In life, goals and dreams are integral parts of growth — even for couples. And growth sometimes means distance. It can also be challenging, even when you know your love for each other is strong. But all you need is a good time together. Likewise, the right iPhone games can bring you and your partner closer than ever. Whether a few cities apart or halfway across the world, these games strengthen connections. It offers fun and light romance.
Here are five iPhone games that can keep your long-distance relationship playful and healthy.
Five iPhone Games for Long-Distance Couples
The Past Within
The Past Within is the ultimate co-op experience. As a couple, you get to solve puzzles and explore worlds. Specifically, one is in the past, and the other is in the future. However, the main goal is to discover the plan of Albert Vanderboom. At the same time, you need to help Rose in pursuing her father’s plan.
Sky: Children of the Light
Sky: Children of the Light caters to couples looking for something dreamy and heartwarming. Together with your partner, you are going to go on a journey and solve puzzles. Similarly, users will need to explore the ancient civilization’s ruins. It’s an open world filled with magical realms. So, you can do whatever you want. You can go to concerts, throw parties, and defeat darkness.
Draw Something
Draw Something is a game that will test your creativity. Also, it will test how well you know your partner by just looking at their drawing. This game turns doodling into a fun thinking game. You and your partner will take turns drawing and guessing. Likewise, each difficulty of the word will correspond to a specific value. The harder the word, the higher the value.
Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare spices things up when distance makes everything fade. It’s still the traditional game that everyone knows. But it’s made even more fun for mobiles. Particularly, it has over a hundred entertaining Truth and Dares. As a couple, you can choose from clean and dirty categories.
Words With Friends
Words With Friends is another classic game with a modern twist. The game allows you to challenge your partner to a match and see who makes the best words. Similarly, it’s not only for fun. Words With Friends also expands your vocabulary knowledge. Plus, it’s best for couples with different schedules. One can answer and play whenever available.
What Did We Learn Today?
Distance is for the weak ones. Kidding aside, iPhone games for long-distance couples offer more than fun. They are shared experiences. Gaming together is also a way to show each other effort. More importantly, they remind one another about love and connection.
Icy Qiao is a London-based multidisciplinary artist whose work spans animation, moving image, sculpture, and installation. Her practice explores the hidden, deep-rooted structures of psychological experience. Autobiographical in nature, her works delve into trauma, identity, and East Asian family structures, dissecting her own history to reflect broader social realities.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art’s Narrative Animation program, Icy blends narrative and experimental techniques in her work, challenging the confines of traditional linear animation and favoring emotionally-driven expression. By turning memory, trauma, and anxiety into tactile and visual forms, she reclaims control over her inner world while opening a space for emotional resonance with the viewer.
Her work was permanently collected by a national first-tier museum in China in 2023, marking significant recognition within both international and domestic art contexts. She sees artistic creation as an ongoing process of psychoanalysis, a way to reconstruct inner order through the continual dissection of memory and emotion. Through this process, she has carved out a distinct space in the field of contemporary multidisciplinary art.
Carving Anxiety: A Psychological Repair from Dream to Material
In her 2025 work ‘A Dream of Teeth Falling Out, Now Real’, Icy visualises subconscious anxiety through a series of clay tooth sculptures. Starting from a recurring dream— where her teeth constantly fall out and are swallowed—she embarks on a process of emotional response and psychological repair. The act of moulding each tooth, with its repetitive and slow rhythm, becomes a bodily ritual of healing. Each tooth carries fragments of the dream while symbolising the reconstruction of personal boundaries and expressive capacity.
As Icy describes:
“During a period of recurring dreams where my teeth would fall out and be swallowed whole, I began recreating each one in clay, as if extracting internalised emotional fragments from my body. Klein’s theory of ‘aggression and reparation’ unfolded through this process as I transformed unspeakable anxiety into tangible material. The teeth became both remnants of dreams and symbols of rebuilding self-boundaries and the ability to express. As I made them, my real-life anxiety gradually eased.”
This work not only continues her deep engagement with psychology but also further demonstrates her use of multimedia to delve into personal experience.
Self-inflicted Pain: Tracing Emotional Echo Within Family Fracture
Created in 2019, ‘Self-inflicted Pain’ is one of Icy’s most emotionally charged early works. The two-minute short film blends live-action and animation, breaking traditional narrative structure to explore how emotion ferments through memory in a non-linear fashion.
The work was inspired by a childhood memory of witnessing her mother cutting her own face out of a series of family photos, an act of silent defiance that became a point of departure for Icy’s reflections on disconnection, psychological rupture, and the internalisation of pain. Referencing Adler’s idea of the ‘comfort zone of trauma,’ she explores how emotional mechanisms trap individuals in cyclical replays of past events.
Incorporating seven elements and six actions, the film gradually blurs the boundaries between imagined pain and reality.
As one of her early pieces, its form is restrained, but through structural deconstruction and rhythmic repetition, Icy begins translating private family memories into an abstract
visual language, allowing individual experience to resonate emotionally with viewers. This work marks the beginning of her ongoing exploration into the relationship between emotion, memory, and the body.
Narrative Collapse: Absurdity and Fragmentation in the Information Era
In works like ‘Brain Travel’ and ‘Stream’, Icy continues using animation and live-action techniques to critique the cognitive disarray and social homogenization of the digital era. She consciously breaks the coherence of linear storytelling, allowing fragments, repetition, and ambiguity to become the structural core of emotional narrative, mirroring the anxiety and fragmentation we experience in real life.
Her practice questions not only media forms but also the capacity of narrative itself to carry emotional experience.
The Shadow of Symbiosis: Emotional Silence in East Asian Family Structures
Icy’s work consistently examines the complex psychological dynamics of East Asian family culture, particularly pathological symbiosis, blurred emotional boundaries, and long-term repression. She investigates phenomena such as ‘giant baby syndrome’ and the ‘great mother’ family dynamic, translating these culturally embedded structures into symbolic visual language through animation, moving image, and installation.
Through this ongoing process of self-analysis, she offers viewers a space to reflect on how we are shaped by cultural forces—and how art can become a gentle form of resistance.
Language and Its Wording: An Artistic Practice Where Content Chooses the Medium
Icy’s artistic process is never constrained by medium. For her, art is a language, and the medium is its phrasing. She does not impose fixed forms, but lets the authenticity of expression guide her choices, selecting the medium best suited to each project’s emotional and thematic weight. Animation, live action, installation, sculpture—these are the shifting vocabularies she uses to tell her stories.
Her works are often born at the intersection of personal memory and social psychology, focusing on how individuals locate themselves within family structures, cultural identities, and emotional trauma. When faced with inexpressible experiences, she carefully constructs formal and narrative frameworks to give emotion a space to land and opens the possibility for deep, reflective dialogue with the audience.
In her practice, there is no fixed technique or predetermined aesthetic, only a persistent pursuit of emotional resonance that always begins with content. It is this freedom and honesty that give her work its enduring strength.
When you bite into a fruit, pause. When you run your fingers across a leaf, pause. Let each pause be a line break in the prose of routine.
John Cage famously said in his Lecture on Nothing “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it”. This mystical, contemplative nothing is shining and free in curators Moyu Yang and Chang Wang’s The Green Grammar, produced, supported and co-curated by host Gallery, ArtSect. The exhibition runs from June 27 to June 29 at art’otel, Hoxton.The exhibition was blooming with paintings, sculptures, ceramics, films, and most importantly – food and flowers. The Green Grammar draws on spirituality, ecology, mysticism, the body, and philosophy of language. This exhibition does not seek to dualistically answer questions regarding these ideas, but instead gestures to the shifting nature of these ideas within ourselves, our natural world and our created world.
ArtSect Gallery is a nomadic entity that builds, produces, and curates both physical and digital exhibitions across London, Athens, and the Middle East. Their focus lies in subtle geopolitics, psychology, LGBTQ+ voices, and emerging immersive and sensory practices. Incubating new artists and fostering cross-border communication between regions presents both logistical and social challenges—challenges that ArtSect is actively exploring and will continue to engage with in the years to come.
“Green Grammar was a joy to produce and a wonderful opportunity to experiment with sensory and aural experience, blending curation, literature, and human touch. We are very proud of our curatorial partners, Moyu and Chang, and look forward to more experimentation, public interaction, and future productions.”
—Christian Dyson, Co-founder, ArtSect
These works engage more with the somatic experience of language and dining, rather than focusing on spoken language itself. As a whole, the exhibition moves beyond conventional notions of mindfulness or meditative experience. Rather than inducing a state of calm, the works invite participants into a deeper, contemplative awareness.
fleur.de.lune_ Phuong Anh Nguyễn’s Flower installation (2025) Courtesy of the artists and art’otel London Hoxton Gallery. Photography: Huaiyi Du
At the opening night, Lancy Liu, a sensory artist who works primarily with food as her medium, curated a four-course dining experience for the debut night of The Green Grammar. She specialises in using experimental approaches to restructure edible materials, exploring how food can function as language and narrative. The social aspect of this experience must also be emphasised, as a warm and inviting atmosphere beamed throughout the night. Her practice brings together edible sculpture, biomimetic structures, and aforementioned based syntax, placing controlled craftsmanship alongside the unpredictable beauty of natural transformation.
Beginning with Verdant Island, the language of plants grew like a mycelial web. This was followed by Orchard Blossom and Dew of Dawn, concluding with the edible sculpture; material language. The base of both works is made from bread-based edible sculpture, shaped by hand to resemble tree bark and weathered stone. The pieces had naturally fermented and cracked in time – their quiet transformation embodying the space where memory gathers and language begins, allowing the plants they held to speak.
Ruixin Wang’s project 1(2022 – 2024) Lancy Liu’s Orchard Blossom & Dew of Dawn (2025) Courtesy of the artists and art’otel London Hoxton Gallery. Photography: Huaiyi Du
As an ecosystem, the flowers and set all felt wholly unique and complementary – necessary and uplifting to each other. Artist and florist, Phuong Anh Nguyễn. Her brand, Fleur De Lune (Flower of the Moon, or peace lily – nature’s lunar pacifier) lends Southeast Asian shou dance with Western floral craftsmanship, forming a cross-cultural harmony rich in nuance. Her work transcends traditional floristry, entering into art and cultural dialogue — a continuing song of heritage and adopted home. Like Liu’s contributions, Nguyễn’s floral arrangements were created specifically for The Green Grammar.
Together, these three elements — food, flora, and form — produced a rich psychosomatic experience, where the audience’s participation and interpretation evolved into a living extension of the artwork itself. The work enabled an ongoing dialogue across the gallery: a chorus of community and shared pleasure.
The food and flowers were gorgeously complemented by an array of artworks. Yang’s work Set, a modular candelabrum assembled in its grandest form for the occasion, gestures toward the shifting identities women navigate between private and public realms. Its presence illuminated Liu’s piece which, owing to its sensational taste, was devoured not so mindfully, yet with undeniable joy.
_fleur.de.lune_ Phoung Anh Nguyễn’s Flower installation (2025), Ruiyi Wang’s The restaurant (2023-2024), Moyu Yang’s SET(2025), Anyi Ji Moved by the stirrings of the heart （2025) Cosima Von Moreau’s Infinity (2024) Courtesy of the artists and art’otel London Hoxton Gallery. Photography: Huaiyi Du
Ruiyi Wang’s The Restaurant finds its place seamlessly within the exhibition. In this work, forks twist and stretch around elegantly crafted ceramic bowls, subtly distorting the familiarity of domestic dining. Her sculptures challenge the social rituals embedded in table settings, exposing a primal, almost feral instinct beneath the veneer of etiquette.In contrast, Ruixin Wang—an accessories designer and object artist—explores cutlery as a symbol of power and social hierarchy. Her project uses bones to represent both life and consumption. By transforming discarded bones into wearable tools, she reverses the roles of predator and prey, subverting the elite’s weaponised utensils and challenging notions of status through everyday objects.
Nearby, Anyi Ji’s Moved by the Stirrings of the Heart (2025) features white stoneware vases and a shell cradling a flourish of green plant life. The arrangement draws on the aesthetics of wabi-sabi, celebrating imperfection and impermanence. The texture of the plants mirrors the vases’ own rough surfaces, blurring the line between vessel and growth, containment and becoming.
As the audiences participate in the work—and indeed become part of it—they are surrounded by a multitude of pieces from talented young artists.Directly opposite the table stands the exhibition’s largest piece: The Dream of the Road by James Lang, a sprawling tree set against a muted blue sky. Inspired by early medieval Christian art, the painting conceals and reveals a message embedded in a grid across its surface, offering a visual meditation on revelation, memory, and the sacred.
Adjacent to Lang’s work is a textured canvas by Jingshan, who uses cracked tree bark as a metaphor for human fragility and resilience. Through the repeated layering and scraping of paint, she echoes the way bark naturally accumulates and erodes over time—inviting reflection on vulnerability, endurance, and the passage of time.
Beside this is Caitlin Hazell’s sculptural installation: a delicate chain formed entirely from bread. By transforming this humble, universally recognisable material into a symbol of quiet restraint, Hazell explores the weight of the mundane and the invisible rituals that shape daily life.
Continuing along the gallery’s contours, we encounter Blossoms of Decay by Wanting Wang. In this piece, rotting food is photographed as vibrant floral life bursts from its core. By embedding vitality into decomposing forms, Wang questions whether human intervention generates renewal or imposes corruption. The work challenges our perceptions of beauty, transformation, and the fragile illusion of impermanence.
Yichen He’s Flower and the Scarlet Omen merges cyanotype with oil painting to create a dialogue between organic form and expressive texture. A solitary white flower is encircled by a luminous red halo—minimal yet potent—contemplating humanity’s evolving relationship with the natural world.
Beside it, Tianxi Wang’s Me and Inch’s explores an intimate relationship with a houseplant that has been a long-time companion. Paired with a self-portrait, the piece radiates a quiet spiritual support, reflecting the emotional connection between artist and plant—two living beings growing alongside each other.
Turning a corner, we find Cosima Von Moreau’s Peep Hole (2024), a serene assemblage of soft porcelain and resin on board. Drawing inspiration from the intricacy of nature, the work becomes a contemplative mirror—reflecting not just the outside world, but the viewer’s own sense of peace. A similar sentiment is echoed in her other piece, Infinity (2024).
In Bringers of Fertility, Above and Below, Katya Morgan Sykes conjures a spiritual connection with the fungal realm. With skeletal, organic forms, the work draws on animism, myth, and the interwoven dependencies of living systems.
Nearing the end of the circuit, we encounter Xueting Chen’s No.1, a reinterpretation of concrete through the lens of technological failure and emerging fragility. By destabilising the material’s conventional strength, Chen transforms cement into a precarious structure—one that appears solid but is on the edge of collapse, evoking themes of land, memory, and vulnerability.
Root Animals, a UV print on mixed media, draws inspiration from Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome. Opposing hierarchical structures and ideal forms, the work explores life’s small, interconnected moments—rain, breeze, friendship—suggesting meaning grows horizontally, not vertically.
Finally, we come full circle—both spatially and conceptually—with Lu Kuangyi’s we can never clearly see what stands before us (2025). These mirrored paintings, placed at the beginning and end of the exhibition, explore the liminal space between organism and object, where time, perception, and reality begin to dissolve. Their quiet symmetry signals a move away from emotional immediacy toward a search for unfamiliar truths—glimpses of a world that feels both unsettling and newly revealed.
Herman Hesse, a key inspiration in manifesting the exhibition, said “Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.” Yang and Wang together have curated an exhibition with deep, contemplative roots and long branches that extend graciously without reaching. The art here sees us – our ideas of nature and language, and their reality – in all dimensions, glorious and transcendent.
Courtesy of the artists and art’otel London Hoxton Gallery. Photography: Huaiyi Du
Exhibition Details:
Dates: June 27 – 29th, 2025 Opening: 6:00 PM, Jun 27th, 2025 Location: Art’otel London Hoxton Gallery and Auditorium, 1-3 Rivington St, London EC2A 3DT
Curators:
Moyu Yang, Chang Wang
Participating Artists:
Anyi Ji, Phuong Anh Nguyễn, Cosima Von Moreau, Caitlin Hazell, Lancy Liu, Xueting Chen, Katya Morgansykes, Ume Dahlia, Ruixin Wang, Ruiyi Wang, Xin Zhang, James Lang, Kuangyi Lu, Aura Sun, Jingshan Ding, Tianxi Wang, Yichen He, Wanting Wang
Abbie Wilson produced this piece with the generous editorial contribution of Daniel Northover.
The screening of The Green Grammar Exhibition in Art’otel Gallery Hoxton unfolds like a quiet choreography of everyday materials, bodies, and ecological sensibilities. Tucked away from the white walls of the gallery, it takes shelter in a dim, intimate room in Art’otel gallery Hoxton, produced, supported and co-curated by host Gallery, ArtSect.The exhibition runs from June 27 to June 29 at art’otel, Hoxton.Interweaving themes of food, nature, and the philosophy of everyday mundane, these video artworks explore how meaning is constructed through soft gestures, tactile matter, and the unspoken logic of personal and collective memory. Just as grammar shapes how we communicate, these works uncover the quiet systems of meaning that emerge through emotion, memory, and the rhythms of daily life.
ArtSect Gallery is a nomadic entity that builds, produces, and curates both physical and digital exhibitions across London, Athens, and the Middle East. Their focus lies in subtle geopolitics, psychology, LGBTQ+ voices, and emerging immersive and sensory practices. Incubating new artists and fostering cross-border communication between regions presents both logistical and social challenges—challenges that ArtSect is actively exploring and will continue to engage with in the years to come.
“Green Grammar was a joy to produce and a wonderful opportunity to experiment with sensory and aural experience, blending curation, literature, and human touch. We are very proud of our curatorial partners, Moyu and Chang, and look forward to more experimentation, public interaction, and future productions.” —Christian Dyson, Co-founder, ArtSect
Video Artwork Left: Beiyi Wang, Right: Tong Yin
In Tong Yin’s Eating at yt’s, a 16mm stop-motion film depicts a surreal yet tender ritual of eating. Guided by a set of hand-made textile tableware, the act of dining becomes symbolic, a soft protest against the creeping gentrification of East London. Domestic objects, sewn and staged, take on the weight of social commentary. There is something quietly rebellious in this choice of medium and material: the film doesn’t shout, it folds critique into craft, and memory into metaphor.
Beiyi Wang’s Today I had a meeting about the value with apple, stone and matsutake proposes a speculative, non-anthropocentric worldview where fungi, minerals, and fruits become agents in a dialogue about value. The work imagines a sociality that transcends the human, gently questioning how worth is defined and by whom. It is both a dream and a provocation: what if the economy were run by moss and mushrooms?
Video Artwork Left: Iris Lingyu Zhang, Right: Tianyun Zhao
Iris Lingyu Zhang’s A Punch on TOFU draws on a Chinese idiom to evoke the dissonance of unmet confrontation. In this visually playful yet conceptually sharp video, frustration takes shape as something soft, ungraspable just like punching tofu. There is a humor here, yes, but also a subtle comment on the emotional labor of communication, especially when affect meets apathy. Zhang’s work lands like a delayed echo, subtle, but resonant.
In Tianyun Zhao’s PURE · CURE, sweetness becomes a lens for existential reflection. A single-channel film meditates on sugar as more than pleasure as a quiet endurance. Zhao asks: can sweetness heal, not just mask? The tone is contemplative, drifting somewhere between sensuality and sincerity, suggesting that even small comforts can be forms of resistance in a harsh world.
Video Artwork Left: Yingying Li , Right: Anning Song
Yingying Li’s I Embody the Trees adopts the structure of a screen-based triptych, presenting a minimal but emotionally potent tableau. From tree to body, a rope runs over three panels, yet the connection remains visually tenuous, almost slipping out of sync. The work moves like a breath held too long: tense, suspended, never quite landing. In this disjunction, Li opens a space of quiet estrangement, gesturing toward the complex entanglements between nature, gendered bodies, and psychic distance.
Anning Song’s Brand and Scar shifts us into darker digital terrain. Through fragmented imagery and an unsettling narrative, the video artworks explore the emotional violence inflicted by online misinformation. In the blurred boundaries between real and virtual, victim and spectator, Song draws attention to how scars are etched by language, branding, and virality. This piece feels especially timely: a sharp reminder of the psychic cost of public scrutiny.
Together, these six video artworks collectively create a scattered syntax of tension, care, and slow investigation. There are no sweeping declarations, only gestures, textures, and loops. The screening room becomes a soft archive of thoughts: some raw, some refined, all vital.
In an age of ecological and informational noise, The Green Grammar offers, through moving images, a kind of counter-language,one that listens, that senses, that whispers before it speaks.
The Green Grammar does not seek to shout above the din. Instead, it leans into slowness, into sensation, into the fragile syntax of gestures and atmospheres.The Green Grammar Cinema becomes a form of listening, through moving images, a kind of counter-language, one that listens, that senses, that whispers before it speaks.
Exhibition Details:
Dates: Jun 27 – 29th, 2025
Opening: 6:00 PM, Jun 27th, 2025 Location: Art’otel London Hoxton Gallery and Auditorium, 1-3 Rivington St, London EC2A 3DT
Curators:
Moyu Yang, Chang Wang
Participating Artists:
Tong Yin,Yingying Li,Tianyun Zhao,Anning Song,Iris Lingyu Zhang,Beiyi Wang
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Collaborate with Other Creators
Partnerships bring new energy to content and provide entry to completely different groups of other influential content creators. When tagged together or using the Collab post feature, your Reel is viewed by both audiences, resulting in increased views and potential new followers.
Collaboration can occur in different ways, like duets or remixes, and at times it merely includes a spontaneous shout-out. Working together establishes trust rapidly and frequently leads to numerous saved comments and shares that demonstrate community backing. Select collaborators who have compatible content and active audiences who are sincerely interested in your Reels.
Create Series-Based Reels to Encourage Returning Viewers
Creating reels within a continuous themed series can smartly attract repeat viewers and quickly enhance engagement on Instagram. Fans who delight in the first episodes of a series look forward to future installments and often obsessively check and revisit their profile frequently.
Consuming several Reels in one sitting indicates to the algorithm that your highly engaging content deeply captivates viewers. If you’re a food expert, create a quick eats playlist or budget bites series swiftly on social media platforms today.
Motivational speakers may consider daily affirmations completely fascinating or gather weekly Q&A highlights to proudly showcase their best moments. Audiences slowly become aware of format subtleties and frequently return, which in turn promotes sustained engagement and relatively quick organic growth over time.
London has no shortage of new galleries, but few open with as little fanfare or as much quiet intention as Tiderip, a new gallery founded by curator Marjorier Ding and art collector Louis Jacquier. Located just off Battersea Square and a short walk from the Royal College of Art, where Ding studied Curating, the gallery opened its doors earlier this spring and has quickly emerged as one of the more thoughtful additions to the independent art scene: intimate in scale, ambitious in vision.
The name “Tiderip” refers to the subtle turbulence where opposing currents meet, a fitting metaphor for the gallery’s ethos. It is a space for moments of collision, energy and flow, where diverse perspectives and practices meet and refract. Ding launched Tiderip first as a curating collective before turning it into a permanent space in 2025.
Ding’s curatorial background, spanning exhibitions in the UK and China, reflects a practice that prioritises dialogue over definition, and that puts collaboration between artists at the heart of the creative process. “I like to create a space where artists not only exhibit together but build a genuine relationship throughout the process.” she says. “That connection and dialogue often allow the exhibition to transcend the typical white cube format. It becomes something alive, dynamic and thoughtful.”
Works by Olivia Martha include Living From (2023) and Lunar Morphosis (2024), shown alongside Abdollah Nafisi’s Guardians 1 (2025). Photogtaph by ZimplePlus Studio. Courtesy of Tiderip.
While collector Louis Jacquier, her partner, insists he is not officially involved in running the gallery, his influence is felt in the tone of the exhibitions, in the artists Tiderip champions, and in the sense of intimacy the space cultivates. His private collection leans towards expressive figuration with a hint of surrealism. He has emerged as a quiet yet committed supporter of London’s young contemporary art scene.
Since opening, Tiderip has hosted three group exhibitions: Tide · Anchor, a meditation on return and reconnection; Faded, a painting-led reflection on memory, mythology, and estrangement; and Soft Burn, a summer show exploring emotional states, colour and contradiction.
As London’s gallery scene continues to expand beyond the usual postcodes and models, Tiderip offers something rarer: a space that does not chase attention but earns it quietly, deliberately and on its own terms.
Pennsylvania-based singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Adam Andrzejewski has announced a new Wicca Phase Springs Eternal album. Mossy Oak Shadow, the follow-up to his 2023 self-titled LP, arrives September 19 via Run for Cover. Accompanying the announcement are two new songs ‘Horseback’ and ‘Enchantment’, which mark the project’s shift toward folky, raw songwriting while sounding quite upbeat. “Seasons past are heading back in dark, familiar ways/ Bonnie ghosts from down the coast in pools of shadow wade,” Andrzejewski sings on the latter. Take a listen below.
“I always kind of thought that as long as I have the Wicca Phase Springs Eternal name that I can do whatever I want,” Andrzejewski said in a press release. “The name provides a framework for the lyrics and aesthetics of the project–my songwriting with a mystical overlay to it–and as long as I can make something work within that, then the genre doesn’t totally matter.”
“There’s always been acoustic songs on my records but usually they’re in the context of a beat-based Wicca Phase album,” he added. “I think the idea here was to just kind of start fresh and go hard in this other direction. The temptation is to call it a country record, I don’t really think it’s that–but there’s acoustic guitar and slide guitar, and I think my interests and themes do have elements of country in sort of an archetypical way.”
Mossy Oak Shadow was produced by Uniform’s Ben Greenberg, who also worked on Wicca Phase Springs Eternal’s previous album. It was recorded with a backing band featuring Greenberg on bass and session musicians Ryan Jewell and David Moore on drums and keys. The song ‘Meet Me Anywhere’ is a collaboration with former duet partner Ethel Cain.
“Dave and Ryan were guys Ben had worked with, but I’d never met them,” Andrzejewski commented. “When we got there, I had lyrics, chords, and demos–we’d listen to the demo once, Ben would make some suggestions, and then we’d try it. I would literally ask ‘do I need to teach these guys the songs…’ and Ben would say ‘no they’d figure it out’–and they did! There was no discussion, they just got it. They were so perfect, Ben included, that it was no different than just singing over a beat or something I’d created.”
Mossy Oak Shadow Cover Artwork:
Mossy Oak Shadow Tracklist:
1. Rough Roads
2. Horseback
3. Enchantment
4. I Just Moved Here
5. Magic Moment
6. Meet Me Anywhere [feat. Ethel Cain]
7. Looking Back
8. I Get It
9. Settler’s Bend
10. Last Riders Crew
11. I Was A Runner Once
Ahead of the release of their debut album Air Between Us on Friday (July 18), Seattle trio Coral Grief have shared one more preview, the swirling, hypnotic ‘Starboard’. It follows previous offerings ‘Rockhounds’, ‘Latitude’, and ‘Paint By Number’. Check it out below.
“‘Starboard’ is all about trial & error, and learning how to embrace the messiness of unpredictability,” the band’s Lena Farr Morrissey explained in a statement. “Having no end goal or destination can be scary but liberating, and this song is our version of capturing that mindset.”
If you’re someone who has always been interested in online casino games, then you’re living in the right age because technology has made these games a whole lot more interesting than they were a mere ten years ago, that’s for sure. Especially when it comes to one of the fan favorites, slot games. There is no denying that these games are far more immersive and tailored to the needs of players than ever before. You can see it from the sheer abundance of topics and themes for each slot game.
A lot of people think that the theme of a slot game isn’t more than an interesting interface; however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Finding a game that suits your personal interests is massive and has a big impact on how you play.
Why Themes Matter More Than Ever
Themes aren’t just about putting a few graphics on a screen, no, it’s much bigger than that. In modern slot games, the theme helps shape everything from how the game looks and sounds to how it plays and keeps you engaged. You might come across casino slots that center around historical legends, exotic locations, fantasy creatures or even everyday experiences like cooking or treasure hunting.
The reason these themes work so well is that they tap into personal interests. If you’re someone who enjoys a bit of mythology, an ancient gods-themed slot might catch your eye. If you’re into music, there’s probably a slot out there inspired by your favorite genre or band.
Themes add context to the gameplay. You’re not just watching reels spin; you’re unlocking new parts of a story, triggering themed bonus rounds and hearing sound effects that match the atmosphere. It all creates a much more immersive experience.
Tailored Gameplay Makes a Difference
Beyond visual themes, tailored experiences are becoming more common, too. These are features that make a game feel like it was made with you in mind. You’ll find slots that allow you to choose your volatility level, pick your preferred bonus round or adjust the gameplay slightly based on your style.
It’s a subtle change but an important one. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, you now have more say in how you interact with the game. Whether you prefer smaller, more frequent wins or the possibility of bigger, less frequent ones, there are games out there designed to suit that.
Some games even track your activity and suggest bonus features you’re more likely to enjoy, giving you a bit more control without overwhelming you with options. It’s all about giving you a gaming experience that feels enjoyable, personalized and familiar.
Themes That Keep Players Coming Back
Certain types of themes seem to do particularly well and it’s easy to see why. These themes often build on already popular stories or cultural references, creating a bridge between something you already love and the game itself.
Popular theme types include:
Adventure and exploration (think treasure hunts, jungles, pyramids)
Ancient mythology (Egyptian gods, Norse legends, Greek heroes)
Pop culture (music, shows, movies, though these often come with licensing)
Seasons and holidays (festive slots, spooky Halloween games)
Animals and nature (safari slots, underwater scenes, wild landscapes)
These recurring themes help slot developers connect with players quickly. You’re more likely to try a new game if it looks like something you already enjoy outside of gaming.
How These Games Fit into the Bigger Picture
What makes themed and tailored slots so appealing isn’t just how they look but how they fit into your overall experience as a player. They allow you to relax, enjoy the entertainment factor and choose games that suit your mood or interests.
There’s also a social element to some of these games now. When a slot has a memorable theme, players are more likely to share their experiences online, recommend games to friends or even join themed promotions and tournaments. It creates a bit of community without having to fully commit to multiplayer or live gaming.
And for those who like to stick to certain genres, themed games make browsing and choosing much easier. If you enjoy sci-fi, you’ll know exactly which section to head for. If fairy tales are more your thing, you can dive straight in without having to try dozens of games blindly.
Tips for Choosing a Themed Slot Game
If you’re keen to try out some of these creatively designed games, here are a few things to look for when making your choice:
Pick a theme that genuinely interests you, as it’ll keep things more engaging
Look at the bonus features because themed rounds are often the most entertaining
Check the volatility if you want more control over your experience
Make use of demo mode to explore the game without any risk
Keep an eye out for special editions or limited-time versions during holidays
Time to Pull the Digital Lever?
Themed slot games and tailored gaming experiences have completely changed the landscape of online casino entertainment. As one of the most popular games out there, simply due to its easy form of playing and engaging, this game has jumped up even higher now that it’s more tailored to players’ needs.
The one thing you need to remember when it comes to these games, though, is that player responsibility is key. Never invest more than what you have readily available and don’t spend too much time on a site.
