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CIFRA presents Jakub Janša’s Be Careful Where You Enter

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CIFRA presents Jakub Janša’s Be Careful Where You Enter

CIFRA, a curatorial media art platform, has opened Be Careful Where You Enter, an online solo exhibition by Czech artist Jakub Janša, featuring eight episodes from his long-running project Club of Opportunities. On view till 10 November, the exhibition follows the development of the art series from 2017 to 2024, showing the evolution of Janša’s use of fictional characters, humour and absurdity in the examination of social hierarchy, identity and power.

The exhibition coincides with Janša’s participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale, where he and Selmeci Kocka Jusko are representing the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Club of Opportunities is also a part of their Biennale project, with Janša presenting The Silence of the Mole in the Czech and Slovak pavilion.

Following the Biennale’s opening, critic Jackie Wullschläger highlighted in the Financial Times the artwork as a “comedy film of nostalgia, reproach and flummoxed identity“, adding it to her review of the 2026 edition.

At the focus of the CIFRA exhibition is an unlikely protagonist: a celeriac. Introduced in 2017 in Bowling Bar, the vegetable begins at the bottom of a fictional social hierarchy before becoming the central figure in an increasingly elaborated universe. Over subsequent episodes, Celeriac (and later his alter ego Red Herring) moves through such questions as ambition, class, reinvention and belonging.

The absurdity of the premise gives Janša an opportunity to address more familiar social mechanisms. In 2018, in April Showers Bring May Flowers, young celery roots are tattooed with futures chosen for them in advance. My Name Is Red Herring, from the same year, presents a human-celery hybrid who rejects the narrative of his own origins, only to begin using the mechanisms of power he initially recognised and resisted. In Keeping in Line (2018), Red Herring works at Avocado Bar while aspiring to join the avocados at the top of the vegetable hierarchy.

Later artworks expanded the storytelling beyond individual ambition. By Shame to Pride, created in 2021, Celeriac after having achieved the social mobility he was dreaming about, questioning what has to be left behind in order to enter a new social group.

The most recent artwork in the exhibition, Pumpkinville, created by the artist in 2024, casts Celeriac as a detective working for the fictional Office for the Investigation of False Traditions. His investigation of the Styrian pumpkin leads into a constructed world where traditions, identities and narratives can themselves become products.

All together, the eight episodes showcase almost a decade of Club of Opportunities. Characters change roles and move through the hierarchy, but the structures surrounding them prove harder to escape. Instead of presenting power simply as something imposed from above, Janša analyses how its rules can be internalised and reproduced, including by those who initially tried to resist them.

Jakub Janša’s exhibition follows another recent project presented by CIFRA, In the Shadows of Paradise, curated by British curator and writer David Elliott. Bringing together video works created over the past three decades by 12 artists and collectives from Africa, China, Europe, Japan, Russia and Singapore, the exhibition focuses on changing ideas of paradise through political power, social change, memory, environmental transformation and individual freedom. The project is a part of CIFRA’s wider programme designed to present media art within a curatorial and cultural context.

Album Review: @, ‘Autosmile’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Album Review: @, ‘Autosmile’

Both separately and in unison, Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose seem to inhabit parallel planes of feeling. “Embrace the heat, submit to the cold,” goes a line on ‘Love in the Dark’, from Autosmile, their spell-binding sophomore album and first for 4AD under the moniker @ (pronounced “at”). Trained to the classics, the Mind Palace Music follow-up opens with a “to be or not to be” conundrum before melting the boundaries between dreams and reality, punishment and comfort, infatuation and heartbreak. In one of those dreams, the world even turns to Rose and says, “Whether you are winning or losing it’s all the same/ The music and the joy are both tied to the pain.” As for how the Philadelphia duo processes these dualities, musically their approach hasn’t changed much; though they told me three years ago they were considering recording music in person together now that they were finally based in the same city, they still opted to work on their parts individually. But “in person” and “apart” is another threshold @ tend to erode. Listen to their music at any fidelity and their voices are as inextricably (and inexplicably) linked as their songs, aching but never not lovely. 

1. Bird

Over an instantly beguiling acoustic guitar riff, the “you” that haunts Filipczak’s narrator seems to be the very idea of death, especially when traced by morose strings. But the opening track twists itself enough times to suggest some trepidation over the decision to go instead of waiting for his turn; the chords and harmonies of the chorus have an oddly soothing effect. There’s a warmth to Rose’s vocals the moment they are introduced, though her presence turns uncanny as she sneaks up on the final lines of the second verse, even more so when she proclaims “I will become what I hate.” Snaky, clicking percussion rubs against an electric guitar solo, like flying too close to the sun on wings of rusted metal.

2. Love in the Dark

Familiar guitar chords and sunshiny melodies would have made for a more welcoming introduction to the album, but that’s not how @ like to play the game. Instead, ‘Love in the Dark’ comes in like a morning breeze after a horrible nightmare. Taking the lead this time, Rose is cruising down the highway, spotting “222 Psycho on a license plate.” Her persona has its own intrusive thoughts, though, calling the singer up in poetic terms that seem to describe the song itself: “But hey, memory is a hot breath of air/ Down my neck that’s not soft and not sweet but a dare/ To show you I’m here now.” Filipczak’s backing vocals are loopy and virtually unchanged from Mind Palace Music, but they, too, soften by the end. When she lands on the titular words, Rose’s voice lifts up into a heavenly falsetto, while his is low, reassuring. A playful array of instrumentation rides out the final minute.

3. I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking)

In case the format of the title wasn’t enough of an indication, the duo said they “met our emo threshold with this one,” rhyming as it does “sinking” with “drinking.” But like a ship changing course, it steers into hushed waters containing some of the most poignant lyrics on the album, beginning with the self-consciously on-the-nose line “My style is constantly changing.” On “Symptoms seem to be worsening/ I’m simply not a person,” they sing the word “simply” as if it comes from the same root as “symptom,” rendering the sense of alienation a biological inevitability. 

4. Earthly Love

True to its title, ‘Earthly Love’ is gorgeously down-to-earth and lyrically decipherable compared to everything that surrounds it. But @ don’t pare back their sound without colouring in the margins, adding cello and flute as well backing vocals from Nina Ryser that amplify its vulnerability. 

5. Your Dog

After conversing with the world of dreams on the previous track, the duo are back in the uncanny valley – where “la la la”s rise awkwardly at the start of a scruffy, off-kilter folk tune, and Rose crawls behind Filipczak’s tremorous lead vocals like a phantom. It’s unsteady but full of subtly ingenious details, like the production glitches that seem to scrape the singer’s consciousness clean, bit by bit.

6. Untitled

In casting herself as a little girl that keeps hiding in a dream – a role she inhabits elsewhere on the album – Rose seems to age her voice up, prompting Filipczak to also harmonize in an innocent whisper. Fantastically small, almost illusory in its pop song runtime, it takes us on a ride that darkens only with the “promise of a sweet and distant impossibility,” which triggers Nino Soberon’s cello to summon clouds that dance with the duo’s stretching voices, simultaneously scaling and trembling upward.

7. I’m Not in Pain

The cello now takes center stage, holding down the main riff. Such is the urgency of ‘I’m Not in Pain’ that we even hear real drums for the first time on the record (courtesy of Garrett Burke, the Philly producer known as Gloorp), putting some real weight behind Rose’s possibly self-directed advice: “Put back the barrel of sorrow/ Take stock of everything you have.” A virtuosic guitar solo drags the song out until its layers are peeled back to just bass and cello, worming the hook into your mind for good. 

8. Punish My Mind

Those dynamic rhythms give way to breezily exotic percussion (juxtaposed with actual monkey howls) on ‘Punish My Mind’, a Beach Boys-esque tune with all its surrealist tendencies pushed to the max. “When I try to punish my mind I dream of an alternate timeline,” Rose sings, but no otherworldly realm is capable of retaining her interest like the simple interpersonal math of you ± me. Is the last stream that she sings of at the end one of consciousness, water, or live video? The boundaries are too porous to tell the difference.

9. Judgement Farmer

The 30-second intro sounds like a portal to heaven, though the opening line reveals it to be just a gateway to a reclusive mind. There is some palpable distance between this song and the last, but how could you not tie them together with lines like, “To be with you there are some knots to undo/ The web is frightening, the more you pull the more it tightens.” ‘Judgement Farmer’ offsets its spindly structure with lovely harmonies, supple bass, and (I can only venture) an alternate tuning that seems to foster the chance for growth.

10. Autosmile

For the longest song on the album, the title track seems to glide past in no time. More than that, for a song that’s purportedly about a breakup, ‘Autosmile’ is imbued with immense gratitude for the bittersweet nature of love, its capacity to automate the same smile it has, previously on the album, aged and broken down. I don’t think Rose and Filipczak have ever sung with more conviction than they do the chorus of this song, the regret they almost spit into the consonants of too bad. When Rose says demonology won’t save her, after all, it’s a reminder that, as she put it on ‘Earthly Love’, Regret, Time, and Luck are the real demons. You can’t have the last two without kneeling before the first.

11. Amity

The simplest song to sing along to on the album isn’t quite the sweetest; here, even positive words like “amity” and “constance” carry a heavy shadow. In the pursuit of something enduring, the singer is confronted with an emotional drought, a vacuum of possibilities, the hell of oneself. Except that one self is composed of two voices that, more than anywhere else on Autosmile, sound nearly indistinguishable.

Owen Wilson Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Alexandra Pleșa
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Owen Wilson Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Owen Wilson has been a constant presence on our screens since the late ‘90s. The actor’s charm and laid-back delivery are top-notch, making him a great fit for a wide range of comedies. His dramatic acting chops are equally impressive, and Wilson is also a talented screenwriter.

Given his high profile, his net worth should be substantial by now, right? Here’s what we know about the actor’s earnings.

Owen Wilson Net Worth

In 2026, Owen Wilson’s net worth is estimated to be $70 million.

A big chunk of it is thanks to his extensive Hollywood career. Wilson met filmmaker Wes Anderson in college. Before long, they established a distinctive creative partnership. The actor made his film debut with crime comedy Bottle Rocket in 1996, which he co-wrote with Anderson. Further collaborations include Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. The latter earned him and Anderson an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

During the early period of his career, Wilson also appeared in action thriller Anaconda, science-fiction blockbuster Armageddon, and supernatural horror The Haunting, showcasing his range.

The 2000s, however, were when he gained greater mainstream recognition. He starred opposite Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon and returned for Shanghai Knights. In 2001, he appeared in iconic comedy Zoolander. Moreover, Wilson continued his collaboration with Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and joined successful franchise Meet the Parents.

Wilson reached another career peak with Wedding Crashers, which became a hit and cemented his status as a leading man. In 2006, he voiced Lightning McQueen, the ambitious racing car at the centre of Pixar’s Cars, a role he returned to for related projects. That same year, he starred in You, Me and Dupree and appeared in Night at the Museum. In 2008, he took a more sentimental role in Marley & Me.

From then on, Wilson alternated between commercial comedies and more unusual projects. You might have seen him in The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, How Do You Know, Hall Pass, Midnight in Paris, The Internship, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inherent Vice, She’s Funny That Way, Wonder, or Zoolander 2.

More recently, the actor starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in romantic comedy Marry Me and appeared in anthology The French Dispatch. He also plays Mobius M. Mobius in Marvel TV series Loki and a former professional golfer in Apple TV comedy Stick.

Besides acting and screenwriting, Wilson ventured into producing. He also invests in real estate and various companies.

Owen Wilson Salary

Actor salaries are generally kept secret, but rumours suggest that Wilson could make anything from $1 million for smaller movies like Marmaduke up to $15 million for blockbusters like Little Fockers.

Joining big franchises is also lucrative. Wilson has seen particular success with the Cars animated movies and is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Owen Wilson Highest Grossing Movies

Owen Wilson’s highest-grossing movie as a lead is Cars 2, which made over $562 million worldwide. The Night at the Museum and Meet the Parents films were also big box office hits.

This year, fans could catch Wilson in action comedy Runner, animated movie Charlie the Wonderdog, and Rolling Loud: The Movie. The actor will also appear in sequel Focker-in-Law and the highly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday. Additionally, the second season of Stick premieres on Apple TV in November.

What Legal Standards Truly Define Truck Driver Negligence Cases?

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What Legal Standards Truly Define Truck Driver Negligence Cases?

Greensboro, North Carolina, sits at the crossroads of several major highways, placing passenger vehicles alongside commercial trucks throughout the region. When a collision causes serious injuries, determining what went wrong can become complicated, especially when the truck driver, carrier, and insurer offer different accounts of the events. For someone seeking legal help, the central question is often whether the driver acted as a reasonably careful commercial operator would have under similar circumstances. That inquiry may involve reviewing decisions made before and during the crash, from responding to changing road conditions to maintaining proper control of a large vehicle. 

Legal responsibility also depends on whether the alleged mistake ties directly to the harm suffered. Assessing truck driver negligence in Greensboro therefore calls for a close look at the facts alongside the duties imposed on commercial drivers. This foundation helps injured people understand why these cases require more than pointing to a driving error and how legal standards determine whether compensation may be available.

How Local Claims Are Evaluated

People examining truck driver negligence should focus on the specific conduct that caused the collision. A truck driver’s mistake does not automatically establish liability without proof of a legal duty, a breach, and a causal connection to the injuries.

North Carolina also follows a contributory negligence rule. If an injured person’s own negligence contributed to the crash, the defense may argue that the person cannot recover damages. Insurance companies often raise this issue, making detailed evidence about traffic signals, visibility, speed, vehicle positioning, and driver reactions especially important.

The Four Elements Of Negligence

A negligence claim generally requires proof of four elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Commercial drivers owe other motorists a duty to operate their vehicles with reasonable care and follow applicable safety rules.

A breach occurs when a driver violates that duty. Speeding, unsafe lane changes, distracted driving, impaired driving, and following too closely can support a negligence claim when evidence connects the conduct to the crash.

Causation has two parts: the driver’s conduct must cause the collision, and the collision must cause the claimed injuries or financial losses. Medical records, crash reports, photographs, witness statements, and expert analysis can help establish that connection.

Damages include medical expenses, lost income, property damage, pain, and emotional distress. The injured person must support these losses with records and testimony, not estimates.

Federal Rules Can Supply Important Evidence

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rules govern many aspects of commercial trucking. Hours-of-service requirements limit how long drivers can drive. A driver who exceeds those limits can create evidence of fatigue and rule violations.

Electronic logging device data, dispatch records, fuel receipts, inspection reports, and delivery schedules can show whether a driver had enough rest. A trucking company’s training, supervision, and scheduling records can also reveal whether management encouraged unsafe conduct.

Other evidence can include vehicle inspection records, maintenance files, cargo-loading documents, and onboard data. A prompt investigation helps preserve information before it disappears or becomes harder to obtain.

More Than One Party May Face Liability

The driver is not always the only responsible party. A trucking company may be liable for an employee’s negligence during work-related driving. Separate claims may also involve negligent hiring, inadequate training, unsafe supervision, or poor maintenance.

A cargo loader may bear responsibility when improperly secured or distributed freight causes a rollover or shifts the truck’s balance. A maintenance contractor can face liability when defective repairs contribute to brake failure or another mechanical problem.

A manufacturer may be responsible for a defective vehicle component. Identifying each possible party matters because different records, insurance policies, and legal theories can affect the available recovery.

Gross Negligence And Punitive Damages

Conventional negligence involves a failure to use reasonable care. Gross negligence requires more serious conduct that shows a wanton disregard for others’ safety. Examples can include knowingly allowing an unqualified driver to operate a truck or ignoring repeated safety violations.

Punitive damages serve a different purpose than compensation for medical bills or lost income. North Carolina courts award them in limited circumstances involving particularly egregious conduct. Evidence must support the required legal standard, and a serious injury alone does not automatically justify punitive damages.

Evidence Should Match The Legal Theory

Each allegation needs supporting evidence. A fatigue claim requires records showing driving time, rest periods, dispatch demands, or related conduct. A distracted-driving claim may rely on phone records, witness accounts, surveillance video, or post-crash statements.

Medical documentation should connect the injuries to the collision and show treatment, prognosis, and financial impact. Photographs of the vehicles and roadway can help explain force, direction, and visibility. Preserving these materials early prevents critical gaps in the claim.

Conclusion

Truck driver negligence cases turn on a documented chain linking unsafe conduct to a specific crash and measurable harm. Injured people should preserve photographs, medical records, bills, witness information, and crash-related communications, and avoid making statements that admit fault. Prompt legal review can also help secure electronic logs, maintenance files, dispatch records, and other evidence held by trucking companies. The next practical step is to document the collision and seek advice before signing an insurance settlement.

Expressing Identity Through Prom Style: Beyond the Standard Dress Codes

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Expressing Identity Through Prom Style: Beyond the Standard Dress Codes

Going to prom can be a monumental moment for high school juniors and seniors. But while corsages, A-line dresses, and high heels used to define prom attire, today’s approach to the school year’s biggest dance has shifted. Young women aren’t bound to a tight list of styles, and personal style is taking center stage.

Classic colors and styles are still in vogue, but the best attire choice may look less conventional. Ultimately, good prom attire helps you feel good about yourself. Read on to learn how to express your identity through modern prom style choices.

Prioritize Self-Expression

There’s not one right way to dress for prom. For each person, a different color, cut, or accessory will emerge as the top selection. And at a popular event like prom, you have an opportunity to showcase your creative flair and personal taste.

One student may prefer the boldness of a punchy red tea-length dress. Someone else may want a delicate pink ballgown that channels princess vibes. And another student may be most at home in a classic black A-line dress.

Thankfully, at prom, every style and color can look good when the person wearing it is confident. Students can embrace feathers and sequins for a showier look. Or they can reach for a chiffon suit for another stylish approach to formalwear.

It’s easy for high school students to feel bound to current trends. But prom offers an opportunity to invest in a more personal sense of style. And looking online can be the best place to get started.

SelfMoment prom dresses, for instance, come in a wide range of shapes, colors, and sizes to suit different budgets. Whether you’re looking for a jewel-toned strapless dress or one with a high-neck style, you can find it. Know your preferences, but be open to unique styles to find the perfect match.

Consider a Dress’s Shape

One of the first considerations when choosing a dress is its silhouette. Do you like the idea of a form-fitting sheath dress? Or do you want a flowy ball gown with a broad skirt?

Think about your personal preferences and choose a shape that will help you feel comfortable. After all, you may be eating dinner with friends and then dancing for hours. You want a dress that can help you feel good throughout the night.

For a timeless and flattering style, you can’t go wrong with an A-line dress. On the other hand, a mermaid or sheath dress can spotlight a silhouette more clearly. Because these dresses are more form-fitted, however, dancing can be trickier.

Dresses that stretch to the floor can look dramatic and formal. But shorter dresses may feel less restrictive. Consider whether you want a structured bodice or asymmetrical neckline to make a fashion statement.

It’s always smart to put prospective dresses to the wearability test, too. Move in them, sit in them, and be honest about their comfort. If you’re struggling to move or constantly tugging at something, you may want to choose another dress.

Recognize the Expressiveness of Color

Beyond silhouettes and decorative details, you’ll want to consider the color of your dress. You can play it safe with black and other neutral tones. But if you’ve always loved the idea of a brilliant blue dress, prom is the time to indulge it.

Jewel tones like emerald green look good on everyone. And you’ll create stunning photographs for your scrapbook when donning vivid colors.

You could reach for pinks, yellows, and other warm tones that create a sunny, warm vibe. Or shimmer your way onto the dance floor with metallic silver or gold. For a more neutral or understated look, try champagne, lilac, or blush.

If you’re a bold personality, you may want a saturated orange or ruby red dress. Your dress can capture everyone’s interest, or be a gentle presence on the dance floor.

While you don’t want to feel awkward, it can be helpful to test out prom dress options outside your comfort zone. Try on some colors that are bolder or softer than your general wardrobe preferences. You might be surprised to see which dress you choose.

Introduce the Right Accessories

While the dress is the star of the show, accessories can elevate anyone’s look. From hairstyles to necklaces and clutches, the smaller details can have a big impact.

You may have access to jewelry from a parent or grandparent that could add vintage style to your prom attire. Or perhaps you can add a splash of intensity with strappy sandals or chandelier earrings. A pashmina shawl in an intricate print can be another way to enhance your look.

Don’t feel like you need to add every accessory available. A striking necklace may mean you can choose simpler earrings. Or a fancy updo could mean a simple necklace is a better match.

Sometimes, introducing a new texture or color in a more focused way can be the best decision. One accessory, like a stylish handbag or bracelet, can go a long way. Choose what makes you feel best on the biggest night of the year.

Express Your Identity at Prom

When you’re pulling together your prom attire, make sure your personal sense of style is your priority. Look at different silhouettes and colors, and focus on choosing a dress that helps you feel comfortable. Add an accessory or two to complete the outfit.

Don’t feel obligated to conform to current trends. With careful consideration, you can select prom attire that lets your personality take center stage.

Please, Insert Coin and Become Data: Qu Chen on Data Colonialism

Kalinca Costa Söderlund
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Please, Insert Coin and Become Data: Qu Chen on Data Colonialism

Qu Chen’s On-Chain Persona (2025) reveals how contemporary socio-economic systems process and sort human beings rather than value their psychobiological existence. He does so through an apparently cheerful digital version of postmodern pastiche: high-fidelity avatars; nostalgic audiovisual references to 1980s pop culture; colour-saturated virtual arcades made featuring pixelated urban architecture and tropical landscapes; buildings carrying a parodic reproduction of a corporation’s logo, associated with Ethereum L2 networks for gamified experiences and real-world crypto adoption; Super Mario Bros. question blocks popping out tokens; the blurring of labour and leisure.  

Still Image of “On-Chain Persona”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.

His work points to how the world of blockchain, data authentication and AI marks the emergence of data colonialism. In this new era of exploitation and power relations, we are experiencing the erosion of autonomy, the monetisation of behavioural prediction, and the proletarianisation of emotions, memory, perception and attention — all forms of extractivism. Whilst we may not yet be ready to acknowledge that colonialism has merely changed its mode of operation, we are increasingly aware of our reduction to data, and On-Chain Persona proves so.  

Still Image of “On-Chain Persona”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.

Chen’s video suggests that being ‘stuck on a chair’ in virtual existence is comfortable, yet reminds us that platform dependency is far more than a contemporary habit, harmless addiction, or means of creating work-from-home profit and ambient moods; it is a covert form of control that reduces us to beings as anonymous and disposable as virtual currency.  Behind its jolly aesthetics, Chen’s On-Chain Persona conveys that, within data colonialism, a person’s identity and bodily profile becomes legible only as a set of verifiable data, and that the relationship between the subject and the system is therefore not only technological but also political. What is at stake here is both the subject’s relationship with the technological interface and with the elite that controls the infrastructures in a post-digital society.  

Still Image of “On-Chain Persona”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.

Whilst Marx spoke of the ‘working class’, Chen refers to the ‘generic digital subject’: yesterday’s proletarian was oppressed inside a smoke-belching factory, today’s is subjected to digital extraction through algorithmic mediation. Both forms of exploitation are determined by hegemonic groups that reproduce their dominance through the alienation of the masses, progressively eroding individual autonomy and subsuming the self into the very systems on which it becomes increasingly dependent.  

Still Image of “On-Chain Persona”, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.

Yet, towards the end of his visual narrative, Chen questions today’s dependence on technology to also explore whether the digital persona constitutes a replacement and erasure of the real self, of if it extends the self into new forms of existence. Several CGI child figures in a cobalt-blue environment move the critical framework from the infrastructure to the subject it produces: the sequence conveys that pay-and-reward economy is a machine for generating subjectivities. Is this the birth or the minting of personas?  The video suggests that the commodification of subjectivities does not necessarily confer an autonomous existence upon them: what remains of these digital selves once devices are switched off? Nothing: switch it on and insert the coin again! 

8 Albums Out Today to Listen To: Fontaines D.C., @, The Avalanches, and More

Konstantinos Pappis
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8 Albums Out Today to Listen To: Fontaines D.C., @, The Avalanches, and More

In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on October 16, 2026.

Fontaines D.C., Dopamine Chamber

Dopamine ChamberFontaines D.C. are back with their fifth album, Dopamine Chamber. Expanding on the aesthetics of 2024’s Romance, the new album is similarly luminous, uncanny, and elegantly produced. But further polishing the band’s sound hardly offsets its darkly alluring tendencies; dressing up reality in the throes of the apocalypse, it embraces a widescreen, corrupted intimacy that’s mostly served as a metaphor for frontman Grian Chatten in the past. Ahead of the release, the band shared the singles ‘Marianne’, ‘Tongue’, and the Rosalía collab ‘Where Is Gone?’. Read the full review.

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@, Autosmile

'Autosmile' LP ArtworkStunning and idiosyncratic in equal measure, Autosmile is the sophomore album by the Philadelphia duo @ (pronounced “at-sign”). Marking their first album for 4AD, it follows Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose’s 2024 debut Mind Palace Music. “Neither of us is afraid of being over the top musically…. being unafraid of getting dramatic or comedic lends itself to really emotional moments,” Rose said in press materials. The band previewed the LP with the title track, ‘Bird’, ‘Punish My Mind’, and ‘I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking)’.

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The Avalanches, No Bad Memories

No Bad MemoriesThe Avalanches probe the boundaries between memory and marketing on their fourth album, No Bad Memories. Spanning 31 tracks, the follow-up to 2020’s We Will Always Love You boasts guest spots from Karen O, John Glacier, and Rivers Cuomo, as well collaborations with Barry Can’t Swim, Jamie xx, Loaded Honey, Ryoji Ikeda, Portraits of Tracy, Haruomi Hosono, Khadija Al Hanafi, and Suzanne Ciani. “Our album No Bad Memories is out in the world today,” the group said in a press release. “We’re beyond grateful for the endless enthusiasm and love our music receives after all this time. Thank you for taking the time to listen, we hope you enjoy it!”

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June McDoom, Follow the Light

Follow the Light coverJune McDoom has unveiled her debut album, Follow the Light, via Jagjaguwar. Conjuring a dreamworld with technical precision, the record is meticulously layered, a seamless blend – or rather, careful diffusion – of reggae, dub, and folk elements that manages to be both spacey and tactile in its intimacy. “I’m realizing how much, as an adult, you’re pushed into this work-grind lifestyle that you have to really work against the flow to try and preserve things that are childlike – ways of living that feel more natural,” McDoom said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “I think the record in general inspires you to be more free to explore the things that you’re not encouraged to on the daily, whatever that is, in a loose way.”

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Dummy, do you love the color of the sky?

Dummy do you love the color of the sky coverDummy have followed up 2024’s Free Energy with a new album called do you love the color of the sky?. Touring in support of the Los Angeles band’s last album, which included multiple US runs and two trips to Europe, had a considerable impact on the music; Joe Trainor estimates they “played approximately 113 shows,” with Alex Ewell adding, “and on larger stages than ever before.” While maintaining an “anti-laptop on stage” approach, Trainor notes the band’s live performances will now “involve more tech,” highlighting the boundary-pushing nature of the recordings.

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Sadurn, The Underworld

The Underworld cover artSadurn have returned with their sophomore album, The Underworld, via Run for Cover. Following the band’s 2022 debut album, Radiator, it includes the previously released singles ‘can’t stop’, ‘never tell me’, ‘whole thing’, and ‘the weight’. “Right after we finished Radiator I already had new songs, but the idea that now there was some kind of expectation did change things in a negative way for me,” songwriter G DeGroot explained. “So much of my sense of self had become tied up in the band, I got kind of swept up in the pressure of these internalized ideas about what’s going to be good for you or your life.”

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Sophia Stel, the greatest album of all time

TheGreatestAlbumofAllTimethe greatest album of all time is out now. The debut album by Sophia Stel, that is; the Vancouver songwriter, now signed to A24 Music, produced almost all of it herself, and it’s pretty great. “The album is about believing in yourself and believing in love and is dedicated to my brothers Luke and Royce,” she said in a press release. The dizzying yet introverted record was preceded by the singles ‘I Do’ (which made our list of the best songs of September), ‘Bitches Talk Shit’, ‘Molly in the Club’,  and ‘Now I’ve Got a Lot You Know’.

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Billboard Style, Pull of the Moon

Pull of the MoonBen Guterl (Forth Wanderers) and Dan Howard (Victoryland), who first met over a decade ago, have come through with their debut album as Billboard Style, Pull of the Moon. “This album was made over so many different instances and times in our life,” Howard explained. “It’s an imprint of all the time that we have in our days, and how we structure them and make sense of them, and make meaning out of them. That’s something that we will continue to do forever.” Guterl added: “I feel like you can hear our growth together as friends and as artistic collaborators. And it’s nice to have a stamp of that. You grow with your friends over time, relationships evolve, and there’s not really anything tangible to reflect it. That’s what’s so beautiful about making music, I think, it’s this emotional snapshot.”

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Other albums out today:

Angèle, Instinct; Geologist & Kyle Simon, The Sirens; Two Shell, Infinite; World News, Purgatory; fish narc, Uncle; Rachel Chinouriri, I think I spoke too soon; Lamin Fofana, Corps Perdu; Worldpeace DMT, Stick Around for Tea; Jacques Greene, JG; Mali Obomsawin, Automatic; Holy Motors, Heaven’s Night; Laura Hickli, stranger to myself; Andrew Waslylk & Tommy Perman, House with a Curse.

Zach Bryan Enlists Lana Del Rey on New Song ‘Lies’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Zach Bryan Enlists Lana Del Rey on New Song ‘Lies’

Zach Bryan has released a new EP, Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs, which finds him teaming up with Lana Del Rey on a song called ‘Lies’. Listen to the piano ballad below.

The new EP marks the country star’s first new project since With Heaven On Top came out in January. It features backing vocals from Katy Kirby, while Turnpike Troubadours guest on the song ‘Plainsman’.

Del Rey is still teasing her next record Stove, from which she released ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ in February.

Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan Team Up for New ‘expectations’ Remix

Konstantinos Pappis
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Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan Team Up for New ‘expectations’ Remix

Olivia Rodrigo has recruited Chappell Roan for a remix of ‘expectations’, a highlight from her third album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. In the accompanying video, the two pop stars take part in a gameshow hosted by David Byrne (who covered ‘drivers license’ earlier this year). Watch and listen below.

In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Rodrigo said: “When I wrote ‘expectations’, initially, it was kind of like as a challenge to myself. I wanted to write a mantra song. I felt lots of my songs were like, ‘This is how I feel, blah, blah, blah,’ But I wanted to be like, ‘I want to sing this song every night.’ It’s like Kendrick Lamar, ‘Sit down, be humble,’ it gets in your brain. You know what I mean? It’s a mantra. And so when I made the song, honestly, I was really inspired by Chappell and the attitude and swagger that she had. I think I probably played it for you while we were in the middle of making the record too. And it always felt sort of inspired by you and your songwriting style. So yeah, I was so stoked when she agreed to be on it. It was a dream come true.”

Roan added: “This is obviously my first feature. I’ve never done this before, so it feels perfect to me. I don’t know. I feel like it represents a generation of songwriters that are just really thinking about their lyrics. I felt like with this song, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s so cool that she is putting a pretty difficult concept within the pop song,’ which is my favorite pop songs ever. But it felt so natural to settle in because I was like, ‘This is so real. To have expectations of people is so valid.’ But as for the verse about being set up and stuff, I mean, that was made up. Most of my song is more like a fantasy.”

Anushka Jajodia Designs in Full Color

Abbie Wilson
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Anushka Jajodia Designs in Full Color

Anushka Jajodia’s story starts with color. She grew up noticing heaps of  yellow-gold marigolds at Dadar market,Ganpati pandals going up in every neighborhood, the grey-green sea at Marine Drive, the bright sarees of women. As a designer, illustrator, and facilitator based in Baltimore, Maryland, Jajodia is never at a loss for color. She can walk down a Baltimore street and enjoy its murals on the sides of rowhomes and corner stores and in the plants at the Rawlings Conservatory, from desert cacti to tropical palms. But Mumbai was her starting point. It was where she first learned to see the world as something worth looking at closely.

“Mumbai gave me my first palette,” she recalls. “I was creatively inclined, and my family encouraged it wholeheartedly. I also loved being around people and bringing them joy. Design was where those two loves met.”

Learning to design

Jajodia studied visual communication design at Ecole Intuit Lab in Mumbai, graduating in 2015. During an internship at NH1 Design, an Indian branding and design consultancy, she made a series of colorful cultural windows inspired by cities; from dusty-pink sandstone and indigo walls to red brick with yellow sunburnt arches.

She later spent three years as a lead visual designer at Mentor Together, India’s leading mentoring organization. There she designed websites, apps, curriculum toolkits, and outreach materials for young people in rural Maharashtra and Karnataka, often in Marathi and Kannada. For these projects, she visited villages in Karnataka to understand mentees’ homes, routines, and the reality that many joined mentoring calls on their parents’ phones.

She also did nonprofit illustration work. The Akshara Centre’s annual report was filled with colorful birds and trees. She illustrated Nila and Najam, a picture book about twins who dream beyond gender stereotypes, for The Irrelevant Project.

Yet during these projects, Jajodia encountered a pattern that troubled her. “I kept noticing that the people we designed for were rarely in the room,” she says. “I followed that question all the way to Baltimore and into social design.”

Design inside healthcare

And so the girl who grew up in Mumbai found herself at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She graduated in 2019 with an MA in Social Design and received the school’s Fred Lazarus Leadership for Social Change Award. Through MICA’s Center for Social Design and a collaboration with Johns Hopkins, she became one of the first designers embedded in health research teams.

Since 2022, Jajodia has worked as a designer at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Her work includes design leadership across many different research teams. She has also co-designed an exhibition for Opening Doors to Home Accessibility, turning research into something visitors could walk through and experience.

“At its core, my role is translational,” she says, “turning dense research, complex emotional realities, and layered human experiences into visual narratives and cohesive systems that feel clear, human, and alive.”

Listening before making

Jajodia always begins a project by paying attention. Before she draws any flower, chooses any palette, or sketches a person on a neighborhood front stoop, she asks who the work is for, what they need, and what their days look, sound, and feel like.

The making of any project is playful and unfinished at first: her mind maps things, sketches them out, she fills her ears with music and daydreams. In this way, the best ideas arrive. This is informed by early feedback, and refined. Her illustrations are often penciled at first. Then it becomes vector work in Adobe Illustrator. For softer textures, she draws on her iPad in Procreate or Adobe Fresco.

Color remains her sacred instinct. Orange is her “forever favorite,” with warm pinks and purples close behind. Yet every palette bends toward its audience: calm blue-greens and soft purples for PLAN; colors that speak to both neighbors and funders for Neighborhood Nursing. Nature softens difficult subjects and makes room for recognition.

“A flower in the corner of a page doesn’t make serious work less serious,” she says. “It makes it human.”

One practice, many forms

For Jajodia, design, illustration, music, and portraiture go hand in hand. 

She plays tabla and percussion, which teaches her rhythm and nourishes her soul. She took part in a reading of “Bonbibi and Dakshin Ray,” a play rooted in Bengali folklore from the Sundarbans, presented by Vital Matters in Baltimore as part of Climate Change Theatre Action. Jajobia makes colorful, nature-filled portraits for pleasure.

In Baltimore, that impulse has become communal. She organized a monthly creative series with artists, healers, and visionaries, built around music, healing, storytelling, belonging, and play. 

What’s next?

Jajodia wants to build work where color, care, and community meet, but she wants to make it bigger, bolder and more alive. She hopes to create more exhibitions, installations, and immersive experiences that invite people into research and social issues.

A mural is high on her list of goals: she envisions a large, colorful public artwork, full of people and nature, that a neighborhood can live alongside. She also wants to bring hand-drawn, nature-filled illustrations into clinical spaces, so people encounter warmth where they expect paperwork. She loves to travel, and some places have moved her deeply, from Rajasthan’s dunes, and New Mexico’s desert, to Barcelona’s vibe.

Above all she is inspired by the natural world. “We are all nature,” she says. It is the idea Jajodia returns to again and again. Her home is full of roots, branches, trees, birds, mountains, wind, and sky.

“I’ve even learned to make my own paper, pressing turmeric and flowers into it,” she says. “Remembering that we are part of nature keeps my work grounded, playful and alive.”

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