An electric tankless heater can save floor area, limit standby heat loss, and supply hot water during active use. Yet performance depends on demand, electrical service, inlet temperature, and fixture timing. A sound purchase begins with flow calculations, not guesswork. Buyers should review temperature rise, installation limits, maintenance needs, and household routines before choosing equipment, because weak showers or panel upgrades often trace back to sizing errors.
Start With Demand
Sizing should begin with a plain fixture inventory, especially during the busiest hour. One shower plus a kitchen sink can outpace a small unit. Add laundry or a dishwasher, and recovery margins shrink quickly. Homeowners canread more about electric tankless options, model ranges, whole-home uses, and specialized applications before comparing those needs with local inlet temperatures.
Flow Rate Basics
Flow rate tells buyers how many gallons the unit can heat each minute. A lavatory faucet draws far less than a showerhead or clothes washer. Published ratings assume certain inlet temperatures, so climate changes the result. Cold supply lines reduce output, while warmer regions allow stronger delivery. The proper target is peak demand, since average use hides busy morning patterns.
Temperature Rise
Temperature rise measures the difference between incoming supply and desired outlet heat. If ground water enters at 45 degrees and fixtures need 105 degrees, the equipment must add 60 degrees. Higher rises lower available flow. This calculation matters more than storage volume, because tankless systems hold no reserve. Regional ground-water data should guide every sizing choice.
Electrical Capacity
Many electric tankless systems require dedicated circuits, larger conductors, and sufficient panel space. Whole-home models may need several breakers. Older properties sometimes require service upgrades before installation can proceed. That electrical work can reshape the budget. A licensed electrician should verify voltage, amperage, wire gauge, breaker layout, and code requirements. Assumptions here can create delays or safety hazards.
Whole-Home or Point-Use
A whole-home system serves several fixtures from one central position. It can replace a conventional tank while freeing storage space. A point-use model sits near a sink, bathroom, or remote fixture. That location can shorten wait times and reduce cooled water sitting in pipes. The right approach depends on pipe length, fixture count, and household routines.
Installation Location
Tankless equipment is compact, but placement still deserves care. The wall must support the unit, allow safe clearances, and permit direct electrical routing. Service access should remain open for inspections, flushing, and repairs. Shorter pipe runs often improve response at nearby fixtures. Utility rooms, garages, basements, and bathrooms may work when local code and product instructions allow them.
Efficiency and Costs
Electric tankless systems reduce standby loss because heating occurs during active demand. That can lower wasted energy compared with keeping stored water hot all day. Operating cost still depends on utility rates, usage volume, and required temperature lift. Installation may rise sharply if panel work is needed. Buyers should compare equipment price, labor, electrical upgrades, and expected consumption together.
Comfort Expectations
Comfort depends on honest sizing. An undersized unit may produce warm water, yet flow can fall when several fixtures run. Back-to-back showers can expose those limits quickly. Properly matched equipment should deliver stable output within its rated range. Household schedules, showerhead flow, inlet temperature, and appliance timing all influence how the system feels during daily use.
Maintenance Needs
Electric tankless models still need routine care, even without a storage tank. Mineral scale can form inside heating chambers, especially where hard water is common. Flushing intervals depend on local quality and manufacturer guidance. Filters or softening systems may protect performance in scale-prone areas. Clear access helps technicians service elements, screens, and connections without disturbing nearby finishes.
Water Quality
Hard water can impair many heating systems. Calcium and magnesium deposits coat internal surfaces and reduce heat transfer. Tankless units may be sensitive because water moves through narrow heating channels. A basic hardness test gives useful information before purchase. In high-mineral areas, treatment equipment can reduce scale formation, protect flow, and lower service frequency over time.
Rebates and Warranty
Some utilities offer rebates for efficient water-heating equipment. Rules vary by address, model, installer, and purchase date. Buyers should confirm eligibility before ordering, since forms may require product numbers, invoices, or contractor details. Warranty terms also deserve careful review. Coverage may differ for parts, heating elements, and labor. Registration keeps ownership records organized if service becomes necessary.
Conclusion
Buying an electric tankless heater should begin with measured demand, electrical review, and local temperature data. Flow rate, temperature rise, fixture timing, and panel capacity determine whether daily use will feel steady. Installation access, water quality, warranty terms, and rebate rules also affect long-term value. With careful sizing and qualified setup, many homes can gain compact, efficient hot water without relying on a storage tank.
The moment before you step on stage can be electric. For many artists, musicians, and performers, that energy is a mix of excitement and pure, unadulterated fear. A racing heart, sweaty palms, and a mind that suddenly goes blank are all classic signs of performance anxiety. While it can feel isolating, this experience is incredibly common and doesn’t have to derail your creative expression. Learning to manage these nerves naturally can transform them from a source of dread into a powerful part of your pre-show ritual.
The Spotlight’s Shadow
Performance anxiety, or stage fright, is just your body’s natural response to being in the spotlight. It’s a type of social anxiety where the fear of being judged or making a mistake kicks off a fight-or-flight reaction. This can show up physically with a shaky voice, trembling hands, or shortness of breath. Mentally, it might feel like a fog rolling into your brain, making it hard to remember lyrics, lines, or chords you’ve practised a thousand times.
It’s a feeling that affects everyone, from the lead singer of a local band to seasoned actors on opening night. The trick isn’t to get rid of this feeling completely, but to understand it and build tools to keep it in check. There are many practical tips for battling stage fright that help you shift your mindset from fear to controlled energy.
Mindfulness for Performers
Mindfulness is one of the most powerful ways to handle pre-show jitters. When your mind starts racing with “what if” scenarios, bringing yourself back to the present moment can stop the anxiety spiral. Simple breathing exercises are a great place to start. Try ‘box breathing’: breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, breathe out for four, and hold again for four. Doing this for a few minutes can slow your heart rate and calm your nervous system.
Visualisation is another helpful technique. Instead of imagining things going wrong, take a few quiet moments to picture the performance going exactly as you want. See yourself hitting every note, delivering every line with confidence, and feeling the audience’s positive energy. This mental rehearsal helps build confidence and creates a good feeling about performing.
Natural Aids for Calm and Focus
Beyond mental tricks, many performers use natural aids to help settle their nerves. Simple rituals like sipping on a calming herbal tea, such as chamomile or peppermint, can be a soothing part of your pre-show routine. Certain supplements are also popular for their calming effects. Magnesium, for example, is known to help muscles relax and support nervous system function, which can be useful when anxiety makes your body tense.
For those looking for plant-based wellness options, a quality CBD oil range offers cannabidiol in a liquid format that’s easy to incorporate into a daily routine. Some performers choose CBD oils because they’re looking to support an overall sense of balance and well-being as part of their preparation, rather than relying solely on stimulants or quick fixes before a show. Used alongside healthy habits such as quality sleep, good nutrition, and mindfulness, they can become one element of a more intentional approach to pre-performance wellness.
Physical Prep for Big Gigs
How you treat your body before a performance really impacts your mental state. Getting enough rest is crucial. Not sleeping enough can make anxiety worse and mess with your thinking, which is the last thing you need before a big gig. Aim for a solid eight hours of sleep the night before. Your diet matters too. Avoid too much caffeine, sugar, and heavy foods on the day of the show, as they can cause energy crashes or make you feel jumpy. Instead, eat a balanced meal with complex carbs and protein a few hours before you go on.
Gentle physical activity can also help. A brisk walk, some light stretching, or a yoga session can release built-up tension from your muscles. For musicians and singers, specific warm-ups are key not just for how well you perform, but also for your confidence. Knowing your body is ready helps you trust that it will do what you need it to when the pressure is on. Learning how to overcome performance anxiety often means creating a complete pre-show routine that takes care of both your mind and body.
Post-Performance Wind Down
The adrenaline rush doesn’t just stop when the curtain falls. Coming down from a performance high can be just as tough as getting ready for it. Instead of scrolling through your phone or heading straight to a noisy afterparty, give yourself time to unwind. Create a post-show ritual that tells your body and mind it’s time to relax.
This could be as simple as some gentle stretches to release any leftover physical tension. A warm bath with Epsom salts can do wonders for sore muscles and a busy mind. Journaling is another great way to process the experience; write down how you felt, what went well, and what you learned. This reflection can help you wrap up the performance, allowing you to rest and recover properly before your next one.
Managing performance anxiety is a personal journey, and what works for one artist might not work for another. The goal is to build a toolkit of strategies that help you feel grounded and in control, so you can connect with your audience and share your passion freely.
Walk through almost any European degree show this summer and you will notice something that would have looked unfashionable a decade ago: painters working from life, in daylight, with visible brushwork and no apparent embarrassment about it. It is not a revival in the costume-drama sense — nobody is painting haystacks. It is a return to a set of questions a group of Parisians asked in 1874, questions the art world has spent much of the last fifty years treating as long since settled.
The argument that started in a photographer’s studio
When the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Nadar’s former studio on the Boulevard des Capucines in April 1874, the provocation was not the subject matter. It was the refusal to hide the making. Paint stayed visible as paint. Edges stayed unresolved. The canvas admitted that a person had stood in front of it, working fast, in changing light, and had stopped before everything was tidy.
That refusal is the part that has aged best. Every generation since has found its own reason to pick it up again, and the current one has a reason nobody before it had: for the first time, convincing images can be produced without anyone standing in front of anything at all.
Painting as evidence
Ask a graduating painter why they still drag oils outdoors and the answer is rarely about tradition. It is about proof. A generated image can imitate a brushstroke perfectly, but it cannot have been somewhere. The ridge of impasto that catches the light from one side of a room and vanishes from the other is not a style choice. It is the record of a decision made at a particular moment, at a particular speed, by someone who could have decided otherwise.
This is why so much recent student work leans into the physical evidence of its own making: thicker paint, larger gestures, canvases left deliberately unvarnished so the surface keeps its texture under gallery lighting. It is an argument about authorship, made in material rather than in a statement pinned to the wall.
The light problem, revisited
The technical difficulty that occupied Monet, Morisot and Pissarro has not gone anywhere. Light changes faster than paint dries. Working outdoors still means accepting that the subject will have moved on before the picture is finished, and that the painting therefore has to be about the encounter rather than about the thing itself. Everything that follows from that — the shorthand marks, the colour decided in seconds, the unfinished corners — follows from a practical constraint, not a manifesto.
What has changed is where the encounter happens. Contemporary work in this idiom is as likely to be set in a launderette at seven in the morning, a bus window in November or a supermarket car park under sodium lights as it is in a garden in Giverny. The method survived intact. The subject matter simply caught up with the century.
Where the work actually comes from now
Museums have a habit of making Impressionism feel like a closed chapter, permanently priced out of reach. The living version is considerably easier to find. Art academies across Europe graduate thousands of painters every year, and a substantial share of them work in exactly this register. Degree shows, open studios and the platforms that aggregate them are where most of this work first changes hands, and where a great deal of the contemporary art for sale at the lower end of the market originates, usually well before any gallery has taken an interest.
Prices at that stage reflect the artist’s stage of career rather than the quality of the work. That is an uncomfortable truth about how the art market functions, and a genuinely useful one for anyone paying attention early.
Buying at the start of a career
There is a difference between decorating a wall and taking a position on an artist. Most people buying their first painting are doing the former, which is entirely legitimate and needs no justification. But for those who want to invest in art in any serious sense, the graduate segment is where the arithmetic is least hostile: the entry price is low, the work is original rather than editioned, and the field is still wide enough that individual judgement counts for something.
The caveats are real and worth stating plainly. Most emerging painters will not have a market in ten years, and nobody can tell you in advance which ones will. What you can do is buy work you would be content to live with regardless of what happens to its value — which, as it happens, is also the only filter anyone has ever found that reliably works.
Not nostalgia, but method
It would be easy to read all of this as a retreat, a generation reaching backwards because the present is uncomfortable. That reading misses what is actually being borrowed. Nobody is copying the palette of 1874. What is being taken up again is a working method: go outside, look hard, work quickly, and let the picture show how it was built.
That method was radical once because it insisted painting was an act rather than an object. It is being picked up again for precisely the same reason, in a decade when the difference between the two has stopped being obvious to anyone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is contemporary impressionist painting the same thing as the 19th-century movement?
No. The historical movement was a specific group working in and around Paris in the 1870s and 1880s. What contemporary painters borrow is the working method — painting from direct observation, in changing light, leaving the brushwork visible — rather than the subject matter or the palette.
What should I look for when buying a painting by a graduating artist?
Look at the surface in raking light: real oil or acrylic has physical texture a print cannot reproduce. Ask what the work is painted on and whether it has been varnished. And ask about the specific painting rather than the artist’s practice in general — the answer tells you how considered it is.
How are prices set at degree shows?
Usually by the artist, and usually on the basis of size, materials and time invested rather than market demand, because at that point there is no market to refer to. This is why the same quality of work can carry very different prices from one stand to the next.
Does it still count as painting from life if the artist works from photographs?
Many painters use photographs as reference and always have — the practice is older than the camera-shy reputation suggests. What changes is the quality of attention. Work built entirely from a screen tends to flatten the colour relationships that only become visible when you stand in front of something for two hours.
Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? Ano ang pangalan mo? Both mean “What is your name? One in Mandarin and another in Filipino. It took me over a month in college to learn basic Mandarin. As for Filipino, it’s my native language. And the English? The Philippines is essentially an ESL country. In my journey of learning a new language, one thing is for sure. It’s hard. TheUniversity of North Carolina even said that “Learning a language is a complex, time-intensive task that requires dedication, persistence, and hard work.“ But nowadays, AI tools for language learning have made the journey far more accessible than any textbook ever could.
WithAI tools, anyone can learn from virtual tutors, receive instant pronunciation feedback, and practice realistic conversations anytime they want. The only problem? Dozens of AI-powered language apps claim to be the fastest path to fluency. And this article provides the solution. It goes straight to the must-haves that approach language learning in different ways, so you can pick the one that matches how you actually learn.
Top Five Best AI Tools for Language Learning
Duolingo
No list of language-learning tools would be truly complete without Duolingo. As one of the most recognizable language-learning platforms, it now also features notable AI upgrades. There’s a new Video Call feature that lets users converse with Lily. It provides real-time corrections and translations. Other than that, Duolingo still offers bite-sized lessons, adaptive difficulty, and streak-based motivation. These are not just research-backed methods; they also make lessons feel less overwhelming and build habitual learning.
Key Features:
Learning to read, speak, understand, and write a language
Supports over 20 international languages
Challenge-based and game-like approach to learning
Pricing:
Free Package
Super Package – $13.99 per month
Duolingo Max Package – $29.99 per month
Super Family Package – $119.99 per year
Real Use Case:
Duolingo can help with the struggles of going on avacation to a foreign land. People can use it to practice asking for directions, checking into hotels, and ordering food.
Speak
Image Credit: Speak
Speak banks on one solid philosophy: talk from lesson one instead of studying before users speak. It calls it the three-step Speak Method. It all starts with patterns and phrases used in real situations. Once the foundation is established, repetition helps make talking in the language feel natural. To bring everything together, the Speak Tutor feature helps with the application. Here, users receive instant corrections on pronunciation, grammar, and sentence structure. An approach that feels closer to a real conversation.
Key Features:
Learning method built by language education experts
Focusing on conversational language, not textbook sentences
Supports around 10 diverse languages
Pricing:
Free Trial
Premium Package – $6.99 per month
Premium Plus Package – $13.74 per month
Real Use Case:
Relocating overseas for work can be tough. But with Speak, employees can get guided by real-life scenarios. They’ll start producing spoken sentences from the get-go. This helps rehearseworkplace conversations and interactions.
Praktika
Want to learn languages like having a private tutor? Praktika is the answer. This tool leans on AI tutors for guided conversation practice. It stands out for lowering the intimidation factor. How? Praktika starts the lesson in a user’s native language. Plus, it can tailor a personal study plan based on specific preferences and progress. The experience is also bundled with actionable insights through real-time suggestions and feedback. It covers speaking, reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary.
Key Features:
Adjustable feedback tone and intensity
Personalized speaking exercises
AI tutors with different teaching styles and personalities
Pricing:
Free Trial
Paid Package – $8 per month
Real Use Case:
Praktika can help a retiree rebuild confidence lost since high school. Like using AI tutors to create structured learning paths ahead of a family visit to Italy.
Langua
Image Credit: Langua
Langua is designed for learners who already know some basics and want to become more fluent. Users get to have AI conversations with voices cloned from actual native speakers. The path to fluency is also customizable. That means users can choose the nature of every conversation. Debates. Discussions. Role plays. What’s more, every mistake becomes a learning opportunity thanks to diverse feedback. This can take the form of written or verbal corrections with explanations, or a detailed report after each chat.
Key Features:
Supports learning of more than 15 languages with AI
Dedicated features to speed up vocabulary learning
Immersive practice with translations and usage examples
Pricing:
Free Package
Standard Package – $12.50 per month (billed annually)
Unlimited Package – $16.67 per month (billed annually)
Real Use Case:
A family moving to Spain can practice with Langua. Each member can make use of the AI conversations to get ready for everyday routines before arriving. This way, the transition is much less intimidating.
ELSA Speak
English remains the most used language worldwide. So it only makes sense that language learning involves building fluency in it. With ELSA Speak, users are sure to get the approach that fits them in doing so. The AI customizes every lesson to the goals, levels, preferences, and progress. And since ELSA Speak is scalable, the English coaching can also be tailored to a specific industry. It also comes with the standard language-learning features. Interactive AI conversations, instant feedback, and progress tracking.
Key Features:
Bilingual AI tutor for a smoother transition
Speech Analyzer for checking fluency, intonation, pronunciation, and vocabulary
Conversations across different scenarios
Pricing:
Free Package
Business Package – Custom Pricing
School Package – Custom Pricing
Real Use Case:
Healthcare professionals preparing to work with international patients can tap into ELSA Speak. It can help them improve pronunciation and speaking clarity. All before communicating in real clinical settings.
Choosing the Essential AI Tools for Language Learning in 2026
Carrying around phrasebooks. Filling notebooks with vocabulary lists. Hoping you’d eventually get the chance to practice with a native speaker. In 2026, learners can stop relying on these practices to approach language learning. AI tools for language learning redefined the road to language fluency.
But here’s the real deal. It won’t help to just bet everything on one. Why? Because there’s no definitive winner here. There are only the picks that align with your learning style and objectives. Duolingo for daily habit-building. Speak develops conversational confidence. Praktika recreates the experience of working with a personal tutor. Langua for achieving natural fluency. ELSA Speak provides detailed speech analysis.
So the smartest approach is often building a stack of tools. Think of it as a learning system. Each platform excels in a different area.
There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Wednesday, August 5, 2026.
Weezer – ‘C.E.O.’
On their latest single, Weezer grapple with “the passage of time and the pressures of trying to meet the demands of your own inner C.E.O.,” according to a press release. So the track, which follows the Wednesday-assisted ‘We Might As Well Be Strangers’ and ‘Shine Again’, comes paired with a music video that finds the band going back in time, tagging along Tony Hawk, Curry Barker, Dax Flame, Chit, Rob Riggle, Rob Huebel, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. The clip was directed by Brendan Walter and Jasper Graham.
This Is Lorelei – ‘Oh No Now My’
‘Billy Came Back’, the first single from This Is Lorelei’s new album The Singer in My Band, made our list of the best songs of June. Today, Nate Amos is back with another track, the equally anthemic if slightly more off-kilter ‘Oh No Now My’, describing it as “a song that ate itself – there were 3 versions of it before it landed here, where it has nothing in common with the original. I think it’s good but it’s hard to sing. I hope you like it.”
Dawn Richard – ‘Enough’
Dawn Richard has announced a new album, Creole Culture. Out October 9 via Merge, it features gusts spots from Big Freedia, Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, and Richard’s father Frank Richard. The vibrant lead single ‘Enough’ is about “unlearning the lie that your value has to be earned,” according to Richard. “Sometimes the greatest act of resistance is believing you were always worthy.”
Sleep – ‘The Morrisist’
Sleep’s first album in 8 years, the cheekily titled Hempispheres, is on the way. Along with the news, they’ve previewed the five-track LP with ‘The Morrisist’, which follows June’s ‘Have Spacesuit Will Travel’.
Asher White – ‘Stage Diva’
Asher White describes ‘Stage Dive’, the jangly, mesmerizing new single off her forthcoming Love Aggregates, as “a tongue-in-cheek speculative fantasy of fame and fortune wherein I admit to feeling a little uncertain about the ‘Point; of developing a pop music enterprise; whether it reflects or belies a true love of the Scene and the Community; what the threshold of public perception is and how it may only be masturbatory ego meglomania. Like if you’re pulling up the DIY show and leaving before it’s over, for example. “I used to watch you shave…” is about how I once communed with myself while shaving as a meditative workshop in gender dysphoria and vulnerability but as of last year I now only do it in the shower, blindly, where I don’t have to see myself. Musically I was thinking: ‘iI would like to be in Alvvays.'”
Marci – ‘Liquid Heartbeat’
Marci – the project of TOPS’ Marta Cikojevic – has dropped ‘Liquid Heartbeat’, the latest offering from her forthcoming album, Mask Lady and Late Night Girl. It arrives alongside an Elliot Weaver-directed video.
Jacques Greene – ‘Presence’
Jacques Greene has announced a new album, jg, arriving October 16. “This record moves away from concepts and follows an intuition for places where I wanted to be and where I would be wanted,” Greene commented. Today, he’s shared ‘Presence’, which follows the umru-assisted ‘What They Say’.
Devil Master – ‘Death Anthem’
Theatrical psych-metal outfit Devil Master have unleashed ‘Death Anthem’, the latest preview of their forthcoming Bloody Dreams. It’s “an homage eulogy to G.I.S.M. – our label mates with visionary Sakevi Yokohama having passed on August 23 2023, and his cohort Randy Uchida in 2001,” according to ringleader Darkest Prince. “Lyrically you can hear our calls to Satan, Dionysus and Kali respectively! Fangs to Eva and crew for the video.”
BODEGA – ‘Weather Me’
NYC quintet BODEGA have previewed their fourth LP, All Inside Aquarium, with a funky, infectious track called ‘Weather Me’. “This is a track about living in an information kaleidoscope full of everyday grievances alongside very real problems,” vocalist and percussionist Nikki Belfiglio explained. “If you don’t know who or what to prioritize, this kaleidoscope can fracture your everyday existence. You must stand strong and weather the current.”
Sam Burton – ‘I’m a Stranger’
Palestinian-American musician Sam Burton has signed to Captured Tracks and announced his first album for the label, Fairweather Friend, arriving October 30. Today, the Palestinian-American musician has shared the poignant lead single ‘I’m a Stranger’. “The song sits somewhere between nostalgia and alienation,” Burton reflected. “It’s more of a feeling than a statement. There is no home to go back to.”
About a year ago, Daisy the Great responded to a request to do a cover of “any Frankie Cosmos song” in their signature hocket style. They shared their take on ‘Fool’, to which Frankie Cosmos, who had posted the original comment, replied, “HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!” Both bands had recently celebrated the release of their latest albums, Rubber Teeth Talk and Different Talking – release-day twins, in fact – so there was something fitting about Mina Walker and Kelley Dugan singing the lines, “I thought we could eat bread/ I thought we could talk.” (Eating bread, it turns out, might be a good idea after a bunch of talking. Read on for more vocal loss hacks.) The Greta Kline-led band has had a formative influence on Mina Walker and Kelley Dugan, which became clear when the latter found herself singing along to every word at Frankie Cosmos’ recent New York show celebrating the 10th anniversary of Next Thing.
Kline had only just spent time with the duo in the studio, helping expand the world of Rubber Teeth Talk by singing one of their songs. Their collaborative version of ‘Dog’ opens The Rubber Teeth Talk With Friends, which features covers, reworkings, and remixes of the album’s songs by the likes of Harmony Tividad, Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Kraus, Babehoven, and more. For the latest installment of our In Conversation series, Daisy the Great and Frankie Cosmos’ Greta Kline hopped on Zoom to talk about touring, games, and more.
We were talking a little bit with Greta about how it’s been a year since we had our conversation around Different Talking. Mina and Kelley, how have you taken in the past year since your record came out?
Mina Walker: The years are getting shorter and shorter, it seems. I was talking about something that was six years ago, and I was like, I really remember it, and I was the same age as I am now, in my head.
Greta Kline: Yeah, it’s like, I wonder what traumatizing thing happened six years ago.
MW: [laughs] Stopped all of our growth.
GK: It’s interesting, whenever I talk to people who don’t tour who aren’t in the music world at all, and they’re just hearing somebody else’s perspective, they’re like, “That must be really weird, to sleep in a different bed every night.” You’re like, “Oh, I forgot that it’s a really strange way to measure time.”
MW: Yeah, touring is weird.
GK: When did you guys get back?
MK: Last week.
GK: You still jet-lagged?
Kelley Dugan: I don’t think I’m jet-lagged anymore. It’s interesting because I got a dog, so I got back from China, and I was very tired in the middle of the days. But also, my little baby boy wakes up at 5am, so I’m also ruined from that. I was like, “Am I tired in the middle of the day because of China, or because I’m a working mother and I have a lot on my plate?” I think it’s probably all of it.
MW: The week we got back, I was tired the whole time. For two nights in a row, I slept 12:00-10:00, and I was like, “This is amazing.” I’m a sleeping person, and I’m not usually a sleeping person. Usually, I’m an insomniac. And then last night, I stayed up till 4:30. I had no reason to. But I think that was just a glitch, and I’m back.
GK: I have a friend that says about jet lag, “The time is the time.” It’s like a mantra to get over jet lag.
MW: That’s so true. And you can always nap. Well, you can’t always nap, but if you have to fall asleep, just do it. If you’re at work, fall asleep. [laughs] Who cares?
I looked it up and realized that Different Talking and Rubber Teeth Talk actually came out on the same day.
KD: I didn’t even know that.
Did they not? June 27th?
GK: That’s my release date.
MW: Oh my god.
KD: That’s crazy.
MW: And they both have the word “talk” in the title.
GK: That’s true.
GK: And we’re all exactly the same age?
MW: We are. Were you born in ‘94? [Greta nods] The Daisy the Great account just got an email from Celebrity Birthdays, and it was like, “What is the age of Daisy the Great? We’re trying to update the age of Daisy the Great.” And I was like, “Well, she’s probably 10 years old.”
GK: That’s funny. It’s crazy that our albums came out the same day. Do you guys remember that day?
MW: Let me think about it.
GK: Actually, I can look at my log of things that I did every single day.
MW: Your photos?
GK: No, I have a thing where, every single day, I send my friend an email at the end of the day, we each say four things that we did. I feel like I probably just had a bunch of really stupid, no offence, social media tasks to do. It’s always like, “And don’t forget to do the 17 different websites.”
MW: Yeah, that kind of ruins the big day.
GK: Oh, I played a Lexie [Greta’s project with Alex Bailey and Doug Bleichner of Warehouse] show at TV EYE with All Dogs, and I had arepas for dinner.
KD: Love that. I think we were actually doing an in-store in DC. I think we weren’t here.
MW: But this is what happened, girl. On June 26th, we were at the Palace bar in Greenpoint, and we had them play the album over the speakers at midnight when it came out.
KD: But it was also someone’s birthday party who wasn’t us, and we didn’t really play the album very loudly, because we didn’t want to ruin this girl’s birthday.
MW: She loved it, though.
KD: I think she loved it too, but everyone was still talking when a new song would come on.
MW: It’s so crazy to have a listening party at a bar. But we had all our friends there, we had a cake with a picture of the album on it, we danced.
GK: What was the song that you danced to?
KD: ‘Lemon Seeds’, probably?
MW: Also, I have to say an album release is kind of more important than a birthday party, because you have a birthday party every year.
KD: Right.
GK: You didn’t do anything to earn a birthday.
MW: No, you just have it. Like, “You’re, what, 27 now, that’s great.”
KD: But this album is one. Is zero.
MW: This is literally a birth happening at the Palace.
GK: Although… There’s something kind of radical about loving your birthday, I think.
KD: I can never get behind doing a big birthday party.
MW: Kelley does not do her birthday.
KD: I hang out with my mom.
MW: And you know what? Kelley’s birthday is in two weeks, and she’s not gonna hang out with me.
KD: Totally. [laughs] I have plans with my mom.
GK: How are you guys feeling with your deluxe album out?
KD: It feels great. A lot of people ask us, “And are you guys gonna tour the album?”
GK: Yeah, with our 10 closest friends.
KD: And people will say, “You’re about to go on tour, are you playing the new album?” And we’re like, “Well, the new album is played by a lot of other people.” We should just impersonate the people who have performed it now. But I think that it has unlocked something, because I don’t really like listening to the music, usually. I’m not a casual listener of my own music. But I like to listen to this album. I’m giving myself permission to like it.
MW: Yeah, I think so too. It takes away the kind of self-judgment side of releasing music, because I’m like, “If people like it or not, I didn’t really make it.” [laughs] I like listening to it, so I’m not listening to it being like, “Do I like myself or not?” I’m listening to it being like, “I made this with a bunch of friends, and I love listening to it, because I admire everybody on it.”
KD: It’s not like we spent months on every song, so I feel like I’m still hearing things. When we put out a normal record, I know every little second.
MW: Also, I like the songs a lot from the Rubber Teeth Talk, and I really like hearing them in this way. We compiled them all just before it came out, so I’m still hearing new stuff in everything.
KD: I feel like some of them, we worked on less. With ‘Dog’, the three of us were deep in it together, but some of them, people would just send us something, and we would sing over it, but we had a lot less room time.
GK: So were you not part of the mixing for all of the songs?
KD: Nope.
GK: Were there any songs that you didn’t even give mixing notes to?
MW: Most of them.
KD: Whoa. We really collabed.
MW: We mixed with Benét’s [‘Rest of My Life’], because Benét came here, and we produced that out here. Matt [Lau], our guitarist, mixed it, and we sent notes to him. But in general, if the artist was producing it out, we were like, “Mix it how you would mix it.”
GK: Do you guys sing on every single one?
MW: Yeah. Some of them, I think our vocals are more buried in the background, and I think that’s totally cool. We begged Tex Patrello to sing on it.
KD: It was brutal, because she sent us a demo of her singing, and we were like, “We love your voice,” and then she was like, “I’m deleting it.” I tried to do a Tex Patrello impression when I was singing, really trying to fool people.
MW: I also think it’s cool that nobody heard anybody else’s songs till the album came out. We didn’t send it to anyone, and I feel like everyone texted us and was like, “Wow, I’m so happy to be in this whole thing.” I think it’s fun to be a part of an album where you only really know the part that you contributed, and me and Kelley were just puppet masters bringing everything together.
GK: How long were you just in China?
MW: Five days.
GK: And I was the drummer.
MW: You, Greg.
GK: There’s a thing where it’s not just a doppelganger, but you’re non-biological twins.
MW: You and Greg [Rutkin] are non-biological twins.
KD: Honestly, he would look at us and we would say, “That’s giving Greta. That little look is giving Greta.”
MW: It’s crazy to spend so much time with you, and then spend so much time with Greg.
KD: I think that’s what it was. I want to tell you something crazy.
GK: Please.
KD: In China, after the first show, a white bat flew into my face. Smacked me like a softball. It flew past Greg, and Greg had a spiritual experience with this bat, where he said he thought it was a bat, but then he said maybe it was a ghost? He said time slowed, 20 seconds later, he heard me go, “What was that?” It was one second, I saw it fly past him, and then it hit me in the head.
GK: Oh my god!
MW: On the walk home, Kelley was going, “Wait, guys, what was that?”
KD: I had a bad feeling that it was a bat. I know in my heart it was a bat, but I really don’t want it to be a bat, because I think that it means I have to get a rabies shot. And then Greg said, “What’s wrong? Are you worried?” And I was like, “Well, I just know that I’m gonna go into my hotel room and Google this, and I’m gonna have to look at Google, which I really don’t want to do.” And then I looked at Google, and Google really seemed to be suggesting that I should get a rabies shot, but I was like, “Can you even imagine doing that right now?” It’s midnight, and I’m in China, and I just don’t want to do that. I realized that it was noon in New York, so I just called my primary care doctor. I was more so looking to them for approval to not get it, but I told them what happened, and then they were like, “Yeah, you actually do have to go.”
GK: And what happens if you get a rabies shot and you don’t need one? Nothing.
KD: You’re fine. You’re just vaccinated against rabies.
MW: I didn’t know about rabies, okay? I was not warned about rabies as a child, I was warned about tetanus. And so, I know about tetanus. I know if you touch a dirty nail, you need to get a tetanus shot, you need to be up on that. But rabies, I guess I just wasn’t around a lot of bats growing up. I was on Reddit after Kelley told me about rabies, and I think the thing is ideally. people would just get rabies vaccinations, but it’s too expensive or something, so you need an excuse to get it.
GK: Oh, wow.
KD: And when I left the hospital in China, I thought, “Oh god, imagine if there’s another bat now.”
GK: How long do those vaccines last?
KD: I don’t know.
GK: Like, if you’re bit by a squirrel in six years, do you need to get another one?
KD: I don’t know. I’ll have to call my primary care doctor.
GK: Let me know what they say.
MW: I got a tetanus shot, and the reason I bring this up is because I did I scraped a tiny nail in a cupboard – I don’t even think I bled, but I’m a hypochondriac, so I was like, “I should get a tetanus shot.” I got a tetanus shot, and the very next day, I was carving a linoleum block for screen printing. I was stamping, and I had this metal scooper that was so filthy from scooping, and I scooped it into my hand and cut a big V into my hand, and I was like, “Now I need a tetanus shot, and I got one yesterday.” I actually probably needed stitches, but I was like, “I don’t want to do that,” so I taped it shut, and I think it’s okay.
GK: That’s really scary, both of your stories. Kelley’s is more scary to me.
MW: Well, it’s not a competition.
GK: It just sounds made up. Like, “I had to get a rabies shot in China at midnight because a white bat flew into my face.” Your story I can’t think about because it could happen to me in 10 minutes, because I’m going to be carving a stamp. I just can’t think about that.
KD: Over the intercom at the hospital, they were spelling out my entire name multiple times. When it was my turn, they were going, “K, E, L, L, E, Y, N, I, C, O, L, E, D, U,” and we were like, “We’re coming, oh my god,” and then it was looping. I was like, “Please, please.”
MW: I’ve never had to respond to the spelling of my name.
KD: I was like, “Oh my god, I’m on my way back, please stop.” It was so weird, but it was entertaining, too.
GK: This could be in your memoir. That’s the name of the memoir, maybe.
MW: What is it?
GK: A White Bat Hit Me in the Face in China, and I Had to Get a Rabies Shot at 3AM.
MW: Such a long title. Who are you, Fiona Apple?
GK: But hey, I would buy that.
I’d love for you tell me more about the day you recorded ‘Dog’, especially with it being about summertime in New York and sharing that experience of growing up in the city.
MW: I also grew up in New York… Just kidding.
KD: That’s our honorary girl.
MW: I’ve lived in New York a long time. I’m from New Orleans, though, but I think I’m also a New Yorker because I’ve lived here for almost 15 years, and my dad’s from here.
GK: One of the only other cities that starts with “new” is where Mina’s from.
MW: New York, New Hampshire…
KD: Well, that’s a state.
MW: New Hampshire is a state. Me and Kelley did a test…
KD: I quizzed Mina on whether or not she could – and listen, I know this isn’t about talking about ‘Dog’, but we’ll get there. I gave Mina a state test to try to name all the states.
MW: I named a lot of them.
KD: You named many states.
GK: I couldn’t do it.
MW: I named most of them.
KD: There’s game called Global, which is, where you guess a country, and then it tells you, basically, if you’re hot or cold. You have to keep guessing the country, and if you’re red, you’re close.
GK: That’s awesome. There’s a game like that, but with just anything.
MW: Oh, is it Semantle?
GK: I don’t remember, maybe.
MW: We have a game we play called Semantle where you just start guessing words.
GK: Hold on, wait, let me see if it’s Semantle. No, it’s more crazy than this. It’s like a big axis in space, and you’re like, “Daisy the Great,” and it puts it somewhere on the axis, and you have to get closer to it.
KD: Oh my god, I need to play that.
GK: I’ve never, ever won. It’s like the broader version of your country game.
KD: I love it. You should play Semantle.
GK: I will. My whole band actually might. We probably talked about this [during our inspirations interview], there’s game called Redactle that we were really into when we were making our record. We can actually all play it together, it’s really fun.
KD: That sounds fun.
MW: We were really into the crossword when we were making our record.
GK: Together or separate?
MW: Separate, we were trying to beat each other’s time. Hayden [Ticehurst], who was helping engineer the record, he’s a crossword genius, and he would finish it so fast, and we would try to beat him.
KD: He’s unbeatable.
MW: Let’s talk about ‘Dog’. We had so much fun making it with you.
GK: Me too.
KD: It was our dream. We talked to you on the phone before, and you said, “Girls, buckle up. It’s about to be a dog adventure.” And we were like, “This is actually better than my dreams.”
MW: Working on this song really gave me confidence in the record. I think that you were the first person that we worked with on the record, and our commitment and focus and excitement around it was so inspiring and exciting. It was lovely to feel like our baby was in good hands.
GK: This was a very new experience for me, too, and I felt like you guys believed in me in a way that was really good, too. I have to shout out Nate [Mendelsohn], too, because I feel like Nate, who engineered it, has always been very transparent about what producing is, and encouraging me as a producer, being like, “You actually are already producing.” It’s just one of those things that I have a hard time with the word and the concept of, producing something.
MW: Sounds like a boys’ club.
GK: Totally. And even if you do it, you never really get credit for it. I find it really hard to express ideas in a firm way in general, and be like, “Let’s do this.” I think we’re all kind of like, “Maybe we could try this, if you’re down, I don’t know.” But I feel like we had a really good environment from day one, because we did it over the course of three days. My core memory, of course, is the two hours before Nate arrived, because I told him to come later, where we just basically sat in chairs in the middle of the room in the studio, the three of us, and just talked about our deepest, personal lives.
KD: And then after an hour and a half, Greta was like, “Should we start to do something?” And we were like, “Yeah,” but then we started talking about ghosts or something.
GK: I think you guys are a really shining example of this, but I find that chemistry and hanging out is a huge part of art making together.
KD: Of course.
GK: I feel like that’s the environment that I was trying to create, and it was kind of shocking to meet you and find out that we went to school across the street from each other.
KD: Yeah, that is honestly crazy. I had to admit to you that I love Blue Tree.
GK: Yeah, Kelley immediately name-dropped my mom’s boutique where I work, and I was like, “Oh my god, how do you…” That’s just not the thing that people know or say about me.
KD: Right. But that’s what I know, because I lived right next door.
GK: So cool.
MW: I feel like the song sounds like us hanging out.
GK: Totally. As it should.
MW: My mom texted me after the album came out, she said, “The album’s great. I don’t know if I like the songs more than the original songs.” And I was like, “Well, that’s great, Mom, because I didn’t really make any of the songs, so you’re not supposed to like it more.” I would feel kind of strange. But she was like, “I do like the new ‘Dog’ more.”
GK: I just hired her to be my manager, and I asked her to say that to you. I want to ask you guys, because I forget if we talked about this, but Nate called me out as it being really brazen that I asked you guys to switch parts vocally. He was like, “That’s funny.”
KD: That was crazy.
GK: He was like.
MW: Crossed the line, Greta.
GK: I was like, “Wait, really?” I just thought that was a normal thing. I feel like my big idea is, what if we just did opposite day? [laughs] The chorus is small, and we’re switching the vocals…
MW: Yeah, because you were like, “I have this idea for the chorus to just be stripped down.” Then we were like, “Well, you’re gonna sing it,” and you were like, “No, I’m not,” and we were like, “Yeah, you are, you have to sing it exactly how you just did it, because I just cried.”
GK: Yeah, I gave in, with way less pushing than the other person that you said you couldn’t be pushed in.
MW: You’re like, “Don’t make me sing.”
KD: We were like, “You actually have to. I can’t even imagine what will happen if you don’t.”
GK: My favorite thing from recording was every single time we listened through, when it got to the chorus, they both just went, “Awww!”
MW: Because it was so cute. I felt like I could hold you in my palm.
GK: I felt like a little charm necklace that you were wearing.
MW: I felt like I was holding a little clamshell, and I opened it up, and there’s a tiny little Greta inside wearing a bonnet. If we made a music video for this version of ‘Dog’, I would put you in a little clamshell in the pond.
GK: I think we should.
MW: That’s a great idea.
GK: To me, part of the song is you guys going, “Aww.”
MW: We should add it. In the deluxe version of the deluxe, we’ll do a live reaction.
KD: Let’s do a reaction video.
MW: We should do a live director’s commentary on YouTube.
KD: You can come to it.
GK: We all comment throughout the whole thing.
KD: Greta keeps going, “I like ‘Dog’ better.”
GK: “The other songs don’t really have that Frankie touch.”
What about a full-length album cover by Greta?
KD: Yeah, that would be perfect.
MW: Has anyone ever done a full cover alone of an album?
GK: It’s a great idea.
MW: I would love to do a full album, but it would be so funny to do a full album of your peers. Like, what if me and Kelley just covered Different Talking?
GK: Why not?
I don’t know if you know Asher White, but she released a full-length cover of Jessica Pratt’s debut record this year.
MW: The whole album? That’s so sick. I like Asher White. And Jessica Pratt is still releasing music.
GK: Our peer.
MW: Jessica Pratt, my best friend. That would be so cool. I was listening to Jessica Pratt yesterday while giving my friend a haircut.
KD: Love it.
GK: I was going to ask if this song changed for you at all since Kelley got a dog.
KD: Oh my god, I really have been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking about how I said, “Walking my feet like a dog on the street,” and now, I’m walking my dog on the street. It feels different, and I think that what I meant the first time was what I was like, trudging along and dragging an old feeling. And now that my little dog is running around and sniffing everything, I’m like, “That’s not really what I meant.”
MW: Well, you’re walking a puppy on the street.
KD: Yeah, and also walking my feet like a dog on the street was supposed to mean, I’m walking by myself, but my feet are just going that way, and my brain is off? But my little puppy, Beau, is running all around, looking at everything, smelling everything, eating everything. Eating all types of stuff that then we have to stick our hands in his mouth and try to take out. It’s a very active experience.
MW: You have to have your brain on.
KD: It’s like spinning plates on sticks, running, multitasking. But yeah, it did maybe rethink the metaphor, sure.
GK: Mina, have you met Beau?
MW: I met Beau once. I need to meet Beau again. I’ve been texting Kelley and being like, “Hey, should I come over?” She’s like, “I’ll come over to yours.”
KD: Well, we keep having to do stuff, and the thing about him is that he’s on his own schedule.
MW: Greta, you haven’t done all your shows yet, how many more do you have?
GK: I have more shows. We have six Next Thing shows what we’re doing this year, and then I just announced an opening tour that I’m doing.
MW: That’s so cool. Are you excited? I love Liz Phair.
GK: Crazy excited.
MW: And we should also say that we went to your show, the extra secret one at Union Pool, and Kelley was singing.
KD: I know every word, and I’ll always know every word.
GK: Aww.
KD: Absolutely loved it. It’s so crazy to do this project and then immediately just get slapped in the head with being a big fan. I was like, “Right, I get it, I’m a big fan.”
MW: When we went in, every idea you had, we were like, “Perfect.”
KD: “Love that. Sounds like my favorite album.”
MW: How have the shows been?
GK: They were fun. We only did the New York ones.
MW: You didn’t do LA yet?
GK: We’re going to do it in October.
KD: What was the difference between the Union Pool show and the big boy?
MW: The Bowery Ballroom.
GK: Well, the biggest difference is that I really, really lost my voice after the end of the Bowery Ballroom night.
KD: Out of excitement?
GK: I just could feel that it was happening, and then I pushed through the show and drank honey and stuff and got through. But then at the end of the night, when the show was over, I was like, “ Now I get to talk to everybody, because I don’t need my voice anymore, and I just destroyed it for a couple days.”
MW: That happened to me in soundcheck in China. I think because we had just flown in, the first show, me and Kelley were a little zonked, and both of our voices were on thin ice. We had soundcheck, I was singing, and something happened, I got off the stage, and I was talking crazy raspy.
KD: They were like, you guys have an interview right now, and we were like, “Oh.” And we walked into the green room to a camera setup.
MW: We sat down, and I was, like [coughs], trying to get the phlegm off of my throat. They were going, “If you were a butterfly, what colour butterfly would you be?” And I was like [in a raspy voice], “If I was a butterfly…” We had some soup, and we got through the show.
GK: Do you guys have a good recipe for vocal loss?
KD: I think it depends on why. If you lost it from sickness, totally different from losing it from overuse. I haven’t lost my voice from overuse in a billion years. If you have a sticky, gross something from a sickness, I have some hacks. But usually, if your voice is dry, my voice teacher is really just like, “You gotta drink water, and there’s not much else you need.” And it’s always true. I went to a theater camp that was very Throat Coat Tea obsessed, and now I don’t think about it anymore.
GK: Love Throat Coats.
MW: Me and Kelley used to have this theory of bagel voice, that if you can’t use your voice, eat just a plain bagel, and it’ll kind of coat your throat in a really nice way.
KD: The bagel voice origin story is that I was doing a 5-hour long musical, and on my walk there, I would get an acai bowl. I would have it, and then I would be like, “My throat feels god-awful from having this.” And then I would eat a bite of bagel at the theater, and I would be like, “I’m completely cured. It’s literally completely fine now.”
MW: That’s the real hack.
GK: I get that. It resonates with me.
MW: We had an experience with Red Bull one time.
KD: Yeah, our old publishers were in the Red Bull offices, and we went there and they gave us Red Bulls.
MW: And Kelley said she had a voice lesson, and she was singing higher than she’s ever sung in her life.
KD: I went to my voice lesson, my voice teacher was like, “You’re really on fire today, girl. You’re hitting those notes.” I had super high notes from the Red Bull.
MW: I feel like I don’t want a Red Bull sponsorship, because then I would just drink it and have a heart attack or something.
GK: I’ve never tried it.
KD: You should stay pure.
GK: I don’t need it.
MW: I love the taste of it.
GK: Next time we record.
KD: ‘Dog 3’ should be up an octave, straight belt.
MW: We sound like chipmunks.
GK: I love that.
MW: That’s for the next Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
GK: And we’re all in a little clamshell.
KD: That means we need to make a giant clam.
GK: That’s exactly where my mind went to. I was like, “I guess, Mina, you better get to carving.”
MW: Oh, I have my tetanus shot, so I can carve for days.
KD: And I can get bitten by Mina.
GK: And I’m gonna go get vaccinated for everything, just before I see you guys.
Sleep have announced a new album, Hempispheres, which is set to arrive on October 30 via Third Man. The follow-up to 2018’s The Sciences marks the band’s first LP with a new lineup featuring original singer, bassist, and lead songwriter Al Cisneros, Melvins drummer Dale Crover, and Void guitarist Bubba Dupree. It includes the previously unveiled track ‘Have Spacesuit Will Travel’, as well as a new single, ‘The Morrisist’. Check it out below.
Hempispheres Cover Artwork:
Hempispheres Tracklist:
1. Have Spacesuit Will Travel
2. The Morrisist
3. Hempispheres
4. Arrival of the Industry Ships
5. Whole Wheat Mountain Well Baked
New York-based nonprofit 603 Arts Foundation will present its inaugural exhibition, The cataclysm of binary star systems, at Nunu Fine Art from 8–29 August. Bringing together twelve artists from across the globe, the exhibition explores themes of identity, migration and collective memory, asking what values humanity might choose to preserve in the face of an uncertain future. The presentation features artists including Keb Cerda and José John Santos III, whose practices examine contemporary social and cultural experience through distinct visual languages.
Founded by Kate Lee and Clovis Lima Jr., 603 Arts Foundation is dedicated to supporting emerging artists worldwide, with a particular focus on practitioners with roots in Asia and Latin America. Alongside building a permanent collection, the nonprofit aims to foster cross-cultural dialogue through exhibitions and partnerships with galleries and cultural institutions.
Among the exhibiting artists, Filipino visual artist Keb Cerda is known for combining traditional painting with video game aesthetics, augmented reality and interactive media to critique issues such as surveillance and media addiction. Fellow Filipino artist José John Santos III works across painting, collage, assemblage and installation, crafting works that combine naturalism and dreamlike imagery.
There’s never been such a widespread choice of options when it comes to gaming in 2026. It doesn’t matter what type of games you prefer, video games or slot games; you really are spoilt for choice. Not only are there game types to suit everyone, but genres too, with the variety on offer something special.
Below, we’ve picked out some popular online games that are more than worth a try. From online video games that include battle royale titles to slots that include a title classed as an all-time leading slot game in Starburst.
Online Video Games To Play
Roblox is a game that still sits at the top of the pile where online gaming is concerned. It continues to draw in over a hundred million players daily thanks to its endless library of user-made experiences. It’s less a single game than a universe of them, which is why it has managed to retain its popularity for years.
Fortnite is still a popular choice too, with millions of players continuing to play the game on a regular basis. Battle royale titles are holding their own in the current era, and Fortnite is one of the biggest of them to this day.
Minecraft may not have the flashy graphics of other titles, but it doesn’t need them. More than a decade after its original launch, millions play daily because of the concept. It remains the best-selling video game of all time.
For those looking for something with a bit more of a competitive edge, Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends and the Call of Duty franchise are popular choices, and all offer something different to each other.
Slot Games Worth Checking Out
If spinning the reels of a slot game is more your thing, there are some standout titles worth your time. Book of Dead, with its treasure-hunting theme and expanding symbols during the free spins round, has features that keep players coming back for more.
Starburst, produced by NetEnt and one of the most iconic video slots of all time, earned its legendary status thanks to its simplicity, fast-paced gameplay and cosmic visuals. But there was more to its success than just simple gameplay, as expanding wilds helped boost the winning potential on offer.
If you’ve got something of a sweet tooth and you like your slots, look no further than Pragmatic Play’s Sweet Bonanza. Alongside its delicious candy-coated theme are cascading reels and multipliers that will build quickly during bonus rounds.
Gates of Olympus, from the same studio, swaps out the sweets for Greek mythology, which is always a hit with slot players. There are six vertical reels, and a scatter-pays system replaces traditional paylines. The dramatic multiplier feature tied to Zeus’ lightning strikes is eye-catching and can be hugely rewarding.
Conclusion
Single-player games and titles you can play offline are fun. But online games take things to another level. In the past, it was just a select few video games that could be enjoyed online, but today there’s a host of video games where you can go online as a solo player or compete with and against others. Then, add slot games into the mix, and you have real variety on your hands. Slots are not only fun to play in their own right, but there’s a chance to win prizes too, making them even more popular.
The NationalGallery will stage the first-ever exhibition dedicated entirely to the portraits of Jan van Eyck this winter, bringing together all ten of the Netherlandish master’s surviving portraits for the very first time. Opening 21 November 2026 and running until 11 April 2027, Van Eyck: The Portraits will unite works from major collections across Europe. This includes nine painted portraits as well as the artist’s only surviving drawing, Portrait of an Elderly Man, which will be reunited with its corresponding painting for the second time in history.
The exhibition will feature a series of remarkable reunions, including the Gallery’s Arnolfini Portrait displayed alongside Portrait of a Man (Giovanni Arnolfini?) from Berlin, as well as Van Eyck’s newly conserved Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) exhibited with his portrait of his wife, Margaret. Together, the works chart Van Eyck’s revolutionary approach to portraiture, revealing his unprecedented attention to individual likeness, psychological presence and material illusion at a time when portraits largely served dynastic or symbolic purposes.
Accompanied by new research into Van Eyck’s techniques, original frames and inscriptions, the exhibition will explore how the fifteenth-century painter transformed the genre of portraiture and elevated the status of the artist during the Northern Renaissance. The accompanying catalogue will also become the first English-language monograph devoted exclusively to Van Eyck’s portraits.
