that you have a deep appreciation and love for them. This article will help you find the perfect gift for those closest to you.
Personalised gifts
What would speak more love if not a personalised item with your favourite TV series character? Just imagine you are a Game of Thrones (GOT) fan, and someone gifts you a personalised cushion of Daenerys Targaryen on her dragon Drogo. You’ll definitely love it dearly.
Now, you can easily get personalised items from wanapix.co.uk with photos or logos of your loved one’s favourite series. The good thing is that you are not limited to the things you can personalise, especially if they frequently use the item. You can get a keyring, mug, trophy, lamps, doormats, etc. Your imagination is your limit, as long as they would appreciate the gift.
Video games
The one thing that would be better than someone watching their favourite character on screen is being that character. Video games allow people to play out and interact with different characters from popular movies and TV series.
For example, XCOM developer Firaxis has come up with a video game that combines heroes from different Marvel TV series. You are able to build relationships with Iron Man, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Wolverine, Blade and more. The game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, is perfect for any Marvel fan.
Another game that might come as a shocker is Desperate Housewives: The Game. Yes, you heard it right. You thought that dramas had no capability of coming up with video games? How wrong you were!
In shorts, there are video games for different genres of shows, starting from drama, manga, animated tv series, action and all those genres that your friend might be interested in.
Books and more books
If you have realised, many tv series are based on books. These books have intricate plots and original strories, sometimes more detailed than what you watch on the screens.
For example, the TV series “The Witcher” is based on a series of books with the same title, The Witcher. It is a collection of 9 books authored by the famous Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The popular British Drama “Bridgerton” is based on the novel series by Julia Quinn. Also, the series “Orange is the New Black” is based on a memoir of the same name, even though the show deviates from the book after season one.
If your loved one is a fan of books, then getting them novels of the shows they have watched and loved could really mean a lot.
Streaming service subscription
With the rise of streaming services, having access to an extensive library of TV shows is quite essential for any TV enthusiast. You can easily impress your loved one by offering to pay for a subscription to one or more streaming platforms, including:
Netflix
Hulu
HBO Max
Amazon prime
Disney+
All these streaming services allow you to explore a myriad of shows without any limits. Also, you can consider niche streaming services like Shudder for horror fans or BritBox for lovers of British television. There is no need for your friends to suffer when you can gift them unlimited shows.
Posters and wall art
Whenever you get the house of a movie enthusiast, you will always find posters and wall art of their favourite actors. It is, therefore, well in order if you can decide to surprise one of your friends with a high-quality framed image of an iconic scene from a show.
A good example would be having a framed image of the Avengers: End Game scene where Captain America calls out, “Avengers, Assemble!” That is one of the most iconic scenes from any TV series ever created. Another iconic scene is Wednesday’s dance in the series Wednesday. Having such framed images just shows that you know quality, and your loved one needs to live with quality!
Themed board games and puzzles
For fans who enjoy game nights, having themed board games and puzzles might be the best gifts you can give. These games bring the excitement of beloved shows into interactive entertainment. They give fans an opportunity to engage with familiar characters, settings and storylines.
Now, whether you will be solving mysteries or competing in trivia, these games offer an exciting extension of the TV-watching experience. In fact, you can even decide to have themed game nights where you dress up as characters from a show and then engage in different games involving the show.
Well, for jigsaw puzzles featuring iconic moments, they serve both as an engaging challenge and a decorative piece once completed. If your friends love game nights, then these kinds of gifts would be great.
You can be pretty sure that impressing a tv series fan is not that hard. It just takes a keen eye to note what kind of shows intrigue them then get something that is specially made to fit that. At the end of it all, it’s the thought that counts!
In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on April 11, 2025:
Bon Iver, SABLE, fABLE
Bon Iver have delivered their most rapturous album to date with SABLE, fABLE, the project’s first album in six years. The record’s ecstatic tone springs right out of the soulful darkness of last year’s SABLE, EP, whose songs are sequenced at the very beginning. It’s expectedly lush in unpredictable ways, foraying into a shimmering blend of pop, soul, and R&B but rarely straying from its commitment to unabashed joy. The singles ‘If Only I Could Wait’, ‘Walk Home’, and ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love’ previewed the LP.
Mamalarky have returned with a breezy yet dizzying new record called Hex Key, the follow-up to 2022’s Pocket Fantasy. The indie quartet recorded the 14-track LP at their LA home studio. “We would be getting our heart rate up while we figured out the details of the record,” the band’s Livvy Bennett recalled. “I would be like, ‘I think we need to re-record the guitar. And the chorus needs to have some sort of lift happening.’ And then, once we would get up to the top of the mountain, we would see this really beautiful pond. It was somehow always reassuring.”
Ribbon Skirt, the Montreal art-rock band formerly known as Love Language – led by Anishinaabe musician Tashiina Buswa – have come out with their debut LP, Bite Down, via Mint. Frantic yet dreamy, haunting yet playful, the record was preceded by the tracks ‘Cellophane’ and ‘Wrong Planet’. “To be Anishinaabe is to move through the world in respect and reciprocity, taking what you need and giving back whenever you can, while always acknowledging the gift that is the journey itself,” the band reflected. “It’s a way of life that was interrupted and severely damaged by the ravages of settler colonialism. But in our ongoing recovery from those harms, we as a people have found beautiful ways to restore those gifts, and create something regenerative and enriching for future generations. Bite Down is one of those gifts.”
Joni’s reflections on Things I Left Behind are hazy yet tenderly beautiful. Having spent most of her twenties writing for other artists, the American-born, London-based artist’s songwriting is a strikingly personal document of the kind of heartbreak that’s tied to relocation, drawing inspiration from the likes of Feist, Sparklehorse, and Daniel Johnston. “During my previous relationship, the process for recording was very unhealthy,” Joni explained. “I believed that my music was only good because of my ex’s production and his extreme way of working. Most of our recording sessions would end in tears; nothing was ever good enough. It took some time to come out of the shadows. I was touring with Luke [Sital-Singh] when I had a breakdown one night and told him how lost I felt. He offered to try and record with me and see how it went – and as soon as I started working with him it felt so effortless.”
Ken Carson, More Chaos; Nell Smith, Anxious; Röyksopp, True Electric; Valerie June, Owls, Omens, and Oracles; Dope Lemon, Golden Wolf; Eyedress, Stoner; Real Lies, We Will Annihilate Our Enemies; Bedridden, Moths Strapped To Each Other’s Backs; Maria Usbeck, Naturaleza; Idle Heirs, Life Is Violence; Vegyn, Blue Moon Safari; Various Artists, Chet Baker Re:Imagined; Elvenking, Reader of the Runes – Luna; Magnolia Park, VAMP; Spin Doctors, Face Full of Cake; Larum, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part II; The Album Leaf, ROTATIONS.
Lana Del Rey has finally released ‘Henry, Come On’, a song she’s been teasing for over a year. Produced by Luke Laird, Zach Dawes, and Drew Erickson, the lush, poignant single arrives in advance of Del Rey’s new album The Right Person Will Stay, which she’s said will come out on May 21. Take a listen below.
At a time when much of contemporary textile art pursues precision through digital mastery or post-digital hybridity, Yang Yumeng issues a conceptual challenge with her ongoing work Untitled (2024– ). First exhibited in Milan in December 2024, and measuring 12 meters at the time, the installation has since expanded to over 20 meters as of April 2025. Comprised entirely of studio waste and assembled using a variation of the Chinese traditional Liezhibu (crackle weave) technique, the work resists finality, instead presenting itself as an open-ended process—a material archive that is perpetually in flux.
In direct defiance of the art world’s fixation on completeness, authorship, and fixed form, Yang’s refusal to finish her work reads as both aesthetic and political provocation. At once intensely personal and structurally rigorous, Untitled is built from discarded fragments of past works—reassembled not for reuse, but for redefinition. This act transforms creative residue into conceptual fuel.
Exhibition and Material Ethics
The reception of the work during its Milan showing sparked considerable critical attention. Some praised its embrace of fragmentation as a regenerative gesture; others questioned whether the refusal to resolve a work risks falling into performative incompleteness. But such critique overlooks the core of Yang’s method: an embedded material ethics that interrogates how value, waste, and process are framed within contemporary art systems.
The work’s subsequent expansion to 20 meters is not merely a logistical change but a conceptual intensification. It repositions the textile from static object to living system—a breathing document of accumulated time, failure, repetition, and renewal. In doing so, Yang advances an alternative temporality that runs counter to the finished-product logic of capitalist production.
Gender, Craft, and the Poetics of Refusal
Born and raised in a region with a significant Yi minority population in China, Yang’s return to visit local women engaged in traditional embroidery practices informs her approach—not as mimicry, but as critical encounter. Notably, she foregrounds the creative intelligence of using leftover scraps, rejecting both exoticization and victimization. In her own words: “Sympathy is the luxury of the privileged.” This is not a project that celebrates scarcity; rather, it insists on recognizing beauty as resistance, even in marginal conditions.
By drawing on a historically feminized craft medium and refusing to finish her work, Yang mounts a subtle but forceful critique of both the masculinized cult of completion and the commodification of textile labor. Her weaving is not merely decorative; it is theoretical, feminist, and insurgent.
Visual Language and Critical Frameworks
Formally, Untitled refuses aesthetic coherence. The surface is unruly—tonally inconsistent, frayed, and visibly spliced. There is no central motif, no orchestrated palette, no diagrammatic plan. Instead, the textile embodies what theorist Rozsika Parker termed “the subversive stitch”—an interruption of expectation through material discontinuity. It also recalls the work of El Anatsui, whose monumental tapestries made from industrial detritus interrogate consumer cycles, though Yang’s scale is intimate and emotionally raw by contrast.
What she offers is a visual logic of rupture and recovery—a method of thinking-through-making where formal incompleteness is not deficiency, but a deliberate ethical stance.
Critical Recognition and Future Relevance
Leading critics, including myself and colleagues across Europe and Asia, have recognized Yang’s work as one of the most urgent contributions to contemporary fiber practice in the post-pandemic period. Her Milan presentation and subsequent studio-led expansions have already generated invitations for further exhibitions and publications.
In Contemporary Textile Review’s spring symposium, Yang’s installation was referenced repeatedly as an exemplar of transnational material politics—its integration of indigenous techniques, feminist theory, and waste economies positioned as a template for future craft-based research.
Yang Yumeng’s Untitled is not an unfinished artwork—it is a perpetually finishing one. It does not merely recycle material but reconfigures the grammar of textile itself. By embracing rupture, excess, and incompletion, Yang confronts us with the uncomfortable truth: that beauty, memory, and authorship do not emerge despite fragmentation, but precisely through it.
Her work is not only a testament to personal history, but also a critical intervention in global conversations on sustainability, authorship, and the ethics of making. And in declaring that the work will never be complete, Yang has paradoxically delivered her most complete statement yet.
Bon Iver
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