As you explore Hytale’s world, you’ll quickly encounter new creatures, yet nothing will get recorded at first. To start logging those encounters, you’ll first need to find the Forgotten Temple, which will unlock the Memory system and let you track new creature sightings. As the name suggests, Memories in Hytale act as a running record of every creature you come across, much like a bestiary that fills out as you explore. So, to unlock Memories and start building out your log, here’s how to find the Forgotten Temple in Hytale.
Hytale: How to Find the Forgotten Temple and Unlock Memories
Memories are one of the most important progression systems in Hytale, even if the game doesn’t fully explain them at first. They act as a living record of the wildlife you come across while exploring, gradually filling up as you move through different biomes and zones.
To unlock Memories in Hytale, you’ll need to find a Forgotten Temple. There are several spread across the map and each one will be marked on your compass with a vortex icon. Simply head toward the marker until you reach a cross-shaped stone building with a statue outside. Head inside the building and take the stairs down behind the altar. Underground, you’ll encounter an earthen golem guarding a blue portal.
The golem isn’t especially difficult, but you don’t actually have to fight it. You can run past it and jump straight into the portal, which is usually quicker anyway. Walking through the portal will take you to the Forgotten Temple itself. Head into the central area, where you’ll see a glowing statue. Simply interact with the statue to unlock Hytale’s Memory system, which will give you permanent access to the Memories menu.
Once Memories are unlocked, recording them is pretty easy. Any time you get close to a creature you haven’t encountered before, a notification will pop up in the bottom-right corner of the screen, marking it as discovered. However, Memories in Hytale are not retroactive, so anything encountered before unlocking the system will not be counted.
From there, exploring the world will naturally start filling your Memory tab, which can be found next to your avatar in your Inventory. However, you’ll need to return to the Forgotten Temple and interact with the statue to turn them in. As you restore more Memories, you unlock milestone rewards. The first Memory tier will unlock Eternal Seeds, with bigger rewards like teleporters, morph potions, crafting components, and a backpack upgrade unlocking as you restore more Memories.
If the evocative title of Victoryland’s label debut grabs your attention, I’m here to tell you that My Heart Is a Room With No Cameras In It totally earns it. The Brooklyn-based project of Julian McCamman quietly released its first tape, Sprain, just a week before the musician’s former band Blood released their debut and final album, Loving You Backwards. The wiry, whimsical, and emotionally piercing new album finds McCamman continuing his collaboration with producer Dan Howard, who worked on both of those records, and honing their mid-fi pop ambitions to brilliant effect. “Was it even worth trying/ Knowing someone is crying for us/ Watching an infinite loop of our lives,” McCamman sings at one point; even at its most desperate, the album sounds like it’s somehow enjoying running back the tape.
1. Here I Stand
The name of Julian McCamman’s former band is, I’d venture consciously, the first word we hear on My Heart Is a Room With No Cameras, introducing a poetic image: “Blood inside my body flies under your veil.” The song kicks off the album somewhere between defiance and desperation, with acoustic guitar chords that coil like a fist over an off-kilter psychedelic loop, opening up only in brief spurts.
2. No Cameras
As deliciously quotable as it is catchy, ‘No Cameras’ thrives on the edge of romantic separation – McCamman sings “Watch me fade out” with ten times the exhilaration that he declared the opening track’s titular statement. Love leaves us dumbfounded and McCamman takes that feeling and runs with it, committing to lines like “Heart is a buried jar of honey” as if recording the moment he notes them down. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up a classic in his discography.
3. I got god
The energy only ramps up with ‘I got god’, where a nagging synth arpeggio clashes with a booming rhythm section, their dynamic shifting throughout the track’s runtime. As he stares down oblivion, the music caving in around him, McCamman sighs, “I remember fondly having feelings to hide.” Now other people’s indifference seems preposterous, so he seems to be talking to the mirror when, breath frail, he braces for the future: “If this is the loneliest you’ve felt/ Then buckle up.” They somehow make it sound exciting.
4. Keep Me Around
The album keeps mining the theme of dumbness for its strange potency, and this dizzying stab of a song only softens after proclaiming, “We might be dumb forever.” Over a Coldplay-esque piano progression, McCamman pleads for relationship permanence even if it rests on a toxic dynamic. Not sure Chris Martin would write a song about that, but the sentimentality prevails.
5. Arcades
Sprawling and piercing at once, the instrumentation matches the impressionistic turn in McCamman’s lyrics, as if the entire first minute is meant to serve as evidence for his claim that “You were spending all damn day swallowing trains.” He and Dan Howard play with different frequencies not just throughout the album, but within the space of a song, sounding crisp until the almost uncomfortably intimate confession that closes it.
6. Blur
There are dozens of classic psychedelic indie records My Heart Is a Room feels in conversation with, which you should keep in mind when I say that ‘In My Place’, in that IAN SWEET way, sounds like a reference point for ‘Blur’. Self-pitying yet incisive, it includes one of the album’s most striking lyrics: “In the wire fence of your aching past/ You’re stuck waving from behind.”
7. You Were Solved
The drunkenness of ‘Blur’ feeds into the next track, which is hardcore in spirit and dance-punk in style – a golden combination that jumps out of the speakers. McCamman’s impassioned performance does the music justice, his lyrics appropriately anthemic: “I’ll dance like/ I’m your bitch/ We’re just shaking out the night from our wrists.” When you can’t hold forever in your palm, what could be better?
8. Beach Death
The piano ballad thankfully retains its demolike quality, which does little to drown out McCamman’s aching vocals – he sings of settling down like a strange brand of instability, identity rupture. It’s startling yet strangely soothing as ripples of piano and a filtered melody wash over.
9. Fits
With an ethereal guitar riff and drums steadily rising in the mix, the song takes its time to establish its altitude before McCamman swoops in to shout: “And in the air.” (“Is where the night falls.”) Stretching over six and a half minutes, ‘Fits’ longs to turn every kind of sickness bearing its mark on the album into an out-of-body experience. As the pulse slows back down, the song avoids a totally melancholy or nostalgic conclusion, shaping its chords into the perfect in-between space before ringing out – as if into, to quote an earlier song, “inanimate voids.”
10. I’ll Show You Mine
My Heart Is a Room With No Cameras closes with its most jangly and emotionally legible song – and, in its morbidly animalistic imagery of “two dumb dogs just bleeding out on a concrete floor in a room somewhere,” even its most human. An exquisitely dressed-up song about the primacy of the body, its ugly desperation, and the innate need to have it shared. Our protagonist may be buckling up for more loneliness by having it exposed, but it certainly isn’t just him.
Hayes Greenwood is a London-based artist working primarily in painting, alongside sculpture, video and installation. Her deeply charged works draw on lived experience, using landscape and natural motifs to explore life, death, desire and embodiment. She combines the familiar and the otherworldly, translating complex emotional states into heightened visual forms where internal and external fold into one another. Hayes Greenwood combines the familiar and the otherworldly, translating complex emotional states into heightened visual forms where the internal and external worlds collapse and fold into one another.
Hayes Greenwood has exhibited internationally, including solo shows at Castor (London) and GiG (Munich), as well as group exhibitions at Stuart Shave Modern Art (London), Mana Contemporary (USA) and Saatchi Gallery (London). She is currently working on a major commission for Hospital Rooms and has recently undertaken residencies with theCOLAB: Body & Place (2025), Hogchester Arts (2024), and was awarded the Palazzo Monti x ACS Residency Prize (2024). She holds an MA from City & Guilds of London Art School and is the co-founder and former director of Block 336. Her work is held in many public and private collections.
Was there a particular moment when you understood that creating art wasn’t just something you loved, but something you wanted to devote your life to?
It didn’t arrive as a singular moment; it was a slower process than that for me. I’ve always been surrounded by art and creativity in culture both high and low. Making is something I’ve always loved and just never been able to stop doing.
Though she didn’t do it later in life, my mum was a skilled painter, and my stepdad had a deep love of art and literature. He was very involved in Salts Mill in Yorkshire when I was growing up. He was a friend of David Hockney’s, and I always loved Hockney’s drawings and opera sets when I was a child. As a kid, being an artist seemed like a very fun and compelling way of engaging with the world!
I followed a fairly standard path: art A-level, an art foundation, then a BA and MA. After completing my BA, I set up Block 336 in Brixton, a large artist-run gallery and studio space which I ran for over a decade, commissioning major solo projects by other artists with an ambitious public programme. I’ve taught in art schools for the past 15 years and these experiences reinforce that art isn’t just about individual practice but about connection, exchange and deep learning.
I think art will always be a way to orient myself in the world. It continues to be a source of pleasure, a place to time-travel, play, think and process moments that are confusing, painful, unresolved, intense, joyful, wonderful or strange.
You mention that the paintings you created for Weird Weather have all ‘expand[ed] out of a kind of grief logic.’ How did creating this body of work challenge or affirm your previous beliefs about the relationship between art and grief?
Well, artists have always made work to understand their feelings and position in the world. There is a lot of grief in art in one form or another. Edvard Munch is often quoted as saying that “art comes from joy and pain, but mostly pain.” It is said that grief is the price we pay for love, and Bell Hooks writes about this. She talks about it not being simply about loss, but about how it is a testament to the depth of our bonds. She describes it as evidence of our capacity to love deeply and remain open and affected by the world rather than defended against it.
In making Weird Weather, this perspective became tangible through the way the work responded to place and memory. The paintings grew out experiences shaped by transition and change, but also by attachment and connection and to the sense of poignancy and sharp relief that accompanies significant life events. Working urgently and intuitively allowed the work to expand, embracing both intensity and tenderness. Grief is not one-dimensional; it isn’t singularly heavy or painful. It is prismatic, generative, wild, psychedelic and transcendental. It can expose what it is to be alive and present in the world and locates you in a heightened state of awareness and openness.
Left: High Pressure, Oil on canvas, 45 x 35 cm, 2025. Right: Held and Holding, Oil on canvas, 110 x 140 cm, 2025. Credit Matt Spour courtesy of IONE & MANN and Castor. Artwork copyright Jane Hayes Greenwood
Reading your description of grief as a prismatic state – where love, pain, gratitude and acceptance can coexist – reminded me of a beloved quote by Rilke: “Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.” When you were working on Weird Weather, did painting become a way of entering that heightened presence? Or did it function more as a space to hold contradiction, where opposing emotional states could sit without needing resolution?
That is a beautiful quote. I would say both, and more. Love and loss really throw you around; they produce a kind of Shakespearean madness, and painting, for me, became a container for all of it – a way to be in a state of heightened presence, to hold emotions that splinter and overlap without needing them to be resolved or in order. At the same time, it was a way to connect with love and beauty, to feel deeply, to process and be grounded, to transform something painful into something creative, to channel, to sublimate, and to experiment and play.
There’s a persistent idea that some of the most beautiful or resonant art is born from life’s most painful experiences, especially profound loss. Do you find that notion reductive, or does it ring true in your own experience?
It can be true. Pain opens you up to depth, intensity and transformation. Equally though, joy, curiosity and wonder are very fertile ground, and they feed and exist in art in ways that are very profound. These things sit on two sides of the same coin and often can’t be separated. For me, creating Weird Weather was motivated by a significant loss, yes, but it was also shaped by a connection to love and so much of what I think is beautiful. When I’m making work, I’m frequently trying to engage with that which I don’t fully understand – the deep, gritty, weird and surprising parts of experience. For me, making is ultimately about embracing all of it and letting it guide the work.
Were there any works in Weird Weather that genuinely surprised you, where you started with one emotional or visual intention but the painting took you somewhere completely different?
The paintings all start with drawings, but before committing to making the paintings I allowed the drawing stage to be very open – many of them took me in unexpected directions. The logic of the works was shaped in part by my connection to landscape and home. The paintings reference the hills of the Pennines where I grew up. Rather than depicting the landscapes literally, I allowed internal and external states to fold into one another, attempting to push bodily sensation through weather and geography.
The larger paintings are a decent scale, so physically they were quite immersive. There is always a dialogue between intention and discovery in the making that keeps the work alive and unpredictable, pushing colour and touch to carry feeling and sensation. I would try things within the paintings and go off in mad directions, often returning to something closer to what I originally intended. But you have to explore and take these flights of fancy to see what comes of it – and the history and remnants of those journeys remain.
Credit Matt Spour courtesy of IONE & MANN and Castor. Artwork copyright Jane Hayes Greenwood
Thinking back to The Witch’s Garden, which engaged deeply with marginalisation, folk knowledge and gendered authority, I’m curious how earlier bodies of work continue to live inside newer ones. Do processes or emotional strategies ever bleed forward, or does each series demand a complete reorientation?
The core is always the same and earlier bodies of work definitely live inside newer ones, even if the surface concerns might feel different.
The Witch’s Garden was similarly motivated by an autobiographical starting point, tracking my experience of trying for and later having children. It was through researching the origins of the love heart symbol that I came across the history (likely fake news) about a now-extinct plant called silphium, which was apparently an aphrodisiac and contraceptive and was said to have a heart-shaped seed. That set me off into researching plants and their histories, which are of course inextricably entangled with our own. Contextually, the research was so rich and fascinating that I couldn’t stop making the paintings – there are about 60 works in the series. These plants and flowers I was painting became containers for emotion, story and history, but I also always saw them anthropomorphically – as characters in their own right. For Weird Weather that gaze has shifted outward toward landscape –there has been a kind of zooming out.
I have always connected to William Blake’s description of double vision – seeing the world as more than it appears, one thing looking like another, or seeming to express something emotionally. Pareidolia is a familiar phenomenon and my children are always pointing things out, saying, “that looks like X.” It’s quite a trippy or childlike way of seeing the world that has always been with me. I think it’s a useful, generative thing to take note of and what is happening inwardly and outwardly often mirror and inform one’s understanding of experience.
Variable Becoming Cyclonic, Oil on canvas, 110 x 140 cm, 2025. Credit Matt Spour courtesy of IONE & MANN and Castor. Artwork copyright Jane Hayes Greenwood
Finally, what is something you wish more people understood about the experience of being an artist?
Well, I was right as a kid –being an artist is a very fun and compelling way to engage with the world! It’s the best thing in so many ways, but as someone who lives in a semi-permanent state of existential awareness, it can also be intense *laughs*! Art takes you to the craziest places and introduces you to amazing people but there is no road map and the path can be tricky to navigate. Artists are constantly balancing creative exploration with practical realities and right now, with a tough economy and arts funding becoming ever harder to access, it can be challenging. Being an artist is not always easy, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Jane Hayes Greenwood’s Weird Weather, presented jointly by Ione & Mann and Castor, is available to view 23 January – 7 March 2026.
Opening hours
Wednesday–Friday: 11am–6pm
Saturday: 12pm–4pm
Tuesday: By appointment only
Location
1st Floor
6 Conduit Street
London W1S 2XE
In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on January 23, 2026:
Lucinda Williams, World’s Gone Wrong
Lucinda Williams sharpens her social commentary on World’s Gone Wrong, which is full of searing protest songs. It includes nine original tracks, as well as a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘So Much Trouble in the World’ featuring a standout appearance from Mavis Staples. “’So Much Trouble In The World’ was a song that hit me right away, and we had been messing around with for a few years,” Williams reflected. “When the new album started to take on a topical nature we knew that we absolutely had to get it recorded. It was a centerpiece of the record and who better to get to sing it with me than Mavis Staples. I am so thrilled that the two of us could finally do something together, and on such an amazing song.” The album was co-produced by Tom Overby and Ray Kennedy.
Megadeth, the thrash metallers’ seventeenth and final studio album, has arrived. It marks their only album with guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, as well as their first since 2009’s Endgame to feature bassist James LoMenzo. In addition to its ten main tracks, it includes two bonus songs: a cover of Metallica’s ‘Ride the Lightning’, which Dave Mustaine helped write before his departure from that band, and ‘Bloodlust’. The singles ‘Let There Be Shred!, ‘I Don’t Care’, and ‘Tipping Point’ preceded the LP.
Northwest singer-songwriter and guitarist Alec Duckart has returned with a new Searows LP, Death in the Business of Whaling. As evocative as its title – taken from Herman Mellville’s Moby-Dick: “Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity” – the album finds Duckart using fiction to abstract the emotions and ideas in his songwriting. “I started letting myself write about whatever I was interested in without worrying about whether it conveyed something personal in an obvious way,” he said in press materials. Duckart decamped to Washington to record the album with producer Trevor Spencer at Way Out Studios.
Victoryland, My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It
My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It is the debut album by Victoryland, the project of Julian McCamman, whose band Blood split up a few months ago. Continuing his collaborative relationship with producer Dan Howard, the album was recorded between Julian’s Bed Stuy basement and Dan’s Williamsburg studio, landing “somewhere between lo-fi and hi-fi production,” per press materials. It arrives on Good English, which is also home to NYC’s bloodsports.
Ari Lennox, Vacancy; Poppy, Empty Hands; Roc Marciano, 656; Louis Tomlinson, How Did I Get Here?; The Format, Boycott Heaven; Van Morrison, Somebody Tried To Sell Me a Bridge; Jo Passed, Away; Katie Tupper, Greyhound; Clare Cooper & Jean-Philippe Gross, Nevers; MIKA, Hyperlove; Julian Lage, Scenes From Above; Emily Manzo, Time in Water.
Jessie Ware is back with a new single called ‘I Could Get Used To This’. The plush, intoxicating track comes paired with a music video directed by directed by Fa & Fon. It’s billed as “the opening statement of a new era.” Check it out below.
“’I Could Get Used To This’ is an invitation into the world of this album,” Ware said in a statement. “I wanted to set the scene of the world that I’m trying to paint in the album; romance, real love, performance, celebration and pleasure (always!) in a garden full of gods and goddesses. I wrote this song with Miranda Cooper, Sophia Brenan and Jon Shave who are legends in British pop music. I’ve always admired Miranda’s work so I’m incredibly glad to have a record with her. First key change I’ve ever done – I think – and exciting start to you hearing more from my work with Jon Shave and Barney Lister amongst the other fantastic collaborators on this project.”
James Blake has announced a new album, Trying Times, his first independent effort after leaving Republic Records. The follow-up to 2023’s Playing Robots into Heaven will be out on March 13 via Good Boy Records. The elegantly eerie new single ‘Death of Love’ is out now, alongside a live performance video by Harrison Adair, featuring the London Welsh Men’s Choir. Check it out below.
Trying Times features contributions from UK rapper Dave and Los Angeles-based vocalist Monica Martin. A few days ago, Blake teased the album via the new website tryingtimes.info, along with the message:
Hi everyone. As a thank you for your support on here, I wanted to share some news with you first. I’ve finished my next record and will be releasing it soon. I’m going to share a song with you and also offer a special first press vinyl edition of the album. The listen & purchase link will be live for 72 hours.
I can’t wait for you the hear the new record, it’s incredibly special.
Trying Times Cover Artwork:
Trying Times Tracklist:
1. Walk Out Music
2. Death of Love
3. I Had a Dream She Took My Hand
4. Trying Times
5. Make Something Up
6. Didn’t Come to Argue [feat. Monica Martin]
7. Doesn’t Just Happen [feat. Dave]
8. Obsession
9. Rest of Your Life
10. Through the High Wire
11. Feel It Again
12. Just a Little Higher
After announcing his fourth album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally last week, Harry Styles has delivered its lead single, ‘Aperture’. The downcast, gradually uplifting track was co-written with and produced by Styles’ frequent collaborator Kid Harpoon. Check it out below.
A new thriller series is keeping Netflix subscribers glued to the screen. Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web, which premiered in mid-January, is currently the most-watched non-English show on the platform, with 5.4 million views during the last week.
The Indian production is also #1 in nine countries where Netflix is available, and fans on social media seem excited for the show to continue. They might just get their wish.
Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Season 2 Release Date
At the time of writing, Netflix hasn’t announced if Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web will return with additional episodes. Still, viewership numbers are solid, and the title isn’t listed as a limited series. While the future looks promising, it all comes down to whether the show’s popularity holds.
“Right now, we believe in doing an ending to every show. So there will be a closure. But if the audience pours in love, and they want to see more of this, then we would love to extend it,” director Raghav Jairath said.
As long as Netflix gives the green light, Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web season 2 could arrive in early 2027.
Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Cast
Emraan Hashmi as Arjun Meena
Sharad Kelkar as Bada Choudhary
Nandish Sandhu as Ravinder Gujjar
Anurag Sinha as Prakash Kumar
Amruta Khanvilkar as Mitali Kamath
Zoya Afroz as Priya Khubchandani
Ujjwal Gaurahha as Govind Belani
Virendra Saxena as Shrikant Saxena
What Could Happen in Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Season 2?
Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web follows Arjun Meena, a customs officer tasked with leading a specialized anti‑smuggling unit at Mumbai’s bustling international airport.
When the government activates a high‑stakes directive to disrupt a sophisticated global smuggling syndicate, Meena assembles a team of reinstated officers known for their integrity and tactical skill. The purpose? To intercept contraband before it crosses international borders. As the investigation deepens, the task force uncovers layers of betrayal within their own ranks, complicating matters.
The show consists of seven episodes, so it’s a fairly quick watch. By the time the end credits roll, viewers get a sense of closure, so you can trust the director’s promise. There are secret ploys, twists, and a dramatic confrontation that wraps up the case.
That said, we’re sure the writers can come up with a fresh problem Meena & company can tackle in Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web season 2. Another smuggling syndicate, perhaps?
Are There Other Shows Like Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web?
Olivia Rodrigo has a new album on the way. The GUTS follow-up is called you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, surprisingly foregoing the four-letter naming convention of her previous albums. It’s out June 12 via Geffen. Here’s everything we know so far.
What has Rodrigo said about it so far?
In a fan newsletter sent on August 11, Rodrigo wrote: “The GUTS world tour is officially over!! thank u 4 making each and every show so special. the end of the GUTS era feels bittersweet, but I’m sooooo excited for all that’s y3t to come!!!! speaking of what’s next…clear ur calendar tomorrow at 9 A.M. P.T. for something special i’ve been working on to celebrate all our GUTS tour memories together.”
More recently, she hinted at a new album in an October 2025 interview with Nylon. “I won’t say too much, but I think 2026 is going to be a busy year for me,” she said. “I’ve been having a lot of fun dreaming things up.” That same month, she confirmed in a promo video for American Express that she’s working on a new album, and in November posted a photo of herself in the studio.
In interviews, Rodrigo has been quite vague about the album’s sonic or thematic direction, talking about experimenting with “new sounds” and “different perspectives.” About the writing process, she told Cosmopolitan last October: “I always find that I’m the most inspired when I can be at home and feel really grounded and comfortable in my surroundings. I didn’t write a ton of stuff that I think will make it into the world while I was on tour. I love writing to get my thoughts out, but I’m not sure any of it was really good. I’ve really been doing most of the meat and potatoes in my writing at my house in LA.”
Upon announcing the album on April 2, she offered this quote: “No matter how hard I try to write love songs they always come out laced with a little melancholy. I am so proud of this record and I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
In an interview with Audacy Check In, Rodrigo shared a little more about the album’s themes. “I think the challenge for me was to write songs about romantic love positively,” she explained. “I think when I set out to write this album, I was really in love – sort of my first ‘big girl’ relationship – [and] writing a song about happiness is a lot harder than writing a song about heartbreak. It was sort of challenging myself to make a love song and also talk about some of the more negative feelings that go along with being in romantic relationships, like longing and yearning and jealousy and missing your partner when they’re away.”
What does the album cover look like?
Do we have the tracklist yet?
Rodrigo didn’t share the tracklist when announcing the album.
Have there been any singles?
‘drop dead’, the first single from the album, was released on April 17. Co-written by Amy Allen, it arrived alongside a music video directed by Petra Collins and filmed at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. The second single, ‘the cure’, came out on May 22.
Has Rodrigo previewed any unreleased songs?
During an intimate, invite-only show at Los Angeles’ The Echo on April 25, Rodrigo offered a taste of the album’s next single, which appears to feature Weyes Blood.
Has Rodrigo released any other music since GUTS?
Fans were expecting some new music from Rodrigo in January after her front page displayed the words “Driver’s License Application for Renewal.” It turned out to be a pretty divisive cover of ‘drivers license’ from David Byrne in honour of SOUR‘s fifth anniversary. She also shared a beautiful rendition of The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book of Love’ for the benefit compilation HELP(2).
Will Olivia Rodrigo tour in support of the new album?
On April 30, Rodrigo announced North American and European tour dates taking place from the fall into 2027. The Unraveled Tour includes support from Grace Ives, Wolf Alice, Devon Again, the Last Dinner Party, and Die Spitz.
Although the text description in Xiao Ge’s work explicitly mentions ‘the body’, it does not present the human body directly. Instead, the artist constructs a poetic metaphor through three ceramic vessels. This choice is not a coincidence. Ceramics have long been closely related to humanity’s pursuit of beauty, refinement, and power, and the vase serves as a proxy for the body due to this charged history. Despite its smooth and sophisticated appearance, the body of the ceramic vessel is born from the tension between contradicting forces. Thrown on the wheel, one hand is placed inside the vessel, pushing outwards, while the other hand is positioned on the outside, stabilising the form to create the curves. Between the outward force expanding the form and subtle pressure compressing the shape, the elegant contour of the vessel emerges. Xiao Ge dwells on this condition of fluidity, malleability, and liminality of the body.
The artist continues to expand on this particular dynamic of the body, positing a hypothetical scenario that imagines the boundless fluidity without the limit of stable form. In Beneath Soft Folds, three scenarios articulate different ways the body continues to morph, constantly negotiating the aesthetic standards, the othering gaze, and unstable identity. Across the three sections, or three acts, the heightened fluidity is materialised through organic matters rooted in and growing out of the vessel’s surface. With accumulating time, crystalline structures accrete onto the ornate vase decorated with vertical ribs and grooves. The crystal proliferates, spreading out to the curves and settling into delicate valleys. The sharp, angular edges of the crystal alter the sleek silhouette of the body, rupturing the rippling surface.
“Beneath Soft Folds”, 2025. Installation view at A Space Gallery. Courtesy of the artist.
Pink corals multiply across the vase, ultimately engulfing it. The colonies of corals refuse to be legible for classification and claim their space through excessive and unpredictable growth. In the final section, a meiping vase—characterised by its simple and graceful shape with rolled rim, small neck, and tapered body—appears. In contrast to its minimal and refined silhouette, vegetation arises from invisible cracks. Soon the vessel transforms into a site, a ground for the bush, mushrooms, and insects to thrive on.
Still Image of “Beneath Soft Folds”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
The three scenarios demonstrate how the body is perpetually in action. As the title Beneath Soft Folds suggests, the artist questions what lies beneath an ostensibly soft exterior of the body. The vases reveal the arduous movements and sustained negotiations that unfold on and under the surface of the body.
Still Image of “Beneath Soft Folds”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
If Barbara Kruger employs the visual language of mass media and direct words to address the viewers and declare the body as the battlefield, Xiao Ge adopts a poetic approach, illustrating the constant battles unfolding on the skin of the body. In Xiao Ge’s practice, the skin is a porous and responsive membrane, living with the pressure, speaking back at the gaze.
Lucinda Williams sharpens her social commentary on 
Northwest singer-songwriter and guitarist Alec Duckart has returned with a new Searows LP, 
My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It
