Los Angeles-based creative studio and production company, Ways & Means, are adept at bringing a brief to life. Upon co-founding the agency in 2012, Lana Kim has worked as a producer across everything from music videos, to films and commercials, for brands including Spotify, Nike and Dior.

'As soon as I saw the storyboards, I knew I wanted to be a part of bringing this idea to life,’ says Kim, upon being approached by Jaime Gerin, Olivia Rodrigo’s creative director, and co-director for The Cure music video alongside Cat Solen. ‘Jaime first came up with the idea, and within hours had drawn the storyboards herself. She had written on the storyboards “I cannot stress enough that the entire hospital is made out of arts and crafts”, and that note was very much taken to heart. So much cardboard and yarn!’

The making of 'The Cure' music video, by Olivia Rodrigo

Where did the idea for the hospital set originate?

Lana Kim: As Jaime listened to the song, she envisioned Olivia as a nurse trapped in a cycle, experimenting on hearts, and unravelling herself in the process – so a hospital made sense. It was our little handmade hospital!

The challenges were really the massive undertaking of building this set and making sure that everyone on the team was aligned on how to achieve these shots. Thankfully, we had an incredible team that made it all look like a breeze.

That balance between practical and digital was always part of the conversation from the beginning. Digital effects were only used to supplement and enhance the handmade feel. The sets were fully handmade, and the elements hand animated, but to combine these worlds, we needed some CG. So we partnered up with our friends at Pretend VFX to seamlessly incorporate the stop motion work with the live action, and enhance the world we had already built and captured in-camera.

What was the experience of working with stop motion?

Working with stop motion animation is always so magical. Animation is filmmaking distilled to its purest form – movement frame by frame coming to life right before our very eyes!

Having Cat Solen’s expertise made all the difference. She has a rare ability to draw emotion out of an inanimate object and pull everything together into one world, as if it all existed together in the first place.

How did you balance the symbolic and practical here, such as with the yarn and the unravelling?

The unraveling was really the climax of the video, so we had to make sure that everyone was aligned on how to make that happen. It took many many meetings with Cat & Jaime, our production designer, the animation team, and VFX team to align to make sure that happened seamlessly. What you see in the video is a mix of puppeteers pulling yarn that was attached to Olivia on set, and some stop-motion yarn that we shot during post production. All enhanced by CG and VFX.

What details did you enjoy focusing on?

My favourite part of the operating room set was the glass block windows, which were made from plastic take-out containers. Liam Moore, our incredible Production Designer, really brought that spirit to even the smallest of details. A lot of the stop-animated “liquid” in the beakers are beads from Jaime’s personal bead collection.

Building the team is always the best part – so many people involved that are just so passionate and incredible at what they do. Overall, there were more than 125 people who worked on the project and helped make this video: from our production designer and the art team to the set, prop, and miniature designers and fabricators, wardrobe, hair and makeup, production team, to the DP and camera team, lighting technicians and grips, drivers, stop motion animators, editor, VFX artists and colourist.

How closely did you work with Olivia on this project?

Despite shooting other videos, hosting SNL, doing press — Olivia was very involved throughout the entire process. Looking at references, mockups, and storyboards, giving input each step of the way. She had a specific vision of what she wanted which immensely helped in building her this handmade world.

If you were to have stepped foot in Elephant and Castle’s Corsica Studios in the early part of 2024, you’ll have been greeted with a curious sight: a side room tucked away from the intoxicating noise where a funeral for a human-sized, furry yeti was taking place. Fast-forward six months and take a hop across the river to London’s ICA, where more strange scenes were afoot; a giant spectral moth hovering over a stage decorated with papier-mâché bones. In other venues, at other times, there have been demon dogs with mechanical jaws and oversized, haunted faces peering quietly over a crowd that has steadily escalated as word of this unusual band has spread. This is the world of Mary In The Junkyard: south London’s most creative young trio, and a group increasingly charming the art world as much as the music one.

Formed of vocalist, guitarist and chief prop-maker Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and cellist Saya Barbaglia, and drummer David Addison, Mary In The Junkyard make the kind of fantastical, textural music that builds worlds. More than that, however, the trio have spent time translating these stories into something tangible around them. 'Having tactile, handmade art – things people can really touch and connect with – feels important to a show experience when quite a lot of things right now are trying to be really cool and clean and minimalist,' says Barbaglia.

'It expands the scope of the music,' Addison agrees. 'Having the visual side deepens the experience.'

It’s an innately exploratory mindset that, recently, has led the band into a high-profile new circle. Heading out to New York to work on their forthcoming debut album, Role Model Hermit, to be released in July, the group found themselves talking to film producer and virtual reality artist Todd Eckert after he attended one of their gigs. With the band having nowhere to stay in the city, Eckert – a fan – offered them a place to crash and a studio space to work from in the home he shares with his partner, Marina Abramović. Later in the week, the trio played a private gig for Eckert, Abramović and a group of their peers. 'Marina said I should get a Britney mic because the microphone was too obstructive,' notes Freeman-Taylor of the unlikely evening.

Though Abramović’s name still brings up a certain amount of reverie ('She’s amazing, I love her work,' the vocalist smiles), the group have now become firm friends with the legendary performance artist. 'Todd and Marina are like our New York parents,' Barbaglia says. Freeman-Taylor laughs as she remembers one interaction: ‘Marina was like, “Oh, there are three of you, what do we do in the divorce? I’m a communist, I can’t share, so I’m going to have to cut you in half.”’

You can understand why Abramović and Eckert might have taken a shine to Mary In The Junkyard. In a musical landscape dominated by conversations around nepotism and privilege, the trio are resolutely DIY-spirited and have crafted their entire vision themselves. 'It’s an amazing feeling to have something in your head and to be able to make it exist an actual thing that’s real,’ says Freeman-Taylor.

None of the band are trained artists but they’ve turned their inner circle into its own makeshift art school. The three band members all live within a couple of doors of each other, and their communal rooftop has become a hub for creativity and play. Here, you’ll find the trio and their friends building creatures for their shows, and testing out all manner of new hobbies – pole dancing, martial arts, breakdancing – that often end up in the overall Mary mix too. 'We’re very curious people and that comes into the visual world as well,' says Barbaglia. Freeman-Taylor nods: 'We’re very playful together, and that comes into our songwriting but also the things on stage with us.'

In the video for their crepuscular single ‘New Muscles’, this spirit is out in full force. The plot resurrects the ‘beetroot heart’ of the aforementioned yeti, turning it into a symbol of strength and fortitude that Addison digs up from the ground as his two bandmates grapple in a convincing bout of boxing. It’s unsettling and strangely beautiful; a world away from the classic trope of skinny jean-clad indie bands standing against a wall, looking aloof. But that’s a large part of the point. 'Rock music and indie music are in a bit of a weird period. The first part of the 2020s had its own sound and its own vibe, whereas now, there’s lots of room to play around with the idea of what a rock band should be,' suggests Addison.

Freeman-Taylor is the dreamy, imaginative lynchpin of the Junkyard’s hyper-creative universe. When pressed, she can summon up a few core influences to her artistry – Paul Klee’s hand puppets, and the 'magical landscapes' of Leonora Carrington’s paintings. But the vocalist mainly talks about 'instinct' and how the characters and visuals of Mary In The Junkyard are more like a bridge between fantasy and reality.

For their previous releases, she’s painted all the artwork – a wild, wind-whipped woman for 2025 single ‘Midori’ or a swirling vortex of moths and lanterns for the year before’s ‘Ghost’. For the Role Model Hermit album, however, the photograph was a collaboration with creative director Daisy Ayscough and features the singer in full prosthetics, decked out to embody the character in the song ‘Mouse’. 'I was remembering a past life that I had when I was a fisherman and my best friend was a mouse. The song’s about meeting the mouse now when we’ve both been reincarnated into people,' she says. 'I think about past lives all the time. Imagination just comes from instinct; everything that I imagine is more just my instinct of what I know is true.'

It’s a statement that seems core to Mary In The Junkyard’s outlook as a whole. There’s a remarkable lack of cynicism that comes through in everything they say, from the gut feeling that ‘things would figure themselves out’ in New York (they did) to the way they talk about clothes and dressing for the stage as a 'free, non-judgemental space'. 'You’re there playing music, you’re not there walking a fashion show, so whatever you wear – whether it’s weird or cool – it doesn’t really matter because it can all just feed into the performance,' says Barbaglia. 'You can wear literally anything.' One time, she remembers with a laugh, buying moon costumes to wear for their show in El Paso. 'I had white-face and I looked more like an anaemic banana,' she deadpans.

In a world of TikTok trends and doing anything for the dopamine hit of Instagram acceptance, seeing a young band cast that external gaze aside and follow the path of fun feels like rebellion. When they talk about the way that the world of Mary In The Junkyard could expand, there’s a limitlessness to their imagination that seems only tempered by cash flow (and pesky health and safety rules). 'I’m excited about projections and using light. And, because we’re so interested in movement-based art, that’ll probably be something that’ll find its way into our shows,' Freeman-Taylor enthuses before addressing Barbaglia: 'We could have ropes that lift us into the air. Imagine if we both had Britney mics and we were both hanging from the ceiling?!' With Mary In The Junkyard, then, the sky truly is the limit.

Ian Curtis is best known as the lead vocalist and songwriter in the English band Joy Division. Dealing with severe depression and epilepsy, he passed away by suicide at age 23, in 1980, before the band’s first North American tour. Now, for the first time in the US, Voltz Clarke Gallery presents a major exhibition dedicated to exploring the life and creative legacy of the talented musician.

‘Ian Curtis: Insight’

The retrospective, titled Ian Curtis: Insight, is composed of archival material from The John Rylands Library, one of the world’s leading research libraries and a major cultural institution based in Manchester, UK – specifically from the British Pop Archive.

The exhibition highlights the band's cultural impact, having formed in 1976 and still influencing music 50 years on. Here, visitors can discover a personal perspective on the band, and its frontman, through a selection of handwritten lyrics including for the 1980 hit, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, as well as intimate photographs, letters, and other ephemera.

Alongside Curtis, the Salford band consisted of guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. Sumner and Hook started the band after attending a June 1976 Sex Pistols concert. As well as ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, Joy Division released songs including ‘Atmosphere’ (1980) and ‘Transmission’ (1979).

Most of this material will be on show in the US for the first time. The exhibition feels like diving inside an album cover, feeling the tension and creative energy within the band, which also reflects the cultural, industrial landscape of late-1970s Manchester.

Here, Curtis is viewed as more than a pivotal singer. The exhibition peels back the musical façade to give a raw and honest insight into the creativity that defined his, and Joy Divison’s, short life (the band reformed as New Order following Curtis’ death). Bringing these archival pieces to New York feels like an honourable ode to the North American tour that never took place.

Says Mat Bancroft, curator of the British Pop Archive at The John Rylands Library, ‘Joy Division singer Ian Curtis is a seminal figure in the history of UK popular culture. A lyricist and performer of great emotion and energy, who, for many, defined post-punk. His personal archive contains handwritten lyrics, his personal record and book collections, fan letters and ephemera. Ian Curtis: Insight brings a selection of these materials to public view for the first time.’

‘Ian Curtis: Insight’ is at Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002 from 25 June until 22 July 2026

In the 1950s, it was the home of The Goon Show, the BBC Home Service’s crazy-gang comedy programme that gifted the world Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. In 1964, The Rolling Stones were taped onstage here for the BBC’s Blues in Rhythm programme. Come 1970, it was time for something completely different: the recording of the debut live album by Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Now, a mere 125 years after it opened as the Camden Theatre, and four years since its reopening after a multi-million-pound refurbishment, Koko is embarking on a new phase of curation and creation of arts. Marking its anniversary, this week, the omni-purpose north London venue unveils two new spaces. Firstly, a recording studio in the third-floor Penthouse, part of the private members' club-within-a club that is House of Koko. Secondly, a members’ balcony allowing an eyrie-eye-view of the main, 1,500-capacity theatre’s annual slate of 150-plus live shows.

'The House of Koko is five floors, and we have three restaurants, vinyl rooms, a hidden jazz club [and more],' says Olly Bengough, Koko’s creative director and CEO/founder, as the venue also launches a short film, If These Walls Could Talk, a ghostly history of those 125 years. 'But I thought: one floor has to be about how artists and creatives use this building. And to help them facilitate whatever creative output they want, in combination with [using] all the hospitality spaces.'

Hence the studio. Located on the Penthouse floor in the area of the sprawling building devoted to the House of Koko, it’s been designed in partnership with industry-leading acousticians Munro Acoustics. The basic concept, says Bengough, is a box within a box, 'for the perfect sound insulation'. Inside that inner box is top-spec recording and performing equipment: an SSL System-T mixing desk, Bowers & Wilkins 801d monitor speakers, a Yamaha U3S piano, a Ludwig Legacy drum kit and other bits of hardware, software and kit designed to woo artists with both their capabilities and provenance. That mixing desk, for example, is the same model used to finesse the sound for Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, a performance watched by 133.5 million viewers worldwide.

'We have relationships with some of the best audio suppliers,' says Bengough by way of explaining Koko’s pursuit of the highest-end gear, adding that, somehow, 'Nasa also uses this desk to launch rockets'. That space-age gear, meanwhile, is set within retro chic design. 'I was watching Jean Luc Goddard’s [1968] Rolling Stones film Sympathy for the Devil, and I thought: let’s bring a bit of that design in. So the studio has that beautiful red/burgundy background, [giving] a 1960s/1970s rock’n’roll feel with really modern equipment.'

Also adding to the 1960s/1970s rock’n’roll feel: the ability to make a noise, if not quite 24 hours a day, then almost – artists can book the studio from 9am to 5am for that all-important late-night inspo-slash-lock-in vibe.

The studio connects directly with the Penthouse bar, which is decorated with diverse artwork by, among others, Ukrainian/American Social Realist painter Sara Berman and the photographer Jamie Morgan, co-founder of 1980s London creative collective Buffalo. That room is 'California-inspired', which means 'lots of light, a brick fireplace…' In tandem, the conjoined places allow artists to 'be in the studio, make music, then go into the Penthouse and hang out, maybe write again, do something else, go back in the studio. Basically, it’s one whole floor that’s very artist-friendly.

'There’s a real harmony by having a space that also inspires them outside of the recording studio,' Bengough adds of the adjacent hang-out playground. 'They can work with room to breathe, because they’ve got two rooms, and have drinks service, food… It’s almost like you’re in a five-star hotel – and then they can also invite their entourage for fun late at night.'

For those younger artists not quite at the 'entourage' stage of their career, the studio is available for hire in line with Koko’s championing of up-and-coming talent across its spaces.

'If you look at our history, from [early] gigs by Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran, Raye, Dua Lipa, we’re always helping new talent come through. Three years ago, Olivia Dean did a three-night residency for members in Ellen’s,' Bengough says, referring to the 'secret', 50-capacity speakeasy, named after 19th/20th-century superstar actress Ellen Terry, who opened the venue in 1901. 'Six months later she played the theatre and we filmed it,' he continues of a performance that also resulted in Dean’s 2023 audio release Live from Koko. 'We’ve extended that [ethos] into the studio and will allow new artists to use it at a basic, preferential rate.'

The private, 50/60-capacity members’ balcony, meanwhile, is designed to cater to the kind of tastemaking audience who young artists, for better or worse, need to perform before.

'It was important to create a space within the theatre for the members – we wanted them to feel like they had a piece of it, something unique,' explains Bengough. That means a skyscraping corner of Camden that is forever the Côte d’Azur: in designing the balcony, Koko has partnered with Château Miraval, the castle and vineyard in the south of France. It has its own rock’n’roll history, both historic and more recent. Studio Miraval, which opened there in 1977, hosted recording sessions for Pink Floyd, Wham! and AC/DC. Then, in 2011, the estate was purchased by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. After their subsequent split, Pitt reopened the studio in 2022, with its first clients including Sade, Travis Scott and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Impeccable, music- and luxury-steeped credentials, then, inspired the Miraval Members’ Balcony. 'We designed the Miraval bar in the shape of their studio in France, which is actually very modern, but with wood, to keep it in harmony with the materiality of our theatre.' And, yes, it will be pouring Miraval wines.

All of which speaks to Bengough and his team’s ambition to make Koko a one-stop shop with connectivity and creativity built into the bricks. For curation and consumption, of every kind. Or, as he puts it, 'it’s about creating this bigger ecosystem and opportunity for artistry to happen'.

As if to test all this, next month, Koko will be hosting a proof-of-concept event. Last summer, American pianist and composer Jon Batiste performed a wee-hours jam in Ellen’s till 3am. After the multiple Grammy winner toured the entire complex, he declared that he wanted more. He asked and Bengough flexed, offering up all of Koko’s capabilities: Batiste is in situ for a 'one-week residency at the end of June. He’s taking over the whole building – playing in the theatre and backstage, recording in the studio, and we’re filming the sessions and making limited-edition vinyls. This building is allowing all of these things to happen because it’s fundamentally artist-friendly.'

Up in the balcony, the House of Koko jewellery-rattlers will have the best seat in the house. As Bengough puts it: 'It feels like a very inclusive space, even though it’s exclusive.'

On a crisp, if unseasonably warm day in Reykjavík, Wallpaper* finds itself invited inside Alvar Aalto's Nordic House, a late-period masterpiece of Finnish modernism wherein an intimate one-off musical experiment is taking place. Designed and constructed in the 1960s with community functionalism in mind, it's the perfect vessel for a communal deconstruction of one of Icelandic composer and musician Ólafur Arnalds' most personal works to date.

A starkly beautiful collection of eight songs and instrumentals, the 2025 album A Dawning was the result of a profound creative union between Arnalds and his friend and collaborator, the late Irish musician Eoin French, known best by his stage name Talos. Despite the circumstances surrounding its completion – French passed away following a short illness in August 2024 – Arnalds is emphatic that this is not an album about death but, instead, a work defined by its own vitality. The mission to bring this music to the world was rooted in a specific promise made to French: a commitment to ensure the music reached as far and wide as possible.

'He made sure I wouldn't go home and just cry,' he states. 'He gave me something to do, and I promised him that I would do the best I could with this and take it as far as possible. And with that, I tried to fulfil his dream, meaning: promote the hell out of it. That's what he wanted. He really believed in this music. We both do.'

Shortly after A Dawning was released in July 2025, Arnalds began thinking about how best to share the songs beyond the album itself. Crucially, any live iteration had to navigate a difficult personal boundary.

'I set myself a rule that I would never replace him,' Arnalds says. 'I'm never going to stand on stage and get a singer to come in and sing these songs with me, because he can't. I don't want to do that ever. I defined these rules in my mind – "It's OK if several people are doing it, because then it's a group. It's a community."'

It was this realisation that fundamentally shifted the ownership of the work.

'The music really didn't feel like it was mine anymore,' he continues. 'It became a part of our close-knit community. It was with us through the whole process of him passing and the funeral and everything. From the start, it always felt like it had a communal feeling to it… I think it's a beautiful feeling as a musician to actually feel like you don't own these songs.'

The solution to Arnalds' dilemma – how best to share an intimate, collaborative work without anchoring it to a sense of loss – would ultimately arrive thanks to a chance algorithmic encounter with the Gaia Music Collective, an NYC-based creative choir community, via YouTube.

'They came up performing in a car park,' Arnalds recalls, noting the group's rendition of Chappell Roan's ‘Good Luck, Babe!’. 'It fit all the things I'd been thinking about: I don't want to replace him, or make it about his passing. The music lives in the ether. Somehow, this is it. That's how you perform it. You just have people come and live inside of it and feel it and perform it, regardless of their ability or skill or experience, who they are, where they're from, because that's how we felt making it.'

He promptly pitched the idea to his label, Mercury KX, who duly obliged.

'I wrote an email saying, 'I've got something, I think it's gonna be cool, I think we should do something like this and just have a community choir and film it in a random location, not in a fancy concert hall… It's just us singing together for ourselves.' And then this happened.'

The choice of setting for the evening's proceedings feels particularly fitting too with both Nordic House's emphasis on community and its ultramarine blue ceramic rooftop designed to mimic the mountain silhouettes that surround it. It reflects a topography that Arnalds has spent his storied career translating into evocative soundscapes.

Inside, proceedings begin within the elegant surrounds of the Elissa Auditorium, with its white plaster walls and wood-slat acoustics serving as a unique sonic companion for Kliður (pronounced 'Klither'), a Reykjavik-based choir and art collective that meets weekly to sing songs and choral pieces devised by its members. Today they have been tasked with recording renditions of three of French and Arnalds' songs, which were re-arranged for choir by composer and orchestrator Geoff Lawson.

'There's a strange, very technical fine-tuning when you work with someone who's trying to translate your ideas into a different vehicle, in a sense,' Arnalds muses. 'Certain things can get lost because they're not the main featured element of a song – a lead line or a lead motif. But there's a lot of stuff that is very subtle and small that is equally important. A lot of our work is collaboratively talking about what those things are.'

As the evening draws in, members of Kliður are joined by a mix of competition winners, local singers and members of the general public – some of whom have travelled from as far as London to be part of the session. They prepare to be guided through a communal choir experience led by Gaia founder Matt Goldstein and his collaborator, fellow musician Asher Blank.

Founded in 2021 as a response to the isolation of the pandemic, Gaia's mission is rooted in reducing loneliness through accessible, non-auditioned one-day choirs. Over the course of a four-hour workshop, this newly formed collective will prepare a rendition of A Dawning's title track – a feat Arnalds had previously considered impossible to replicate live without French. For Goldstein and Blank, the day represents a unique intersection between professional artistry and a burgeoning global movement of community singing.

'Most of the time we do that in a room with whoever wants to show up: everyday folks who feel like coming in and singing,' Goldstein reflects. 'But every once in a while, we get these cool opportunities where an artist has created some art and they feel the possibility of letting community into their art in a bigger way.'

By multiplying the lead vocal by 50, French and Arnalds' already deeply moving soundscapes move firmly into the realm of shared experience. It is a village effort – a concept that has become foundational to Arnalds after his community of musicians rallied around him during the album's final recording sessions.

'It is foundational to a fault, I would say,' Arnalds observes. 'It's become such a thing for me that it's become really difficult for me to do anything that doesn't have the level of dedication and meaning that this did.'

The group workshop serves as an unlocking of what Asher Blank cites as 'dormant skills' that, in Gaia's experience working with participants from all walks of life, can be found almost universally.

'Choral music is such a core part of a lot of people's schooling, especially in the States,' he notes. 'There are a lot of adults who emerge from high school or college, and they've got these innate skills built into them, that are just dormant. There's some teaching involved, but it's also just about unlocking those skills and the intuitive way of singing that people already know how to do – they just don't have space for.'

The session begins with the group discussing the core philosophy of the music in question, with Goldstein describing the first hour of the workshop as a means of discovery to 'wake up the piece,' noting that 'it will start messy. And it does.

Undeterred, however, the participants break off into groups – sopranos, altos, tenors and bass – to navigate the technical fine-tuning of the translation. Arnalds notes the complexity of moving from electronic motifs to the human voice.

'A choir has at least four voices, we're working with eight because we do two on each section. But the song doesn't have eight voices, so he's gonna have to add notes that are not in the original. And that's the tricky part, right? It's what you should not remove... it's about reducing a lot of, like, what you don't bring over.'

As the night sets in, the choir relocates from the auditorium to the Nordic House library, where the final rendition of A Dawning will be performed in the round, with singers circling the central well – a signature Aalto design element. Before the final take, the group reflects on how their interpretation of the song has changed throughout the day.

'It's always been really special to watch these artists actually in the receiving of other people's meanings,' Goldstein enthuses. 'Oftentimes we think of artists as offering unto the community, offering their art, their music, their performance. In these settings, that becomes a two-way street. An artist is able to really offer their artistry and also receive from people more than just, 'I love your album.' To hear what some of these words, melodies and feelings are and how they're living in people.'

The result is an extraordinary sensation of revelation. Arnalds, returning to witness the final performance following an evening of childcare duties, characterises the experience as being akin to a group therapy session, noting that his friend would have loved it. Far from a sombre memorial, the session feels more like an act of defiant, contemplative celebration.

As the notes fade, the silence that follows the immediate aftermath of the final take carries the weight of a community that has, for a few hours, helped carry the legacy of a lost friend. In the circular glow of Nordic House's library, French and Arnalds' music has taken on a new purpose.

'You come to this very simple conclusion and everybody knows it's almost cheesy to say it, but music is about bringing people together,' Arnalds concludes. 'We all know that. We didn't want to be playing for people. We wanted to be playing with people.’

Design took centre stage at this weekend’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. When Justin Bieber appeared on Saturday with just a laptop, a microphone and a stripped-down stage set, many of those watching at home took to social media to claim that his set-up illustrated a marked lack of effort in comparison to the maximalist, theatrical performance put on by Sabrina Carpenter a night earlier.

In truth, the two wildly contrasting productions, which were both brought to life by the same entertainment architects, Stufish, can be better understood as reflections of the very different stories each artist was telling about themselves. Carpenter, who found fame as a Disney Channel star, built a lavish fantasy landscape that paid tribute to old Hollywood. Bieber, the first true superstar of the YouTube age, turned arguably the biggest stage in America into an intimate video-sharing hangout. While the results looked nothing alike, both thrilled their respective fanbases.

It’s been exactly two decades since Daft Punk first landed their groundbreaking LED pyramid at Coachella, and this year stage designs up and down the lineup demonstrated that there are still plenty of artists willing to use the blank canvas provided by the festival’s stages to bring their unique artistic visions to life.

The only disappointment was that Anyma’s Friday night set was unable to go ahead after high winds prevented his stage from being built. The DJ said he was ‘heartbroken’, and fans will have been disappointed not to witness what looked to be an impressive new production. That’s one to look out for at weekend two.

Here are 10 of the best stage designs from weekend one of Coachella:

Sabrina Carpenter

Carpenter, as they say, understood the assignment. While the stage design for her Friday night headline set will probably be best remembered for the instantly iconic ‘Sabrinawood’ sign, her show was crammed full of extravagant set pieces and memorable moments. A strong narrative through-line took us from the twinkling lights of the Hollywood Hills, to a hike filled with dancers dressed as poodles and Dalmatians and through a vintage recording studio before delivering us to the bright lights of Hollywood Boulevard. A climactic sequence set to ‘Tears’ saw her jettisoned out of a classic car on top of a fountain of water. Carpenter has called the production ‘the most ambitious show’ she’s ever put on, and with the help of architects Stufish and lighting design from Silent House she pulled off the sort of high-concept production any Broadway musical would kill for.

Katseye

The girl group provided one of the big viral moments of the weekend by bringing out the Huntr/x vocalists from KPop Demon Hunters for a performance of their Oscar-winning hit ‘Golden’. They also delivered a simple but effective stage design that took their audience from the Sahara stage to the heights of ‘Katseye City’. Structures made up to look like just the tops of skyscrapers (featuring open windows and satellite dishes) combined with video backdrops to give the impression the LA-based group were pulling off their intricate choreography high on an urban rooftop.

Ethel Cain

Late on Friday night, Cain brought her Southern Gothic aesthetic to the Mojave Stage in haunting fashion. Through clouds of atmospheric white smoke, it was possible to make out bushes, reeds and rushes growing up out of the stage in front of a backdrop of hanging vines. Cain, wearing custom all-black Dior workwear, leaned on her microphone stand, which was designed to look like a scythe. The effect of all that greenery was less ‘natural wonderland’ and more ‘spooky Deep South horror movie waiting to happen’.

Labrinth

A day after NASA’s Artemis II crew returned to Earth, Labrinth turned up at Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre on Saturday with a space-age design all his own. Created in collaboration with creative directors Tawbox, Labrinth’s stage set was centred around a towering architectural structure flanked by lighting columns that evoked the image of rocket boosters. The designers also drew inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and the phenomenon of gamma ray bursts, the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events in the universe.

PinkPantheress

On Saturday night at the Mojave Stage, PinkPantheress put on a thrilling dance party that doubled as a masterclass in production design. A versatile stage set became an airport arrivals lounge for the opening ‘Stateside’ sequence, as Pink touched down in the U.S., rolling a suitcase on wheels. It was there that she first caught a glimpse of her mysterious Romeo (played by Him star Tyriq Withers), and their rom-com storyline was subsequently woven in and out of the production as the backdrop shifted repeatedly, taking in locations including a moonlit moor and a sweaty nightclub. The running romantic narrative gave the show an overarching structure, but never got in the way of Pink doling out bangers.

Nine Inch Noize

Nine Inch Nails and the German electro producer Boys Noize have been playing together during the band’s recent tour, but they’d never officially put on a collaborative show before their Saturday night set on Coachella’s Sahara stage. The occasion called for something special, and the set design created in collaboration with Silent House Studios more than delivered. Trent Reznor and his wife Mariqueen sang together, flanked by Atticus Ross and Boys Noize, in the cut-out centre of a dark hillside that seemed to evoke a staircase designed by M.C. Escher. Behind them, dancers writhed like goblins. Hellishly good.

David Byrne

The former Talking Heads frontman’s ongoing ‘Who Is The Sky?’ tour, which he brought to the Outdoor Theatre on Saturday night, is an exercise in a sort of anti-stage design. The stage is kept entirely empty, but utilises vast projected backdrops that can have Byrne floating through the air above suburbia for ‘And She Was’ or simply showing off massive photos from a recent visit to nearby Joshua Tree. What’s special about all this open space is how Byrne and his band use it: they remain in continuous, choreographed motion throughout the show (even the drummers).

Justin Bieber

When Bieber first appeared on Saturday, in a beam of white light, the circular light formation high above his head seemed to evoke a UFO. As the show went on, it began to resemble something more quotidian: a ring light. Bieber’s minimalist stage design was all about drawing his audience into an intimate experience, making one of the biggest crowds to ever assemble at Coachella’s main stage feel like they were all hanging out in his bedroom singing along to his old YouTube videos together. The Ye-influenced, streamlined stage set looked almost inflatable, reminiscent of Sabine Marcelis’s Maze installation elsewhere on the festival site, but Bieber proved it was solid as he strutted over it in his Loewe boots. While the design wasn’t quite as sparse and spartan as when Bieber recently played the Grammys in just his boxers, it suggested a similar sense of open-hearted vulnerability.

FKA Twigs

Late Sunday on the Mojave Stage, FKA Twigs opened her show lying in bed. The white bed sheets created a fittingly seductive mise-en-scène, but the artist wasn’t reclining for long. After she was joined by a group of dancers, the covers were pulled back to reveal a metallic black set that was part underground Berlin rave, part jungle gym. At one point, an aerial performer danced while suspended from chains. At other times, Twigs had the space to demonstrate her expertise at both pole dancing and sword fighting. The industrial vibe extended throughout the production, from the flight case wheeled on to reveal guest dancer Honey Balenciaga to the energetic ballroom voguing sequence.

Karol G

It fell to the Colombian star to close this year’s Coachella, and she did so with a towering set design that took things back to the very start: the beginning of time, to be exact. Following an animated creation myth in the style of ancient cave paintings, a stage designed to mimic a network of prehistoric caverns was revealed featuring several levels of dancers and Karol G herself dressed in a loincloth like Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.. That was just the launchpad for a celebratory production that also involved a carnival sequence complete with a parrot-shaped float, an all-female mariachi band and a sensual dance routine that took place in a shallow pool constructed right in the heart of the crowd. Minimalism might have worked for Bieber, but it’s not for Karol G.

The 1990s was a curious time for British music. As the loud bravado and boorish, confected pop rivalries of Britpop dominated the press, a landscape emerged that appeared to leave little room for quieter, more contemplative subcultures brewing in the margins. Nestled away in a Glasgow church vestry, however, Stuart Murdoch was crafting an antidote, acting as the creative director of his own imagined musical world.

‘I used to design record sleeves for records that never existed,’ he muses. ‘I didn't have a band or a record label. Nobody was interested. But I would design record sleeves like for the songs I was writing and I'd have fun doing that. I loved records. I loved imagining records.

When those songs coalesced into beloved indie outfit Belle & Sebastian, his imaginative exercise paid off. 1996’s Tigermilk would come to be an album defined by its bookish, monochromatic blue-washed portrait – one that would become a signifier for a very specific brand of indie-pop outsiderdom. Murdoch had initially intended to appear on the cover himself, alongside his then-girlfriend, Joanne Kenney.

‘I dug up the contact strip recently and it's kind of funny and charming and of a time,’ Murdoch states. ‘But at the same time, I just realised I didn't want to be in the picture.’

Instead, he opted to retreat behind the lens.

‘At the time, indie music was all sometimes perceived as a little bit sexless,’ he continues. ‘I think it was Joanne that suggested covering herself with the tiger toy that I’d bought her, so she got into the bath, I took a few pictures and that was it really. From that point onwards, I liked being part of the creative process, rather than being in the picture.’

Assembling the sleeve in a pre-digital Glasgow that lacked the infrastructure for independent music design proved to be an interesting learning curve.

‘I didn't know anything about anything,’ Murdoch laughs. ‘You didn't just go to a guy who made record sleeves. There wasn't a person like that back then.’

He found a solution in Andrew Divine, whose poster designs for the legendary Divine! club nights suggested a shared visual sensibility.

‘It was his first time doing a record sleeve,’ Murdoch continues. ‘The computer programs were new at that point and I remember we went round to the university. We were looking over the shoulder of this guy, trying to find out how to do design stuff. He got kind of annoyed because we were asking a bunch of questions. And he was like, 'Alright, so you can just fuck off and do it yourself.' So we did fuck off and do it ourselves.’

Armed with an early iteration of Photoshop and inspired by the high-contrast layouts of the Blue Note jazz label, the pair began making Murdoch’s imagined records a reality.

‘I was flicking through a book of Blue Note record sleeves when he was putting the stuff on screen,’ he recalls. ‘There’s often so much shadow and the contrast between dark and light, so we took all the colour out of the photo, bumped up the contrast and put a couple of different colours through: green and yellow and blue. We liked the blue one and that's pretty much how it came out.’

Where The Smiths used their record sleeves as canvases for Morrissey to swoon over the glamour of 1960s cinema icons, Murdoch sought out his cover stars closer to home, enlisting friends and muses in Glasgow. Building on Tigermilk’s introspective tone, the band’s sophomore album, If You’re Feeling Sinister, depicted a moment of stark vulnerability between Murdoch and his friend Ciara MacLaverty, both of whom had chronic fatigue syndrome.

‘It was kind of accidental,’ Murdoch recalls. ‘I remember just being around her house and she was upset about something. It probably wasn’t really what a good friend should do, but after she’d dried her eyes, I asked if I could take a couple of pictures. There was obviously a fragility about the moment. It was shot in low light. There was no flash or anything and the image was quite murky on the negative, but once we put the red colour through it, it kind of brought out that sort of sense of 'sinister', so to speak.’

When it came to the use of colour, the saturated washes – now a hallmark of Belle & Sebastian sleeves – were a way for Murdoch to navigate the world as he perceived it.

‘I'm semi colour blind,’ he explains. ‘In the early days, I just wanted to use colours that I recognised… To me, there was no ambiguity there; I could still see these colours. When it comes to shades and things like that, I get into sort of dodgy territory.’

The emerald green cover for 1998’s The Boy with the Arab Strap, which features keyboard player Chris Geddes being impaled with a sword, was actually a byproduct of a music video shoot that descended into a medieval skirmish.

‘We were shooting the video for a song called Is It Wicked Not To Care?,’ Murdoch recalls. ‘We took a band day trip down to this river in Ayrshire. Chris and Mick [Cooke, former brass player] were wearing kilts and they were having a sword fight. We'd borrowed old swords from one of these reenactment societies, but we bloody broke it. As soon as they started sparring, one of the swords broke and half of it flew off. Mick impaled Chris with the broken sword and it looked like something had gone in, so I snapped that.’

As the band's profile grew, Murdoch began to push the boundaries of his DIY visual ambitions after his original ideas for 2000’s Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant were rejected for being too overtly political.

‘The record was going to be called Belle & Sebastian Support The Work of The Clydeside Hunt Saboteurs,’ Murdoch recalls. ‘I wasn't scared of an unwieldy title back then and it was before the fox hunting ban came in. We wanted to be a little bit political for once, but somebody in the band felt it wasn’t the right time and place to make that kind of statement.’

His pursuit of another specific visual eventually led Murdoch to Iceland, chasing a symmetrical concept inspired by twin musicians Gyða and Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir of fellow indie band Múm.

‘I went all the way to bloody Iceland to shoot the pictures,’ he laughs. ‘I took my props with me – this big gold gilt frame – and set it up like a mirror.’

The logistical absurdity of it all was not lost on his subjects.

‘I remember their mum saying to me, “So they don't have twins in Scotland?”’ he laughs. ‘I was pouring my life into every record we were doing and I carried that into the artwork. I was so invested that I was like, “Yeah, there are twins in Glasgow, but not like your twins.” You see something and it wouldn't have been the same with other people.’

The 2000s saw a transition to more art-directed photography, which came with its own set of creative challenges. Reflecting on 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Murdoch admits to a rare moment of dissatisfaction over its imagined scene of a disgruntled waitress tending to the band. When the album was reissued in 2014, he put forward a single image of the titular waitress instead – an act of revisionism that brought the design more in line with the rest of the band’s visuals.

2005 compilation Push Barman to Open Old Wounds, meanwhile, features a monochromatic visual inspired by the cynical wit of graffiti found in the toilets of the Glasgow School of Art. The resulting artwork eschewed the band’s usual colour-wash treatments for the first time.

‘I thought it was genius,’ Murdoch enthuses, recalling the daubed slogan. ‘The sign says, “Push Bar To Open” and some WAG had written, “Push Barman To Open Old Wounds”, so we were just recreating that idea. We ran some colours through and then decided to go with black and white. There's quite a lot of information on that sleeve, a little bit like the original 'Catastrophe Waitress', so we thought, 'let's keep it black and white.' But it definitely puts the concept across.’

2006’s The Life Pursuit marked a departure from Scotland’s domestic interiors, moving toward a stylised aesthetic that mirrored Murdoch’s growing interest in film. He subsequently led a creative team, including his future wife, Marisa Privitera, on a weekend-long odyssey through the Scottish Highlands.

‘I had a scenario about these three models that were sent out to show Scotland up as a good place, but in the end they end up being tired and bitchy towards each other.’

The record was originally intended to be titled Rest and be Thankful, named after a famous vantage point near Glencoe.

‘I always thought that was a beautiful name,’ he states. ‘I got the perfect picture and we put that on the sleeve, but one of the band felt the name made it sound like it was going to be our last record.’

As the band moved into the 2010s, Murdoch traded his reliable Olympus OM 10 for the sophisticated, albeit temperamental, medium-format Hasselblad. 2010’s pastel pink artwork for Write About Love subsequently saw him leaning on the expertise of his wife, a freelance filmmaker and photographer, for a shoot that felt like a return to the candid simplicity of the early years.

‘I just wanted to make this one easy and actually enjoy the process,’ he says. ‘No lights, no chasing up lots of people, no reflectors, just using a medium format camera on a sunny day in Glasgow.’

The intervening years saw Murdoch’s burgeoning film career, which culminated in the 2014 musical God Help the Girl, begin to seep into the band’s visual world. 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance marked his first studio shoot, featuring a cast of characters ‘coming out of the Second World War and finding new freedoms’. Perhaps their most radical visual statement arrived in 2018 with How To Solve Our Human Problems, which saw Murdoch inviting 50 fans and volunteers to a shoot at a London studio, turning the lens on the audience that had sustained the band for over two decades.

With three decades of visual world-building behind him, the question of a favourite sleeve remains a complex one. For its atmospheric resonance with a bygone Glasgow, Murdoch cites the band’s second B-sides compilation, 2013’s The Third Eye Centre, as a definitive Belle & Sebastian artefact – its elegant, sepia wash layered with script graphics that distil the feeling of its namesake, a much-missed Glasgow cultural institution.

‘If you have the gatefold in your hand, it’s a very satisfying package,’ he states. ‘It was the kind of place where you went to see a play by an up-and-coming person, or some mad Icelandic dance music. I was just remembering a vibe and then trying to recreate it. Stevie [Jackson, guitarist and vocalist] was very complimentary about that one. He was like, “You got it. I don't know what it is, but you have it.”’

He holds a similar fondness for the hometown homage of Write About Love-era 12-inch Come On Sister’s artwork; the result of a shoot with friends that saw them striking yoga poses against a brutalist backdrop.

‘It’s very Smiths-y,’ he notes. ‘We went around Glasgow doing poses in funny, post-industrial, concrete, brutalist surroundings. It just has a little contrast, so I think it works really nice.’

With recent albums A Bit of Previous and Late Developers returning to the classic single subject formula, Murdoch very much appears to have reached a point of aesthetic clarity.

‘As the years go past and less and less people listen to your records, the design gets better,’ he jests. ‘You get sort of better at your job, at planning and the overall design.’

Three decades after he first began imagining record sleeves, the process remains a driving force, of sorts.

‘I think it's a device for creativity,’ he states. ‘We all work on memory and nostalgia. We’re always drawing on that… It’s the icing on the cake.’

Belle & Sebastian are on tour to mark the 30th anniversary

belleandsebastian.com

'The thrill of emergence, the quasi-royal ubiquitousness of established fame, the imperial phase of world domination, the disciplined strategies of survival.'

So wrote Neil Tennant in the foreword of the catalogue that accompanied a 1999 exhibition, Icons of Pop, at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Well, he should know.

An entire lifetime later, Tennant and musical partner Chris Lowe continue to ply their trade as Pet Shop Boys, now national treasure-adjacent if only the descriptor didn’t actually underplay their achievements. Not least in the field of graphic design and art direction, an area the duo commands as effortlessly as they do songwriting and, perhaps unexpectedly, live performance. Has any pop act in history curated its visual communication with as much consistent creativity and panache as Pet Shop Boys? We can’t think of one.

Much of this is down to the designer Mark Farrow, long-term creative foil and sparring partner who shares Tennant and Lowe’s northern roots, unsullied vision and no-nonsense agenda. Farrow and his team have racked up a body of work to rival the all-time greats of graphic design, with clients drawn from right across the spectrum, Marc Newson, The National Gallery, and the Tate Modern to name but three. The office shelves groan under the weight of awards won, multiple Grammys and D&ADs among them. He managed to make art out of the compact disc, and worked eye-popping wonders on the Camper-sponsored Volvo Open 70 ocean-racing yacht.

As a new history of Pet Shop Boys’ work, Volume: The Complete Visual Record, is published to coincide with the 40^th anniversary of their first album ‘Please’, Wallpaper* sat down with Farrow for a rare PSB-oriented retrospective conversation. 'People tend to think it’s very clean and minimal,' he says, 'but there’s often a lot of humour in there.'

Wallpaper*: Do you remember the first album cover that really hit you?

Mark Farrow: The epiphany was the Joy Division album, Unknown Pleasures. I had no idea that a record sleeve could look like that. When I first came to London from Manchester, I’d done a few Factory sleeves, some handbills and flyers for the Haçienda club and various places. Had punk not happened I would never have got the opportunity to do record covers. I loved music. When you’re 16, it’s all you care about, but I couldn’t play anything and I couldn’t sing. But the sleeves? I could see myself doing that. I knew Peter [Saville] and Malcolm [Garrett] a bit because I worked in a record shop in Manchester city centre, in a little unit in an underground market.

W*: You started at XL Design, which had Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the ZTT record label on its books.

MF: They’d advertised in Creative Review for a designer. If I’m honest, I didn’t love the work they were doing, but they were really hot at that point. I thought, ‘well I can change it from the inside and do my own stuff’. [laughs] The company combined XL, Big Features, which made pop promos, and Massive Management. And I was set to work on Pet Shop Boys.

W*: Your first sleeve for PSB was a remix of ‘West End Girls’ [1985]. Much-loved by the fans, then and now.

MF: And the first thing I did was get rid of all the type. I hated that original Pet Shop Boys logo, with the elongated letters. I wasn’t working with that. Neil and Chris think it’s funny, especially as it’s recently made a comeback. My partner at work, Gary Stillwell has redrawn it, it’s lighter and the letters have changed shape, so it’s not exactly the same. If Gary had said, ‘shall we look at the old logo?’ I would have said no. But he did it anyway. He was quite clever there.

W*: The essence of PSB as we know them now was established at the very start, wasn’t it? And it’s been so consistently maintained.

MF: Looking through this book, there’s none of that, ‘what was I thinking there?’ There’s a thread that runs through everything that they do. They’ve constantly reinvented, they always look forward, there’s never been a nostalgia. And they’re still important.

W*: So how do you translate that ideology into what you do, for each new album?

MF: I don’t think about it that hard. It just comes naturally. It’s based on what the music is going to sound like, what the title is, what Neil and Chris are thinking at that point in time. It’s very organic in that respect, and not that calculated.

W*: Instinct, then.

MF: Totally. Totally. Everything is.

W*: ‘Love Comes Quickly’, the follow-up to ‘West End girls’, dispensed with any branding. A punchy move. How did you persuade their label [Parlophone] to go for that?

MF: Well, they’d done four Top of the Pops appearances by the time that came out. Chris in the Boy cap and the glasses and cap pulled down was well established. I thought, ‘Chris is the logo’. Everyone’s going to know who this is. What else do we need?

W* ‘Please’, the first PSB album, has just turned 40, and still looks dazzling in its simplicity.

MF: Everything in the mid-Eighties was big and bold and had five different typefaces competing for your attention. A very bright, poppy Smash Hits feel. The 12in white square that is the ‘Please’ sleeve was just so different to anything else, it really jumped out in the HMV or Virgin Megastore window. I thought people would want to know what the tiny image in the middle was, and would be curious to read the little bit of type. It felt logical to me that it would stand out by not standing out.

W*: The ‘Suburbia’ [1986 single] sleeve is one that secured their visual tone. Another cover with no type.

MF: They’d seen an article, in The Face, I think, about these kids in Derry or Dublin, I can’t remember which, who were nicking cars and setting them on fire and generally marauding. Neil and Chris wanted these images to be the cover of ‘Suburbia’. Then this box of prints arrives from their photographer, Eric Watson, and I said, ‘forget the kids, guys, I get the idea, but this has got to be the sleeve. [pause] It was a bit of a fight, that.

W*: Did you tussle with them much?

MF: Chris has never liked photographs of himself. As time’s gone on, arguments happen less and less, because they trust us. But the biggest scrap was about the cover of Actually [1987 album]. The image we used was an out-take, they’d been doing the video for the single with Dusty [Springfield]. It was two in the morning, Chris was pissed off and Neil genuinely was yawning. On the next shot on the roll they were probably smiling, but I thought, ‘that’s them’. That’s what everyone thinks they are, Chris is grumpy, Neil’s bored. Chris hated that photo with a venegance, still hates it just as much now. Nobody really likes photographs of themselves, so I can empathise. Persuading the record company wasn’t easy. ‘You’ve just had a number one album and you’re yawning on the follow-up?’ I thought, ‘but it’s fucking perfect!’

W* The book is a history, but it also acts as a four-decade journey through graphic design. Are you surprised by how well the work holds up?

MF: Looking through it, you don’t think, ‘well that was a terrible period of graphic design’. In the Nineties, you had people like David Carson and Tomato, that kind of scrappy, photocopied look. I could appreciate it but I was never going to go there, I wasn’t going to start trying to echo that. I’ve always wanted my work to look like it came from my studio. Certain companies would give you anything you wanted. When I work with a band, I want them to want what we do. I lose interest quickly if people start going, ‘what about this, could we make this bigger?’ Well, why have you come to us, then? Surely you understand what we do.

W* Do you have any personal stand-outs?

MF: I like Introspective [1988]. And I like Actually because of the battle we went through. I remember the sleeve for ‘Miracles’ [2003 single]. We had cut outs of Neil and Chris on the cover, the sleeve was white, the inner bag was covered in cherry blossom, the inside of the inner bag was covered in cherry blossom, the vinyl was white, the labels were full colour. I remember thinking, ‘what a complete object’. There’s nothing more I can throw at this. To give Neil and Chris full credit, I needed them behind me all the way to make these things happen.

W*: After all this time, presumably you still enjoy working with them.

MF: It’s an absolute highlight when they come in. It’s the funniest couple of hours you will ever spend. Some of the suggestions they come up with that would never see the light of day… it’s just brilliant fun. This conception that they’re miserable fuckers? It’s quite the opposite.

W*:The ‘tick’ graphic on 2009’s ‘Yes’ album is classic Farrow and PSB…

MF: They came in with Gerhard Richter squares [see 4900 Colours, 2007] and said, ‘we love this’. So did I but it felt like Introspective to me, and I didn’t want to do that. We started exploring the idea of each square representing a track on the album, and we thought, ‘let’s make it into a tick’. Affirmative, yes, it works! And we went from a square to a diamond and that informed the typeface, and then we were up and running, across formats and beyond. They actually agreed to take one song off the album so that the tick would work better graphically. They said, ‘we have been debating about whether to include this one track…’ So I replied, ‘well, maybe that’s the decision made for you.’

W*: The vinyl box set version won design awards. It’s a phenomenal object in its own right.

MF: The streaming era has opened the door to do something real and tangible. We can create wild things because people will buy them. The Vinyl Factory wanted to do a special edition with us, and we decided to do one track on each 12in, with a colour coded sleeve, which you could lay on the floor to make a huge tick. As for the Perspex box, I was thinking of a record deck cover from the Seventies, a smoked glass thing with a gold logo in the middle of it.

W*: I’ve always been intrigued by the cover of the 2016 album ‘Super’.

MF: Chris said, ‘can we do something a bit more vulgar, something louder?’ That felt like a good brief. It was also at the point where people were just listening to stuff on their phone and looking at the screen. So the big red dot would really pop, it looked like a button you would push. It wasn’t a record sleeve so much as a corporate identity, and everything would be circles, in different colours. So the one for Apple Music was different from the Spotify one and so on.

W*: The lurid green and deliberately lo-fi typeface of Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ album proves that graphic design in music still has massive power.

MF: If I’d been invited to do that, I’d have ended up in exactly the same place, but the type would have looked… better. [laughs] I think about this a lot, and I wonder if I am just getting old and nostalgic. I don’t think I am. There’s still a vitality about what we do. But I do worry for the next generation, and I worry for anyone who wants to design record sleeves now. The music industry is about Instagram followers and TikTok, and using the algorithm to work out what the sleeve should look like.

W*: Do you think about your legacy?

MF: I never think about the impact of the work, although it did occur to me that, given the amount of records PSB have sold over the years, there may be 50 million people who have something I designed somewhere in their house. That’s a freaky thought, though not in an egotistical way.

(‘Pet Shop Boys Volume: The Complete Visual Record’ is published on April 7^th, and is available to pre-order from Thames & Hudson, priced at £40.00)

With his American Utopia show, David Byrne changed what the rock(ish) concert could be. No singer at the front and drummer stuck at the back. No guitarists and keyboards dutifully flanking the frontman, the backing vocalists corralled on a platform. No rigidity. The use of the latest in wireless technology meant he and his snappily attired musicians were untethered by any cabling and uncluttered by any gear, liberating them to roam around the stage in synchronised, song-specific dance moves dreamt up by Brooklyn-based choreographer Annie-B Parson.

The tour was in support of his eighth solo album of the same name and ran, on and off, between 2018 and 2022. After the globetrotting, it was recast as something like a stage musical for a Broadway residency. That was filmed for an HBO special directed by Spike Lee. With the free-range, free-expression, shape-shifting American Utopia, the same musician who helped reinvent the concert movie with 1984’s Stop Making Sense had now done the same for the gig.

Now, for his new Who Is the Sky? tour, Byrne has had to do that all over again.

Enter Steven Hoggett. The London-based movement director has deep experience across a range of stages. He’s worked with the National Theatre of Scotland on Black Watch and Let the Right One In, winning an Olivier for the former. With the National Theatre on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. With Sting on his musical The Last Ship, with Green Day on the theatre version of punk polemic American Idiot, with Thom Yorke on last year’s Factory International/Royal Shakespeare Company production Hamlet/Hail to the Thief.

Then came the phone call from Byrne one day before Christmas Eve “a couple of years ago” – and the offer to collaborate on his next tour was “one of the best Christmas presents”. But then, the anxiety set in. How to top American Utopia, a show Hoggett had seen three times?

“Annie broke the ice, I will say that,” the 54-year-old Yorkshireman says of the American’s boundary-busting, paradigm-shifting production. “I didn't have to do the breaking of wills that she would have had to do to get this to work. So I'm thankful for that, if nothing else.”

He also had to encapsulate and animate the simple but powerful lyrical mantra at the heart of ‘Everybody Laughs’, Byrne’s 2025 album’s joyful opening song: “Everybody looks and everybody sees, everybody’s asking everybody ‘please’, everybody’s going everywhere at once…”.

No biggie, then, Steven?

Well, I still think American Utopia is one of the greatest pieces of choreography and staging I've ever seen, hands down – theatre, dance, whatever. So it was quite tricky. And I went back to look at it when David said he wanted to use mobile musicians [again] but this time he was looking at five dancers, not two. Plus David. So there's 13 bodies moving on stage. There are certain things you can do with formations. I made a list of them all, all the things typically you might do choreographically. And as I went through American Utopia, I started ticking them – and Annie had used every tool in the box beautifully. So I got quite depressed for about a month.

Obviously you got over that. Late last year there was a glowing live review in a music magazine, from a New York show early in this tour. It quoted Byrne as saying at the top of the show: 'Love and kindness are the most punk things you can do.' Was that an animating idea for you in terms of your work on the show?

Yeah. Look: day by day, it only gets worse [in the world]. Certainly, we made the show in America, but the UK is not funny right now either! David sent me the album when he asked me to do this. It took me a second to realise that he was committing to an album that was about looking for the joy in the connection of human beings. It's absolutely what you should write an album about… Instead of plunging into the despair of it all, he said: 'Well, what about joy and what about connectedness?' And he's written an album that reflects that.

And that fed directly into your choreography?

I thought: this is a great opportunity to show 13 people who all move all at once. Everybody gets their responsibility. Everybody is somebody you will know by the end of the show. Also: let’s not to forget that we're going to be doing this with a load of people that are willfully [committed]. [As an audience] we're all looking the same way because we want to join something.

There is unity in unity…

I've always felt that when people start moving in unison on a dancefloor or wherever, I drop my shopping. It's one of the most amazing things that people can do. Whether involuntarily or not. I wasn't old enough for this, but I remember in the ’70s, there was lots of dance routines that people always used to do with the same movements on a dancefloor. That had gone by the ’80s when I got into a nightclub. I am kind of sad about that. But, yeah, bodies moving in unison always makes me feel good. It's my sweet spot.

How did you go about choreographing a bunch of people with a range of dance skills and abilities?

We had six weeks rehearsal in New York last summer. I didn't put a number together for three weeks. In the mornings, I worked with the dancers. I didn't use David Byrne tracks. I used different music by different artists, and I tried some ideas out. I didn't want them to know that it was going to be, say, ‘Slippery People’, because they'd give me an obvious result.

So I would give him a task, and it might be something like: “You are a futuristic disco dancer…" Or we watched some nature programmes. There's a beautiful flamingo sequence in Blue Planet that we watched. We watched Dumbo. We watched Madonna's ‘Frozen’ video by Chris Cunningham.

What about the musicians?

In the afternoons, I watched them all learn to play the songs. I'm looking as they're looking down at the fretboard, seeing where their hips and shoulders and fingers and elbows are. So which way can they go? Which way can't they go? And I held my nerve for three weeks, because then we had two weeks to choreograph all 23 songs. So it's six days a week. I don't know how we did it, but in the last week we ran the whole thing. It was manic and mad. But I felt that by sitting back and not panicking and doing my homework, it fed me lots of ideas.

What does David see that's important about the choreography in terms of amplifying the messages of his songs?

I'll put it really simply: David loves dancing. And like anything, his dancing has changed. It's easy to prep for this show because there lots of footage of David. It's amazing to watch him go from his hips and his knees, and now it's his shoulders and his hands where his choreography sits. I love the fact that he's grown up through his body. And now as a physical, kinetic being, he lives and sits somewhere entirely different. He doesn't move at all like he did in Stop Making Sense. That's because we develop – our intrinsic sense of movement changes over time. And his has. But he just loves dancing.

And to explore [those ideas] in the way they did with American Utopia was breathtaking. Any choreographer [would agree]. The place was packed with choreographers when I saw it. You couldn't move for us. Everybody had their notebooks out. Like: “What the fuck?”

Having worked with Thom Yorke, as a choreographer how would you characterise the Radiohead frontman’s dancing style?

Wooargh... Synaptic... seizure. Frenetic. We were actually all together yesterday, because we're bringing that back this year in London, and we were talking about choreography. He's another person who really knows his dance.

How was it co-creating the Hamlet/Hail to the Thief piece?

Actually, we had a challenging workshop developing Hamlet. It was the last day, and Thom came over. He just looked a little bit cowed and quiet. He went: “I don't really know how to say this to you... but I didn't like any of the choreography these last two weeks.” And I was like: he's right. It wasn't very good. I mean, I was absolutely mortified and terrified! But I love the fact that he wouldn't purport to know much but he does have taste. And it matters to him what choreography does.

That was a big lesson to me, which was: [these musicians] are looking and they're watching, and they do know what they want. So I don't waste anybody's time anymore! When it comes to choreography, you've got to be able to put it up, and you've got to stand by it. But it was one of the worst moments of my life!

To end on a sidenote: you mentioned the room at one of the American Utopia shows as being full of choreographers. What’s the collective noun for a group of choreographers?

A... I was about to use a swear word! Well, either in New York or London, if you put a big group of choreographers in a room together, they'd have a great night. Directors, they wouldn't even speak to each other – they'd pretend they didn't know each other. That is true. So: a drunk of choreographers. Because they get hammered if they can slip the leash.

The UK leg of David Byrne’s Who Is the Sky? tour starts this week

Since Abbey Road’s Studio One emerged from an extensive six-month restoration in early 2025, the air inside the world’s most famous recording room has felt different. Long regarded as a private sanctuary for cinematic scores and rock royalty, the studio is gradually starting to unbolt its gates, inviting the outside world into the cavernous space where the likes of The Beatles and Pink Floyd once stood.

Last Saturday night (20 February 2026) saw it transformed into a vibrating cacophony of sound. That’s nothing unusual for a space that consistently attracts musical talent from across the globe, of course, but this wasn't the sweeping, majestic resonance of an orchestral session, nor the melodic ghosts of the studio’s storied rock history. Instead, the birthplace of stereo and the site of the world’s first global satellite broadcast was playing host to 300 people witnessing another notable first: an Abbey Road rave.

The event, ‘Abbey Road After Dark’, represents a bold pivot for an institution that has spent much of its history hidden away behind a no-entry sign. It’s something that Mark Robertson, director of marketing, creative, and artist relations, has been eager to strip away for some time.

'Over the past few years, we've been really intrigued by how music intersects with other creative disciplines, whether that's film, games, photography or fashion,' Robertson explains. 'Abbey Road has always had this curiosity to try new things and reflect what’s happening. It led us to a place of, you know, why not? It almost feels like it's taking that sort of creative spirit forward.'

When it came to selecting hosts for the event, Robertson only had one name in mind.

'Soulwax were the only people I asked,' he admits. 'Seeing their live show is a reminder that they are true, creative pioneers. They're people who are intrigued, have a curiosity, who want to explore and experiment, and they're always moving forward.'

Brothers David and Stephen Dewaele’s dual identity as frenetic DJ duo 2manydjs and a bone-rattling live band was an irresistible combination. The goal was never simply to book a DJ set but, rather, to initiate a collaboration that would utilise the building's unique characteristics to create something entirely from scratch.

'Dave and Steph were just really excited about exploring the possibilities,' Robertson enthuses. 'They’re people that know music inside out, in terms of its history, and they know so much about gear. They’ve been true collaborators all the way through this.'

At Abbey Road’s first rave with Soulwax, and the build-up to the night

On the evening of the rave, at the centre of Studio One, stands a monolith of sound: the Deewee soundsystem. Inspired by the legendary array at New York’s Paradise Garage, it is the physical conduit for the night’s curators. Tonight the duo will appear as 2manydjs supported by fellow electronic pioneer Erol Alkan and musicians Laima Leyton and Nadia Ksaiba, who will deliver hour-long sets of their own.

Thirty-six hours earlier, however, the atmosphere at Abbey Road is one of focused intensity. The Dewaele brothers are three days into the production of a brand new, as yet untitled track, sitting in a suite overlooking Studio One. Flanked by a film crew led by filmmaker and graphic designer Bertrand Lagros de Langeron (aka So Me), who are documenting their residency, the brothers are in fine, reflective form.

'I think the scientific term was: “Fuck”,’ David Dewaele jests as he recalls his initial reaction to walking into the building. 'We’re music history nerds. We’ve got the books, the documentaries, we know the space. But then you come into this room, which we’d never really seen in person, and it’s like, “Oh, wow.”’

While Saturday’s event will be a club-focused experience, the days prior have fostered a sense of quickfire creative experimentation as a band. Backed by their signature three-drummer line-up of Aurora Bennett, Blake Davies and Igor Cavalera, the Dewaeles have taken up residency across Studios Two and Three. Their mission is high-stakes: to record a new Soulwax track utilising the studio’s vast collection of vintage gear and play it out during their set using an acetate cut in the building.

In Studio Two, the Abbey Road team have created three separate rooms within the main floor to capture the drums simultaneously, with the studio’s agile nature affording the duo a rare degree of flexibility. 'It’s insane,' Stephen states on the Friday prior to the rave. 'We thought today was going to be the day we would have to track more drums, and we did everything last night.'

Regardless of where they find themselves recording, a lack of preciousness means that the Dewaeles are often fully prepared to scrap their work on the penultimate day of a project should a better idea surface.

'We have enough distance, I think, from our own work,' David says. 'We're very quick at saying, “Well, that's just shit. Let's throw it away.”’

Since entering the studio on Wednesday, the process has been a race against time, utilising the full band to capture a specific, percussive energy.

‘The visceral part for Soulwax was always having a drummer up front,’ Stephen says of their unusual configuration. 'Seeing that visceral part of somebody beating the shit out of some drums and this idea of having not just one, or two, but three. They never really play the track together. They do alternate parts, which become one part and logistically it's really hard. But then we went into [Abbey Road], and it just went way faster than we thought.'

While the duo are no strangers to setting themselves strict limitations, this has been a tight balancing act.

'We set a mastering date before we start mixing,' Stephen says. 'I know the cut has to be done at 2pm; 2pm is the last we can do.'

'So 1.45pm is when we come up with a different song,' David jokingly interjects as Stephen shoots a wry glance towards Robertson and the assembled film crew.

For the Dewaeles, who constructed their own studio in Ghent a decade ago – a Glenn Sestig-designed base for their Deewee label – stepping into Abbey Road naturally meant abandoning their comfort zones.

'Everything in our studio is designed for our workflow to be as creative and productive as possible,' David says. 'Coming here, the challenge was to maximise the stuff we don’t have access to. I mean, we don’t have the piano “Lady Madonna” was played on.'

As a result, the brothers found themselves in the unique position of being students within the space. 'Everyone we've been working with has been so accommodating, but also very keen for us to push further,' David notes. 'They’ll say, “We've pulled out machines that some people didn't know they had.” It’s a two-direction thing; we’re showing them something and they’re showing us something. It’s not just: “Come into these hallowed rooms and we'll show you what to do.”‘

This technical exchange has seen the brothers experiment with sound through a Leslie speaker – traditionally used for Hammond organs – to see how it might warp a vocal or a synth. Having recorded vocals, drums and other instrumentation in Studio Two, renowned for its storied history with The Beatles, who recorded most of their music for EMI there in the 1960s, the brothers moved to Studio Three for the mixing stage, a room known for its precision and clarity.

Working in a space where it’s joked that Paul McCartney could be hiding behind any door requires a certain level of modest irreverence. An ability to set aside any notions of awe proved vital in Studio Two – while other artists might be paralysed by the knowledge that they are standing where ‘Sgt Pepper's’ was recorded, the brothers have deliberately kept the history at arm's length.

'I tried to stay away from it,' Stephen admits. 'If you go into it and you have that weight on you, it becomes very intimidating. And in a way, it should just be blank.'

A recording and performative high-wire act

For the 300 guests who won the Soulwax Rave Hotline ballot – a lottery that saw 8,000 hopefuls dial in for a chance to attend – the night’s live experience is defined by the Deewee soundsystem. Unlike the brothers’ Despacio system, designed in collaboration with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy – a purist’s altar to vinyl and McIntosh amplification – the Deewee rig is an altogether different beast. Comprising four black, monolithic stacks, the system fills the immense volume of Studio One.

'It’s the first time we're going to use it in its complete capacity, because it's humongous,' Stephen states, though David is quick to provide a reality check: 'But it might not look humongous in this room.'

Even within the 4,844 sq ft sprawl of Studio One, the system is imposing. And it had to be. This is a high-wire act of the highest order: opening a headline set with a track that has been recorded, mixed, and cut to acetate just three hours earlier. This is music played back on a system the brothers hadn't yet heard at full volume, in a room that traditionally demands months of symphonic planning.

'We have no answer to this question,' David says of the looming technical tension. 'We're wondering the same thing – how’s that gonna work?'

Stephen is even more candid about the potential for disaster: 'That was the whole challenge of doing it. Maybe people will just walk away.'

They don’t.

At 11pm on Saturday, the duo arrive on cue, acetate in hand. There is a brief, ceremonial moment as Alkan steps away from the decks and the Dewaeles place the fresh plate onto the turntable. As the needle finds the groove and the thumping rhythm of The KLF’s ‘What Time Is Love?’ fades away, Studio One is soon awash in a pulsing, rhythmic architecture that existed as a mere idea just days prior. The crowd's reaction is rapturous, a collective roar that confirms the Dewaeles have pulled off another of Abbey Road’s fabled miracle moments.

By the time the final beat drops on Saturday night – albeit slightly earlier than planned following an interjection from Westminster Council – the experiment has proven a success. Abbey Road is still very much testing its own boundaries, moving from hallowed creative ground steeped in legend to a site of active, rapid-fire collaboration and, now, jubilant public-facing celebration.

I think for us, we would never just want to be a venue,' Mark Robertson concludes. 'We'd always want to have a genuine collaboration. To have that genuine creativity and then share that with an audience so quickly, I think that's what makes it worthwhile.'

As the crowd disperses over the iconic zebra crossing, silence returns to the studio, if only for a moment. Abbey Road has facilitated a party quite unlike any other; a site-specific manufacturing of the evening’s guest of honour, cut to wax in a matter of days. Even after nine decades, there are still plenty of firsts left to be discovered within these walls.

abbeyroad.com

London-based electronic musician Danny L Harle has always been driven by a simple, defining mission statement: to make music that sounds the way he feels. Having cultivated his own distinctive palette for well over a decade, spanning everything from hardcore to rave, pop and everything in between, his sound remains virtually impossible to pigeonhole.

Harle’s career-long commitment to eclecticism has often manifested itself in ambitious visual world-building, too. Following a decade of digital maximalism through his association with the confounding electronic label PC Music, his 2021 album Harlecore evolved from a one-off local pub night into a global rave brand. In response to lockdown, the project was ultimately reimagined as a virtual interactive club environment, developed alongside VR artists Team Rolfes. Now he’s preparing to step out of the trappings of digital environs and into the physical world.

'The useful thing about Harlecore was the fact that it was a set in this kind of fantasy environment,' he muses. 'I was supposedly showing where the music was being performed in that… Here, there's maybe slightly more of an emphasis on images of an imagined process of the making of the music as well, but always with an emphasis on a necessary abstractness and atmospheric storytelling, rather than world building.'

Half a decade later, Harle has unleashed Cerulean, the album he considers to be his true debut – a voyage into sprawling sonic landscapes where speaker-blowing bass and euphoric trance collide with classical harmonies and tactile sound design. To that end, it’s very much a Danny L Harle project, not least because of its stark, striking visual components - even when the music comes first.

'A lot of the ways in which I made this album were a very concerted effort to not be high-concept,' he explains. 'I sat down and just made the music I wanted to hear. The album in its finished state would be my manifesto for music, really. Anything visual would come after that.'

What did follow, however, was a project that embodies the physicality of that music – a dreamscape, of sorts, built from and inspired by sculpture, decaying sea forts and the strange, lonely mechanics of video games. It’s every bit as meticulous and considered as what came before, with the same keen sense of playfulness that underpins everything he touches.

At the centre of Cerulean is artwork from Yuma Burgess, which sees the sculptor and designer transforming Harle’s homey recording studio at The Premises in London into something more reminiscent of a spaceship’s control room. Perhaps most impressively, the cover isn't a digital render; it’s a physical set built by hand inside a church in Dunfermline, Scotland where Burgess lives and works. Having recently relocated from London – a move he recommends to any sculptor in need of storage space – the church became the only place where a physical build of this scale could conceivably happen.

'I tell everyone to just go and buy a church in Scotland, because they're just insanely affordable,' Burgess jests. 'I spent a year visiting random churches in Scotland, which was a fun thing to do in itself. Whenever I did, I always asked who else was interested, just out of curiosity and quite often it would be other sculptors – specifically sculptors from London.'

'It’s almost like the picture existed before we took the picture,' Harle adds. 'We'd never really collaborated before, but he'd worked with Caroline Polachek, a frequent collaborator of mine. He came over and just knew all my references… I had the idea for the cover in a flash, and explained it to him.'

After a single phone call followed by a few references, Burgess returned with a digital painting on his iPad that perfectly encapsulated Harle’s vision.

'I suggested to Danny that he just come up for a couple of days to do the shoot,' Burgess explains. 'I had about a month and a half to chip away at the set. It was just a bit more relaxed than renting a studio for two days and panicking.'

The result was a three-by-three metre cube populated with an array of found ephemera, largely built from scratch or salvaged from the church itself. Burgess even repurposed a wooden font that sits in front of Harle on the cover.

'It was a funny process and I've honestly never done anything like it,' Burgess says. 'I usually just make a one-off singular object and I don't really do set design, so this was a bit different to what I'm used to - just going on eBay and looking at auction houses. We were approaching antique furniture places looking at props for film and stuff. As time drew on, I realised that there was quite a bit of stuff that suited the vibe at the church.'

Eager to supplement Burgess’ visuals, Harle and photographer Ronan Park sought out locations to shoot that looked like portals into another world. Inspired by one of Park’s photographs – a shot of the Matterhorn taken from a plane window – the pair set off in search of decaying sea forts off the UK coast – liminal spaces that are literally collapsing into the ocean.

'They're incredibly dangerous and it's very hard to charter boats to get to them,' he states. 'And that's where basically all of the visual material was created, other than the cover shoot, which was built inside of Yuma’s church. Those locations really kind of resonated with what I was thinking about.'

Harle also cites the literary influence of author Suzanna Clark’s Piranesi, a meditative journey into human nature, which quickly became compulsory reading for all of his collaborators.

'I do think it's the best book I've ever read,' he enthuses. 'It just really seemed to hit on something that was absolutely perfect in relation to the album. It involves this island in the sea that's full of these marble sculptures that are sort of created by the human imagination, but it's also then a place that you can occupy and get stranded there. I found that to be a really interesting concept.'

Meanwhile, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker served as a major influence on the project as a whole, both thematically and in the ways in which the director was forced to reshoot the movie on a shoestring budget, which ultimately cemented its reputation as a masterpiece.

'When you're forced to do something really quickly or on a low budget, it often produces a better result,' he posits. 'It just forces spontaneity and resourcefulness.'

Shirking conventional notions for music videos, Cerulean arrives accompanied by a visual companion directed by Paris-based filmmaker and visual artist Lillian Hardoineau. Across its 30-minute runtime, Harle performs against the backdrop of a fantastical, nautical rave base, surrounded by a curious cast of contemplative ravers, feline companions and masked antagonists.

'Lillian's approach to light, grading and his camera work was just like an absolute no-brainer in terms of choosing someone,' Harle states. 'There's such a sense of emotion just in the way he films a landscape, and that just worked perfectly with what I was trying to do.'

Cinematic and literary allusions aside, Harle initially pitched his idea for the live-action visuals with one very specific cultural reference in mind – Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s notoriously uneasy Boiler Room set.

'The thing that I found quite inspiring about it is that everyone's having their own response to the music,' Harle observes. 'It's not this collective thing, but there's still an overall atmosphere of positivity. I just think that's a really lovely thing, but I was interested in a more euphoric, melancholic version of that.'

Fittingly, in Harle’s imagined world, a rave is a place where one person might be dancing, while the person next to them is crying or lost in thought. It’s a collective of individuals, all having their own private experience in a shared space.

One of Cerulean’s most potent yet curious influences is a gameplay mechanic in the Dark Souls video game series whereby players catch glimpses of other people struggling through the same environments. Unable to communicate, they are nevertheless acutely aware of each other’s presence.

'This ‘alone together’ thing is very evocative,' Harle explains. 'You see these phantoms of other people who have gone on the same mission... everyone’s had this experience of going down the same path, but differently, and on their own.'

Harle’s fascination with gaming’s capacity to inspire communal experiences extends beyond merely playing them too. During a meeting with legendary game director Hideo Kojima, with whom Harle collaborated on Caroline Polachek’s song ‘On The Beach’ for the Death Stranding 2 soundtrack, their conversation focused less on technology and more on human connection. Harle was struck by Kojima’s genuine desire to use his craft to help people.

'I wanted to get quite nerdy about video game mechanics, but he bypassed anything technical,' Harle states. 'He spoke about how there has to be a hope for humanity in these games. We spoke about how in The Exorcist, for example, he loves the message from the preacher: ‘I am an adult and I will protect you as a child.’ To him, that is a very profound statement to make in that film… He's not a kind of game-obsessive making games - he's trying to help people in the only way he knows how, seemingly, and that is such a cool way of doing it.'

Similarly, a refusal to follow any kind of conventional blueprint is ultimately what makes the world of Cerulean so compelling. Whether he’s chartering boats to rusting sea forts or building interstellar cockpits in a church, Harle’s work is all about a DIY obsession with his own specific brand of unorthodox beauty.

'I’m just so involved in the way I do things and the way my collaborators do things,' he admits. 'I’m not aware of what’s normal at all. I don’t think there is a ‘normal’ with it. Whenever I write with a new person, they're like, "I've never written music like this before." I've just got quite a specific process for everything – basically learning how to make what I want to hear and see in the world. And it's maybe slightly unorthodox at times.'

In a landscape often dominated by slick, digital perfection, Cerulean stands out as a monument to that sense of creativity. After all, the most evocative worlds aren’t always built in a computer. Sometimes, they’re hammered together in a Scottish church, or discovered in the ruins of a collapsing sea fort – one ‘alone together’ moment at a time.

Cerulean by Danny L Harle is out now.

The Grammy-winning musician and Tony-nominated scenic designer Riccardo Hernández reflect on creating the attention-grabbing set for his new Caos tour

In a rehearsal space deep in the San Fernando Valley on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Miguel stands tall on top of an overturned police cruiser with a fist in the air and a microphone to his lips. Above his head, suspended from the rafters, a colossal sculpture in the style of an ancient Olmec head watches over him like an observant god. It’s a powerful image, a man caught between righteous defiance on the streets and the legacy of his ancestral history, and one that’s at the heart of the Grammy-winning R&B star’s electrifying new tour.

Last October, on the same day he turned 40, Miguel released his first album in eight years. Caos was born out of a transformative period in his personal life, during which he became a father for the first time and composed some of the most intimate and introspective music of his career. When he began planning exactly how he would take Caos on the road, he knew the live show would have to feel just as significant.

‘Last year was one of the most important years of my life, and this album is my most important album thus far,’ says Miguel, taking a seat on a black couch during a brief respite from a day spent fine-tuning his performance. ‘I knew I couldn’t come back with a tour where we just come out and do the songs everybody knows. The same amount of thought and consideration had to go into the stage.’

The first seeds for the visual language of Caos were planted during Miguel’s conversations with the writer and filmmaker Margaret Zhang, the mother of his son, who he describes as his ‘creative and strategic partner.’ It was Zhang who introduced him to the work of scenic designer Riccardo Hernández, whose extensive work on Broadway has earned him Tony nominations for designing shows such as Lempicka and the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill. ‘I immediately connected with the way his approach pulls the viewer in and seems to amplify the storytelling without getting in the way,’ says Miguel.

For Hernández, listening to Miguel’s music immediately brought to mind an oratorio. ‘It’s part confession and redemption,’ explains the designer. ‘The music and the text provided an invitation to create a sonic and visual installation. The beauty of working with Miguel is his incredible discipline to provoke and ultimately find something unique. I used my experience in opera and theatre to create a visceral, visual landscape. Something seminal and truthful.’

The pair began to work on a set that could convey with just a few key elements the idea of chaos: both on an inner subconcious level and a wider societal one. For a symbol of his subconscious self, Miguel hit upon the idea of the Olmec head, the imposing icons of ancient Mesoamerican culture that were carved out of basalt boulders thousands of years ago.

‘I needed a symbol that would convey a certain innate and ancient nature,’ explains Miguel, who points out that while traditional Olmec heads depicted men clad in armour, his version sees his own resemblance wearing the danza de los diablos head scarf, a homage to the celebration of freed African slaves in Mexico. It’s a nod to his own background: Miguel was born in Los Angeles to a Black mother and a father whose family come from Zamora, Michoacán in Mexico.

‘The Olmec head is meant to represent both the id and the child,’ continues Miguel. ‘When I first went to Michoacán and met my family there, I felt like I had known them my entire life. Having my son reminded me of that feeling. Seeing his personality and his nature reminded me how deep our blood runs. That Olmec head is my way of saying that in me there is something that spans space and time and generations. It’s also meant to say that I have an immense pride in where I come from.’

To bring the stage set firmly into the contemporary world, Miguel wanted to incorporate a symbol of societal unrest. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything more raw than to be on top of a cop car!’ he says with a sly grin, adding: ‘Flipping it was instinctual, and just so happened to add a simple but effective uniqueness to the visual composition.’

‘The Olmec head is meant to represent both the id and the child,’ continues Miguel. ‘When I first went to Michoacán and met my family there, I felt like I had known them my entire life. Having my son reminded me of that feeling. Seeing his personality and his nature reminded me how deep our blood runs. That Olmec head is my way of saying that in me there is something that spans space and time and generations. It’s also meant to say that I have an immense pride in where I come from.’

Hernández recalls their early conversations, where Miguel talked about the idea of ‘something sacred emerging from the ruins of civilization, or from buried temples of Tenochtitlan – modern day Mexico City.We also discussed the primal sacred forces in collision with the modern in an unspiritual age, riddled with technology.’

To bring the stage set firmly into the contemporary world, Miguel wanted to incorporate a symbol of societal unrest. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything more raw than to be on top of a cop car!’ he says with a sly grin, adding: ‘Flipping it was instinctual, and just so happened to add a simple but effective uniqueness to the visual composition.’

Hernández adds: ‘The modern symbol of our age is a burnt-out police car, laying in ruins.’

The car features details that only sharp-eyed fans will notice, such as a bespoke CIA-style logo for the ‘Caos Intelligence Agency’, and will be a key focal point for the live show. Miguel reveals he plans to tag it with spray paint every night during the tour. ‘The police car is a symbol that’s really representative of these systems that we have to take a look at, within and without,’ he adds. ‘Of course, it also pleases the child in me that wants to rage and say: fuck it all!’

The upturned car alone would make for a memorable visual, but by pairing it with the hovering Olmec head Miguel and Hernández have crafted a stage set that speaks volumes all on its own. ‘Those two elements, with me in the centre, are very much meant to evoke this place we’re all in, in the midst of it all,’ says Miguel. ‘We’re all in between our own subconcious pressures and the pressures of reality as it is. I think that’s what this whole thing is all about.’

Miguel’s Caos tour runs from February until May in the United States and Europe.

Love the Barbican? Then your Friday nights are about to get a whole lot better. The London institution has announced Anyone Can Dance, a new late-night party series launching in February 2026 with an opening night curated by UK-based creative collective Eastern Margins – a platform dedicated to championing alternative East and South East Asian (ESEA) culture.

The series celebrates global club music as heard through UK diasporas, spotlighting dance floor sounds from around the world refracted through local scenes. The first of five nights planned for 2026 takes place on Friday 20 February, when the Barbican’s Level -1 foyer will be transformed into an intimate dance floor, open until 3am.

Eastern Margins is known for foregrounding alternative and grassroots Asian culture across genres including J-pop, hyperpop, techno, rap, pop-punk, jazz and grime. Their Barbican takeover highlights the ongoing dialogue between diaspora and place, bringing together bedroom-DJ Nick Cheo, Seoul’s Bass Queen Kollin and rising talents Jianbo and Meyy. Fresh from hosting the second edition of their Margins United festival, Eastern Margins now brings its boundary-pushing energy to the Barbican after hours.

The announcement of Anyone Can Dance follows the success of two sold-out late-night parties at the Barbican in 2025, hosted by Rinse FM and Club Stamina. The new series builds on the centre’s expanding nocturnal programme, reflecting its unique position at the intersection of heritage, experimentation and subculture. As one of Europe’s largest multi-arts centres – housed within Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s famously divisive brutalist landmark, set for a revamp in 2028 – the Barbican has long balanced institutional gravitas with a commitment to artistic risk.

While its programme spans classical music, theatre, cinema and visual arts, the Barbican has also cultivated a reputation for platforming contemporary and hybrid culture, from underground club scenes – 2025’s In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats offered a virtual reality trip in an illegal Acid House rave – and experimental sound to diasporic storytelling and youth-led movements.

Anyone Can Dance promises nights of escapism, community and joy – championing emerging artists, new sounds and the shared experience of the dance floor.

Tickets for ‘Anyone Can Dance’ are now on sale via the Barbican’s website

The world’s biggest music tech show finished last week in Anaheim. From traditional instruments to cutting-edge ideas and updates and new launches from industry behemoths, the National Association of Music Merchants show (NAMM) is a more-than-a-century-old organisation dedicated to instrument makers, studio owners, event professionals, music education and even apparently niche – but actually hugely important – sectors like the Worship Music industry

In amongst the virtual devices, plug-ins, DAWs and gadgets on display there was also plenty of new hardware to explore. Here are eight exemplary devices for modern sonic exploration.

Korg Phase 8

What sets the Phase 8 apart from a conventional portable synth is its blend of digital and pure analogue input. For the Phase 8 uses eight marimba-style steel resonators as an input source, translating their vibrations into sound with the infinite feedback and expression of touch.

Adjustable, tuneable and even swappable, these percussive resonators create an ‘acoustic synthesiser’, giving the Phase 8 a unique approach to sound creation.

Korg Phase 8, £859, Korg.co.uk, @KorgOfficial, Andertons.co.uk

Casio Dimension Shifter

Casio’s new Dimension Shifter is a digital expression pedal for the guitarist. Consisting of a strap mounted mechanical spring that sends a signal to a pedal, which translates the motion of the guitar neck into any kind of instrumental parameter, from pitch through to delay length. Reminiscent of the old school mechanical ‘B-Bender’ system that can be found in old Fender Telecasters, the Dimension Shifter brings analogue expression to digital tech.

Casio also showcased another surprise, a standalone Sampler. The company’s first foray into this realm since it pioneered lo-fi sampling with the cult SK series of keyboards back in the 1980s. The new product, which is concept-only right now, is a mix of playful, almost toylike design, and high-end editing and performance functions.

Casio Dimension Shifter, available soon, Casio.com, @CasioMusicGear

Poly Effects Hugo

Australian manufacturer Poly Effects debuted the Hugo prototype, a mighty pedal-based Linux system that incorporates a touch screen, ten multifunctional knobs/footswitches and enough processing power to run audio software like Bitwig Studio in the box.

For those who want to take computer-based audio on stage without the need for a laptop, Hugo looks like it could tick all the boxes.

PolyEffects.com, @PolyEffects

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini

The new Mini version of Neural’s acclaimed multi-FX device is probably best suited to desktop use. Stripping away the many footswitches of the hard-wearing original floor unit, the Mini takes all the power and squashes into a brick-shaped object that’s all touchscreen, save for a switch in each corner. Capable of doing everything the full-size unit can do, it’s the ultimate travel companion for guitarists.

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini, £1,129, NeuralDSP.com, @NeuralDSP, Andertons.co.uk

Stylophone On-The-Fly

The Stylophone name has come a long way from its origins as a purveyor of slightly jokey proto-electronic novelty instruments. The new On-The-Floor sequencer is a case in point. The OTF is a performance sequencer capable of hugely flexible shifts in pattern, rhythm and style.

The company also revealed the Stylophone Voice, a portable sampler that follows the same old school visual aesthetics of the original Stylophone, complete with ribbon keyboard and stylus. Despite robust yet retro plastic construction, onboard speaker and AA battery operation the Voice has an internal sequencer and can even be synced up with external gear.

More information at Stylophone.com, @Stylophone_Official

Polyend Endless

The endless quest for the ultimate guitar sound continues thanks to Polyend’s new Endless modular pedal system. Using AI-driven code and the Playground web interface, you can specify what you want the pedal to do simply by typing into a box. Refine the sound and the action assigned to each of the three knobs and you instantly have a unique effect, be it a growling fuzz or a complex multi-stage delay.

Coders can work more directly with the open-source software and make their own edits. The company will build up a library of user-generated patches for downloading into the little aluminium pedals, as well as create swappable art plates for the cover.

Polyend Endless, $299, Polyend.com, @MadeinPolyend

Roland GO:Mixer Studio

Yet another audio device pitched at the endlessly mobile content creator. Roland’s GO:Mixer Studio brings together everything you need to capture audio, whether it’s for making podcasts or video content. Direct USB connectivity to iOS and Windows devices is paired with a clutch of connectivity options as well as onboard effects and the all-important compact form factor.

Roland GO:MIXER Studio, £253, Roland.com, @RolandGlobal, Andertons.co.uk

Korg Kaoss Pad V

The newest iteration of the Korg Kaoss Pad made its debut at NAMM 2026. Kaoss Pad V builds on a quarter-century of innovation, with the original 1999 model introducing a new, dynamic way of interacting with samples courtesy of the touch pad interface.

Pad V keeps the form factor but updates the effects, memory and processing power, bringing new ways of chopping up samples and manipulating sounds.

Korg KAOSS Pad V, £519, Korg.co.uk, @KorgUK, Andertons.co.uk

’Twas the night before album release day for Lexa Gates but the New York rapper and singer was stuck, going nowhere: getting her steps in on a giant, circular treadmill, while art gallery patrons gawped at her. For 10 hours. No toilet breaks allowed, an adult nappy strapped on just in case.

This very literal take on the hamster wheel of music promotion, though, was of the prolific 24-year-old’s own devising and choosing. And, for sure, a savvy piece of music promotion, with fans, stans and rubberneckers rocking up to Jeffrey Deitch in downtown Manhattan and previewing her sixth album I Am on headphones while, from 2pm to midnight, the Queens-born artist did the same, walking and jogging and (not literally) cycling through its 18 tracks of soulful R&B and hip-hop on a never-ending loop.

Titled The Wheel, the idea behind this kinetic, art installation stunt, per the press release, was to 'reinforce the message of persistence, emotional resilience and forward motion that acts as the central theme of the record'. Or, as Gates puts it more prosaically – and appropriately repetitively – when we talk five days after her marathon stunt, 'during the process of making this album, I was going through this cycle.

'I was obsessed with some person, and I would go back to LA, and be too scared to say anything, and get upset about it, and then go back home to New York, and then cry in New York, and think: 'Oh, well, next time I'm gonna go back, and then I'm gonna really say it this time.' And then I would go back, and then I'd be too scared, and then I'd go back home. It was just cycles in life.'

Certainly, too, it highlights Gates’ truly solo artistry. Unlike most pop, R&B and hip-hop album 'projects' these days, I Am features no guest vocalists or stunt casting. As she puts it: 'This project has no features. It's just all me, chatting, forever.'

So did her unquestionably impressive achievement bring her insight and self-knowledge? Not entirely.

'It was like self-torture, honestly!' she admits with admirable lack of stoic cool. “Forty minutes in, I already wanted to get off of that thing. It hurt really bad. And... the time passed. It was just some weird dystopian thing I wanted to try. I'm surprised people were there the whole time. Actually I was waiting, hoping that people would leave and then I could just sit! But they were there, just watching me the whole time. So I had to keep on going.”

Gates has form in going the extra mile – or, even, going nowhere – to amplify the noise around her music. In October 2024, to launch her last album Elite Vessel, she sat for 10 hours in a Perspex cage in New York’s Union Square. For the duration of (Alone) In the Box she denied herself food or water. It was a purposefully ascetic choice that, like The Wheel, put this touring, constantly performing artist – momentarily at least – in control of a career that, for the young, extremely online musician in particular, is always moving. Always on.

'For sure,' says Gates. 'The Box was a more restful place where I was at peace. I didn't have to use my phone. I could just chill. But The Wheel was honestly way more. It didn't really feel like it was all in my control, because I had to keep going.'

So both art pieces, in opposite ways, comment on the realities of her day-job. She nods. They do 'reflect what you're saying about the performances and the tour. It's crazy, because when you're on stage, if you're choking up and you can't do it anymore, no one cares! You have to keep going!' she exclaims in sentiments familiar to those expressed by spotlight-weary peers such as Chappell Roan and Halsey. 'The song keeps going and it's loud and over-stimulating and people are [still] watching you. Nobody really cares if you're tired or if you want to stop.'

With their foregrounding and challenging of the creator herself, these endurance-art pieces nod to the work of Marina Abramović. Or, to Cornelia Parker’s 1995 work The Maybe, in which Tilda Swinton spent a week in glass vitrine in London’s Serpentine Gallery. But Gates says she only discovered that work after she came up with the idea for The Box.

'Honestly, I don't know anything about that stuff. All this is just silly, organic ideas. Even with The Box, they told me to make TikToks but I just thought it'd be funny to put myself in a box. Everybody always brings up Marina, but I'm not that familiar with her work.'

As we speak, I Am has only been out a week. But Gates is no slouch, having released six albums in six years. So, any thoughts on her next performance art piece?

'After just getting off of that shit, I'm thinking I'm never doing that again!” she replies, laughing. 'That was literally so bad. But I'll come up with something.'

Lexa Gates will, then, circle back to us.

I Am is out now. Lexa Gates plays the Governors Ball, in her home neighbourhood, Flushing, Queens, on 7th June

Benjamin Paulin, the son of French designer Pierre Paulin, and his wife Alice – current custodians of Paulin, Paulin, Paulin, the company dedicated to producing and promoting his work – have announced the launch of Sounds Like Paulin, a new cultural label centred on music. Based in Paris, the project is conceived as an immersive sound salon open to artists and creatives, with the ambition to sign, produce and support musicians and composers while fostering collective projects.

Positioned at the intersection of music, design and culture, Sounds Like Paulin extends the spirit of Paulin’s practice into the sonic realm. The initiative will debut with a multi-artist compilation inspired by the universe and legacy of the designer, who radically redefined modern furniture in the 1960s and 1970s. Through sculptural, futuristic forms, Paulin brought avant-garde design into both everyday life and the highest levels of French culture. His iconic creations – including the Mushroom Chair, the Orange Slice Chair, the Ribbon Chair and the Tongue Chair (as well as the F300 chair, which Gubi reissued last year) – embody an organic, inviting vision which Sounds Like Paulin aims to translate into sound.

This dialogue between disciplines was recently echoed by the presence of Paulin designs in Louis Vuitton’s latest runway show, reaffirming the enduring relevance of his creative legacy. Conceived as a listening room and immersive sound space, the installation featured one of the brand’s iconic sofas, reflecting the longstanding dialogue between form and sound championed by Paulin, Paulin, Paulin.

‘We want to transform the concept of the salon into an immersive sound meeting place – an environment capable of bringing together friends and artists who might never have crossed paths otherwise,’ explains Benjamin. ‘Sounds Like Paulin is intended to nurture collective projects and to create a compilation that captures the sonic essence of Pierre Paulin’s world.’

Paulin, Paulin, Paulin is an independent family project initiated by Maia Paulin, the designer’s wife and creative partner for nearly forty years, to highlight the timeless dimension of his work. Now led by Alice and Benjamin, the company continues to produce a selection of pieces in accordance with Paulin’s wishes, expressed in 2008 (prior to his death in 2009), to see his most innovative creations brought to life.

With Sounds Like Paulin, the family extends his legacy, opening a new chapter that reimagines the designer’s experimental ethos. The label positions music as both a continuation and reinvention of a design language that has always sought to shape the way people live, gather and feel.

A week of watches

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

The beginning of the week was spent in Milan at the sixth annual gathering known as LVMH Watch Week. This start-of-year event for the group’s nine watch-producing brands acts as both a showcase and a tip sheet for the year ahead, with brands including TAG Heuer, Hublot, Zenith, Tiffany & Co. and, of course, Louis Vuitton itself unveiling new line-ups of timepieces that – in some cases – pointed to firm trends across the industry: smaller case sizes, wider use of precious metals (Tiffany & Co. revealed a stunning platinum-cased chronograph, the Timer, complete with a 'Tiffany Blue' lacquer dial) and, more generally, a greater emphasis on design. This was evident in a refreshed series of Escale models at Louis Vuitton, an extension of the Defy line at Zenith, and the brace of dial names now housed within LV’s watchmaking centre in Geneva, La Fabrique du Temps.

Here, the celebrated duo of Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini are overseeing the development of Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth – the former now represented by the cushion-shaped Geneva Time Only, the latter demonstrating its mastery of shape with the (literally) dazzling Extra Plat Rose Gold Skeleton. Further props went to TAG Heuer for producing its first split-seconds chronograph in a wristwatch, and to Hublot CEO Julien Tornare for creatively corralling last year’s Novak Djokovic Goat Edition Big Bang Unico into a colour-coordinated continuation model designed to keep pace with the world number four’s tournament wins across all three surfaces.

A sonic homecoming

Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

At Café Oto last week, Majazz Project’s Palestinian Sound Archive spun field recordings, Bedouin yarghoul melodies, radio fragments and carefully restored records from Palestine. It was a joyful listening night celebrating sonic heritage through rare, beautifully designed cassette releases (pure nostalgia), rounded off with a playful DJ set by Daniele Mizar.

A playful pilgrimage

Ailis Bickford, project manager

This week, I braved the rain and ventured to West London for Priest’s exhibition, Paper Cut, at the Saatchi Gallery in Sloane Square. The installation playfully unpacks childhood through a series of life-size renderings of key objects that shape art and creativity in one’s formative years. Priest dissects childhood play by magnifying recognisable objects; as you move through the space, it invites you to evaluate prevalent issues in London, from the housing and education crisis to youth violence. Priest: Paper Cut is a free exhibition, open until January 25.

A lunch that lingered

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

My photos are never as good as the professional ones, but looking back at my visit to Mezzogiorno a week ago makes me want to go again. The new restaurant has just opened on the ground floor of London’s Corinthia Hotel, designed by Afroditi Krassa to provide expertly balanced, welcoming comfort – and that’s before even trying the food. Seen here: the red shrimp starter, a personal favourite; parmigiana di melanzane; and a generous dollop of tiramisu. For the full review, read here.

A literary looking-ahead

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

For a culture editor, January offers an exciting chance to preview key launches for the year ahead. This month, I have particularly enjoyed reading Granta’s upcoming April release, The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek. Tracing their creative, tumultuous partnership, it offers a rare peek into the lives of two criminally overlooked artists.

An Electric night

Charlotte Gunn, director of digital content

I finally caught Marty Supreme at my favourite London cinema, the Electric on Portobello Road, and it was a riot. Chaotic, original and not really about ping pong at all, the film shares the same farcical, kinetic energy as one of the best flms of last year, One Battle After Another. Ahead of the screening, I stopped by Jackson Boxer’s Dove and found it far more compelling than its predecessor, Orosay. The tuna ragù, in particular, was a standout.

A snowy sojourn

Anna Fixsen, US editor

An assignment for Wallpaper* (no spoilers here!) took me to rural Sullivan County, New York, over the weekend. Unlike other Upstate enclaves, this particular region felt delightfully wild, thanks to its rural setting in a crook of the Delaware River and a refreshing lack of trendy shops and boutique hotels. I took advantage of the slower pace by playing cards with my husband, listening to an audiobook (Belle Burden’s engrossing memoir is a must!) and keeping an eye out for wild critters with my binoculars. It snowed six inches, blanketing the landscape in a fluffy white duvet – perfect when you’re snug-as-a-bug indoors, challenging when you find out your sporty rental car does not, in fact, have all-wheel drive. Fortunately, this hearty Minnesotan knows her way around a snowbank.

Retrospection at Paris Design Week

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

It’s Paris Design Week, and across the city the doors of showrooms and ateliers have been thrown open, revealing brands’ 2026 collections. I spent a highly condensed day criss-crossing arrondissements and dipping in and out of studios (I comfortably hit my 10,000 steps – let’s leave it at that). Several clearly emerging design trends stood out: a growing emphasis on versatility and customisability to suit the demands of modern life (something I also observed at Feria Hábitat València back in October), alongside a sort of creeping nostalgia. From renewed interest in craft and artisanal traditions to a wave of heritage reissues, the past is very much informing the present. You can read all of my insights here.

A new voice emerges

Charlotte Gunn, director of digital content

This week I’ve been listening to ‘Not Today’, the new single from Kim Gordon’s upcoming third solo album, Play Me, out on 13 March. More melodic – dare I say poppier? – than her recent work, Gordon says of the track: ‘I started singing in a way I hadn’t sung in a long time. This other voice came out.’ Produced by Justin Raisen (who also worked on Charli XCX’s 'BRAT'), it’s a reminder that at 72, Gordon is still happily mixing things up.

A taste of home

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

Whenever I crave the flavours of my motherland, I head straight to one of the restaurants of José Pizarro – a Spanish expat, just like me. He has just transformed the storied Keeper’s House at the Royal Academy of Arts into a vibrant dining destination, which made the perfect excuse. Who would have thought you’d find Spanish cooking nestled among the RA’s neoclassical grandeur?

Inside, there’s a compelling dialogue between old and new, warm and convivial – prime time is undoubtedly lunch. Deep reds and burnished oranges, inspired by traditional Spanish interiors, set the tone for a menu of Iberian classics with edge: gordal olives stuffed with orange, octopus with potatoes and capers, lamb ragù over silky mash. And for dessert? Either lose yourself in the eclectic curation of art – works by Frank Bowling, Marina Abramović, David Remfry and Picasso lithographs, alongside original paintings by Eileen Cooper – or surrender to the olive oil and almond cake with sharp PX sherry compote.

A perfect pilgrimage

Anna Fixsen, US editor

On a recent visit to my UK in-laws, my husband and I hopped on a train to Winchester, England. We drank ale in a pub from 1002 AD, admired what’s supposedly the original Round Table of Arthurian legend, and took a stroll along the River Itchen. The highlight, by far, however, was a tour of the spectacular Winchester Cathedral, with its breathtaking blend of Norman, Gothic and Perpendicular Gothic architecture.

Here, you can genuflect at the grave of Jane Austen (the author just turned 250 years young), descend into the depths of a waterlogged Norman crypt – now home to a sculpture by Antony Gormley – and appreciate a host of historic oddities, from memento mori and mortuary chests filled with jumbles of royal bones to one peculiar attraction known as the ‘Holy Hole’, where pilgrims could once touch the relics of St Swithin.

Written in the stars

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

On Thursday I took myself off to the Nomad Hotel in London’s Covent Garden for the launch of a new Poetic Collection of Zodiaque jewellery by Van Cleef & Arpels, which depicts the 12 star signs in medal form – a hand-stamped signature of the 120-year-old maison since the 1950s. The new pieces are available in white gold and on yellow gold bracelets, and their talismanic beauty was underlined by the presence of two astrologers on site, eager to reveal what our own star signs hold in store for 2026. (Of course, Wallpaper* readers already know, thanks to our 2026 design horoscope.)

A practice in motion

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

Catching up with architect Guy Hollaway and his managing partner, Alex Richards, this week, I found out about one of the studio’s biggest recent wins: the London Golf Club. Promising to be a key hospitality and sporting destination on the outskirts of London, the new and extensive Kent campus has just been awarded planning approval. Meanwhile, a wealth of schemes are about to complete or are on the drawing board at the vibrant Kent- and London-based architecture practice – including, but not limited to, a number of private residences and a personal favourite, Brompton’s new global headquarters and factory in Ashford. Looking forward to seeing more.

In the basement of Somerset House Studios, through a warren of white corridors littered with cardboard boxes and similar detritus, John Costi’s studio is an explosion of colour and creativity. On the floor is a taped-together collage of images of citrus fruits and eye-popping balloons, while the walls jostle with artworks and found objects: between two bright abstract paintings, there’s a gold Gucci logo on a piece of a faux-leather watch box.

Thanks to his tumble of silvery, shoulder-length corkscrew hair and multicoloured cap, you’d have no trouble matching the artist to the space. The remainder of the watch box, the 38-year-old explains, 'houses incense which has olive leaves from my village in Cyprus that my ancestors would have planted – we burned them in Cyprus to keep away the evil eye'.

Costi’s latest show, ‘Bapou’s Bubbles’, due to open at Somerset House Studios later this month, finds the multimedia artist grappling with his Irish and Greek-Cypriot heritage – or, rather, his displacement from it. Born to a working-class family in Finchley, north London, he’s always felt at a remove from these cultures. Soundtracked by fractured grime beats, the performance-art piece takes the form of a TV talk show, with Costi and several other actors playing different aspects of his psyche. Across the two events, he’ll also interview different artists and experts from a cross-section of society (such as social justice advocate Lord Hastings).

Ultimately, it’s a journey of self-discovery. Bapou derives from the Greek word for grandfather; bubble is Cockney rhyming slang for both a Greek person and having a good time. 'I think that I make art to get closer to my family and those that came before me,' Costi says. 'The splitting and hybrid versions of me come from being part of a diaspora. The version of Cypriot culture that I have isn’t the version that you get in Cyprus. It’s via north London. It’s a language of distortion.'

‘Bapou’s Bubbles’ features an onstage exchange between Costi and his mother, Bridget, as they recite the letters that they wrote to each other during the artist’s prison term for armed robbery from 2007. At 18, Costi received a six-year sentence at west London’s Feltham Prison and Young Offender Institution (last year it was named the most violent prison in England and Wales, with a report finding that inmates had refused family visits to protect relatives). He’d targeted five branches of William Hill, the bookmakers, with a 9mm handgun.

While he was away in Feltham, it was suggested that Costi partake in art therapy, as he’d previously attended an art and design course for students who’d been expelled from mainstream education. This meant he was granted access to the institution’s art room, where he discovered a colourful book on Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was similarly interested in street art and marginalisation. 'There was a kind of mania that I recognised,' Costi says. 'There are a lot of Basquiat copies now, but I had never seen it before.'

Inspired, he created a huge-scale abstract artwork that drew on the muddy red and black hues of Untitled (Angel), the painting that appeared on the cover of the Basquiat book. Costi shows Wallpaper* a photo of his younger self posing next to his artwork, which was displayed on the wall of Feltham’s healthcare wing. Arms outstretched, he’s grinning for the camera. In the bottom right-hand corner of his painting are the words: 'Tick tock.'

It's an image that makes you think of the young people in your own life. Full disclosure: Costi was briefly my next-door neighbour and, to the delight of my children, once decorated the pavement outside our houses with chalk drawings of paw prints that grew bigger and bigger, as if some unseen creature had magically reached gigantic proportions. This playfulness runs through Bapou’s Bubbles, though Somerset House’s online listing for the show also carries a content warning for references to 'sexual violence and suicide'.

At 13, Costi was subjected to a terrible act of violence in an underpass, an incident he describes as a catalyst for his subsequent criminality and 'risky behaviours.' As an adult, he returned to repaint the inside of the tunnel bright white, like the walls of a gallery. He documented the project in a short film and has on his phone a 3D scan of himself standing in the underpass: 'The place of complete pain and upset is now in my pocket and I can go there whenever I want. I call it a museum of injury.'

During his first year at Feltham, Costi discovered Koestler Arts, a charity that helps inmates to nurture their own creative talents. When the organisation’s annual awards rolled around, he submitted two poems, for which he received a Commended Certificate – a prize recognising their quality. This was a sign, he says, 'that I was doing something right for the first time in a very long time.'

Thus began an ongoing correspondence with Koestler, who assigned him a mentor upon his release. A former textiles tutor at Central Saint Martins, she was 'the first posh person that I’d ever really interacted with', Costi explains with a smile. Through a combination of the tutor’s guidance and his own tenacity, he successfully applied to study fine art at Saint Martins. He graduated with a first.

Nowadays, Costi works with prisons and probation offices, encouraging men to see 'that they’re allowed to engage in art practice', a pursuit he previously believed to be for people 'with loads of books in their house, or who went to museums'.

The UK’s prison population has doubled in the last 30 years, with overcrowding a critical issue and associated violence on the rise. Costi, though, says the system isn’t ‘broken’: 'I would argue that it’s meant to do that. Does anybody honestly think that if we get all the most – and I use this term sensitively – damaged among us and put them all together, they’re going to get better on their own? Logically, that would never happen. And then you have bad newspapers that get wind of some kind of drama therapy happening in prison and call it a “holiday camp”.'

Last year, in an implicit riposte to this way of thinking, he joined Jeremy Deller to co-curate ‘No Comment’, the Southbank Centre’s exhibition of over 200 artworks submitted to the Koestler Awards. The pair had struck up a friendship in Venice in 2013, when Deller and the British Council invited six artists with lived experience of prison to attend the Venice Biennale. Costi was already a big Deller fan, having admired The Battle of Orgreave, a 1,000-person reenactment of a 1984 clash between police and striking miners that the Turner Prize winner staged in 2001: 'I thought that was a real mass act of group therapy. I was into how he managed to heal a social wound.

'In the same way that [Jeremy’s] interested in people that aren’t artists in the traditional sense, I’m interested in convincing people that they can make art too. One thing he said to me, which I still live by, is that when you’re working with groups of people, they will always surprise you.'

This, he explains, is why ‘Bapou’s Bubbles’ is such a collaborative show, a personal interrogation that is reliant on its disparate players and interviewees. Like The Battle of Orgreave, it’s also a testament to the healing power of creativity. 'In the system at large,' says Costi, 'including mainstream education, art is the least prioritised thing – but it’s the thing that can really save you.'

‘Bapou’s Bubbles’ takes place at Somerset House Studios on 30 and 31 January 2026. Tickets are available here

They are, in the words of their frontman, 'that video band'. But now OK Go – the indie-rock group rightly fêted for their jaw-droppingly innovative pop videos (the Grammy-winning ‘Here It Goes Again’, ‘Needing/Getting’, ‘This Too Shall Pass’) – are also That Album Packaging Band.

After a lengthy hiatus (because kids, the pandemic, a co-written/directed film called The Beanie Bubble, middle-aged life), the LA-by-way-of-Chicago fourpiece re-emerged in spring last year with And the Adjacent Possible. It had been 11 years since their last album, so OK Go came hard and they came extra-inventive.

The video for the single ‘Love’ was shot in a Budapest railway station using 29 robots, an infinity of mirrors, precision choreography and sleight-of-hand costume changes, and was another one-take wonder. Albeit that take was the 37^th. But theirs is a love you can hold, too. The vinyl of their fifth album comes encased in an elaborately engineered 3-D sleeve that speaks to the lyrical themes of the album, and was designed in partnership with a 'sound as a medium' artist Yuri Suzuki, London multi-disciplinary design studio Yard, and the Vietnam-based paper experts of greetings card company Lovepop.

'It's a sliceform sculpture,' explains singer Damian Kulash, 'a pop-up sculpture made of a few dozen ribs that create two nested spheres. They're actually half spheres, but there's a reflective background on it, so you get the reflection, completing the sphere itself. What it means is that you've got a whole bunch of small, disparate, two-dimensional elements that, when pulled together, create an unexpected three-dimensional world.

'This bunch of songs is all about the magic in the spaces between,' continues Kulash, a big-thinking musician who’s as expansive as And the Adjacent Possible’s gatefold sleeve. 'It sounds so cliché when I hear myself say it out loud. But all of the real meaning, all of the real alchemy of life – and of art in life – is in these strange connections. You put two notes together and somehow they turn into an emotion.'

In other words: position two things together and as if by magic – or by mathematics – you get the opportunity for a third thing 'on a completely different dimension. You get the adjacent possible. That's literally what the title is about. So we wanted the album package to do the same thing. To take the simplest elements and make something that seems impossible.'

Of course, this took its own version of 37 takes, with 'dozens and dozens of iterations'. That cost some considerable time, although the band are used to that: 'Making the elaborate videos adds a year or two to each of our album cycles.' But did that cost OK Go – who run their own record label – money, too? Keen student of rock history Kulash will be well aware of the lore of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ 12-inch: a sleeve so intricate that every time they sold a copy, it cost their label Factory.

'Yes!' he replies, laughing. 'We worried about that with this! It is not cheap. But we realised that the community of people who buy OK Go records on vinyl are dedicated. [It would be different] if we were Taylor Swift and had to make sure that we were dealing with the bins in Target and exactly how many you can fit in one of those bins to make sure that your cost overruns aren't [excessive]. But we're not dealing on that scale.'

That said, 'it does get sold in big box stores. But we decided it was worth it to say: instead of this being a $38 record, it's a $44 record. But also, if you want to hear these songs, they're damn near free on streaming services. And if you want this art experience, it felt like it was OK to have it be a slightly more premium object.'

That premium object quickly sold out of its initial pressing of 3,000. And OK Go fans weren’t the only ones who thought it was worth it: the Grammy Awards recently handed the band nominations for Best Music Video for ‘Love’, and Best Recording Package for And the Adjacent Possible.

Sure, says Kulash, a win in either category would be marvellous, albeit mostly in terms of recognition for their valued collaborators. But the art is itself the prize.

'Our feeling with this record was: we're not trying to get a copy in every set of hands in the universe. What we want is that every set of hands that gets it, falls in love with it. It's a sculpture that only a few people are going to get. And when they do, we want it to be their favourite album cover they've ever held. That was more important than our profit margins at the end of this record cycle.'

The 2026 Grammys are on 1^st February

A taste of la bella vita

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

As a lover of beautiful interiors, my stay at the 15th-century Florentine villa, Il Salviatino, a couple of weeks ago is still on my mind. Once owned by the Salviati family – the ‘-tino’ denoting that, unbelievably, this was their ‘small’ country pied-à-terre – it already promised the fairy-tale allure of Italy’s grand estates. What I hadn’t anticipated was the design extravaganza waiting inside.

At Il Salviatino, every corner is filled with objects and curios in a way that doesn't feel overly staged or polished – and is all the better for it – most of it sourced by owner Alessandra Rovati Vitali, a florist-turned-designer who once collaborated with Vincent Van Duysen. Mid-century pieces mingle with late-Renaissance giardino all’italiana flourishes, all wrapped in unapologetic bella vita glamour, while greenery bursts from terracotta amphorae and snakes up the walls. The library is the villa’s heart: breakfast here is bathed in sunlight; cocktails linger late into the evening. Dining at Da Giacomo al Salviatino, sister to the renowned Giacomo Milano, feels theatrical – Marzano red prawns and octopus ragù served beneath candy-striped canopies and a frescoed ceiling.

Just fifteen minutes by shuttle from Florence’s centre, Il Salviatino feels like another – impossibly serene (aided by a dreamlike Aquae Vitali spa and Augustinus Bader facials) – world. Yet the Renaissance city is never far: framed perfectly from the hotel’s terraces, the Duomo rises majestically above terracotta rooftops.

An architectural invitation

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

I was invited by Mexican architecture studio Sordo Madaleno to visit their new home in London at King’s Cross for a drink. Not only does the gorgeous new space feature contemporary yet warm design (a reflection of the studio’s approach) high ceilings and views out to the canal (there's a strong hint of Venice to working there), but the practice has also planned a lush gallery space they hope to open for shows and events. Watch this space.

A meander into mezcal

Anne Soward, production editor

As the weather turns chillier and wetter, thoughts of venturing far arouse little enthusiasm, so the opening of a new mezcal-focused tasting room on my doorstep lifted my spirits and had me reaching for my coat. Sorbito, the latest addition to Dalston's Mexican strip on Stoke Newington Road, has been launched by the Sin Gusano Project, a social enterprise dedicated to promoting artisanal mezcal. Here you can try sips (sorbito means ‘little sip’ in Spanish) of rare agave spirits, using a series of self-serve dispensing machines, before buying a bottle of your tipple of choice to take home (although some are actually too rare to bottle). Events and private tasting sessions are also on offer, as well as a rotating menu of mezcal-based cocktails for those who want to stay awhile and talk tequila. We sipped our Oaxaca highball and agave martini (both went deliciously well with the little bowls of corn snacks peppering the bar) while enjoying a fascinating lesson about process, sustainability, variety and flavour.

A sublime spectacle

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

I feel as though I’ve been living in the O2 arena lately. Partly out of a need to break the winter habit of hibernating at home, partly because all my favourite artists decided to tour at once. Tuesday closed out the streak with Wolf Alice and their new album, The Clearing – a fierce, hypnotic spectacle. I’m drawn to their genre-bending register, the way they slip between the highest and slowest rhythms; one moment shouting through a microphone, the next dissolving into something ethereal.

An enchanting exhibition

Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

Earlier this week, my artist friend Hamed Maiye presented a new exhibition at HSBC’s 8 Canada Square. Being both a longstanding admirer of his work and someone who has grown to know him through a previous interview, attending felt less like an obligation and more like a quiet inevitability. Hamed has a way of drawing you into the world he builds, and Aleph is no exception.

The exhibition takes its name from Borges’ ‘Aleph’, a point that contains all other points, and immediately you feel that sense of simultaneity: past, present and possibility moving at once. Yet Nina Simone’s declaration that an artist must reflect their time hums beneath the surface, grounding the show in something urgent and human. Those two forces – timelessness and responsibility – collide throughout the space.

Hamed’s contribution sits at the centre of that collision. His work moves between the symbolic and the intimate, carrying traces of myth, memory and lived experience. Here, it feels even more distilled, as though he is shaping several realities into one gesture. It is deeply personal yet reaches beyond itself, speaking to the conditions that form us, and those we long to transcend.

The wider exhibition gathers voices from Unyimeabasi Udoh, Divine Southgate-Smith and Tami Soji-Akinyemi, each navigating their own version of the infinite and the immediate. Together, they form a shifting constellation, asking what it means to hold many worlds in a single moment.

Aleph runs until 31 March 2026.

A sartorial screening

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

On Thursday, I was in Rome for the world premiere of Brunello: A Gracious Visionary, a two-hour docu-drama directed by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), which charts the life and career of Italy’s ‘King of Cashmere’, Brunello Cucinelli. From his humble beginnings as part of an extended family of tenant farmers, to a somewhat dissolute youth perfecting his skills as a card sharp (which would later stand him in good stead for navigating the vagaries of the global fashion business), to his present status as the champion of ‘humanistic capitalism’ that places the worker at the centre of the enterprise, the film – featuring an artful blend of archival footage, contemporary interviews and extended dramatic narrative – receives its official theatrical release in Perugia on December 8, with screenings planned across the globe in the new year.

In 2025, the artwork gracing many of the year’s most interesting albums was as diverse and multifaceted as the music contained within. Many artists looked to the past and to classical references and traditional techniques; others fully embraced technology, while some danced between both modes – cherry-picking ideas from across the history of visual art and imbuing them with new meanings. Here, we look at ten of the most creative album covers from the last 12 months.

Lily Allen, ‘West End Girl’

In the short number of weeks since West End Girl entered the cultural conversation, dominating headlines (and, inevitably, end-of-year lists) with its frank and fearless dissection of the end of the author’s marriage, the album’s artwork has become equally as ubiquitous. Painted by Spanish portrait artist Nieves González, the image of Allen in a pale blue puffer jacket – rendered in oils and exhibiting the smart balance of contemporary aesthetic and classical gaze that González’s work has made a trademark – acted as the perfect visual anchor for a very modern story, but a tale as old as time. 'The balance came from recognising that we are working with similar tensions, in different mediums. We were telling the same story; the complexity of being a woman in the present, navigating inherited codes while building your own,' González told Wallpaper*.

David Byrne, ‘Who Is The Sky?’

Inspired by a moodboard featuring traditional costumes and ceremonial outfits from around the globe, the technicolour artwork for Talking Heads icon David Byrne’s latest solo album, Talking in the Sky, was as full of life and positivity as its now-73-year-old author. Helmed by New York-based graphic designer Shira Inbar and shot by photographer Ahmed Klink, the image shows a kaleidoscope of Byrne dancing in his own take on these costumes – made using zips and ropes and elevated by fashion designer Tom Van der Borght. 'I love these suits because through them, simple objects become special and everyday materials become ceremonial, ritualistic, and imaginary,' said Inbar of the concept. 'Like the music in this fantastic record, we worked collaboratively to form something big, vibrant, and kind of whimsical.'

Japanese Breakfast, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’

Shot by Korean fashion photographer Pak Bae, the cover of Michelle Zauner’s fourth album as Japanese Breakfast positioned the musician as the weary central protagonist in her own tableau of memento mori. Heavily referencing the tradition of 17th-century Dutch vanitas still life, Zauner’s version found her face down with her head in her hands, surrounded by both indulgence and death. 'I knew for a really long time that I wanted the album cover to be an image of me passed out on a table, sort of looking like… I’ve over-consumed my fill… fatigued with melancholy,' she said of the image. 'The cover feels like I have everything I want, which was sort of how I was feeling while writing this record.'

Lorde, ‘Virgin’

When New Zealand pop behemoth Lorde announced her fourth LP Virgin, she did so with a statement of intent: 'The colour of the album is clear,' she wrote. 'Like bathwater, windows, ice, spit. Full transparency.' In keeping with this ethos, Virgin’s cover image –an X-ray of a pelvis, showing a belt buckle, zip and IUD – was as transparent as they come. Shot by South Korean artist Heji Shin, whose previous work includes Baby, a series of babies’ heads emerging from the birth canal, and shoots with other musicians, such as Robyn and Kanye West, the aim for the cover, said Lorde, was to create something 'techy but mystical'.

Perfume Genius, ‘Glory’

Over the years, Mike Hadreas has exploded out the world of Perfume Genius – growing from nervous beginnings to an artist with a rich and exploratory sonic and visual universe. The photograph that adorns the cover of sixth album Glory shows the idiosyncratic nature of his outlook. It’s taken by long-term collaborator Cody Critcheloe (otherwise known as SSION) – a multi-hyphenate creative working across music, photography, directing and visual art – and in it Hadreas lies contorted and disjointed on the ground, watched through a window by an unknown man. 'I like how it looks: it could be a dance, or it could be that I’m sick, and there’s something wrong with me,' Hadreas told Wallpaper* of the image. 'It feels like the music, in that it’s earnest and personal, but with absurdity and dramatics, and performance.'

Wet Leg, ‘Moisturizer’

Having recently worked with musicians including PinkPantheress and Confidence Man, director and photographer Iris Luz has described her work as ‘mundane absurdity’ – an idea that fits the strange, Aphex Twin-like image that adorns Wet Leg’s second album Moisturizer well. With the record’s visuals directed alongside the band’s frequent creative director Lava La Rue, the photo is both incredibly normal – the band’s two central musicians, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, positioned in a plain, beige carpeted room – but also uncanny, with Teasdale’s sinister grin and Chambers’ long, pointed talons pulling focus. As Teasdale explained to Variety: 'I think the whole energy of the creative is kind of subversive – like, if there’s any moments on there that are a bit sexy, it’s also a bit disgusting.'

Blood Orange, ‘Essex Honey’

An evocative image taken from acclaimed Sheffield photographer Johny Pitts’ 2022 photobook Home is Not a Place, it’s the inspired pairing of Pitts’ photograph with Devonté Hynes’ most meditative, reflective work as Blood Orange that transports the viewer immediately into the world of Essex Honey. It’s one filled with grief and nostalgia, that sings of his childhood growing up in Ilford, now seen through the lens of his mother’s recent passing. Though the child on the cover is not Hynes, he acts as a window to the author’s own upbringing. 'A lot of my photographs hold in a mellow/ melancholy ambience borne from what turned out to be a lost yet very formative part of my life,' said Pitts of the photo. 'As soon as Dev sent the masters of Essex Honey, I understood completely how the two works matched.'

Pulp, ‘More’

Coming back with their first studio album in 24 years, the artwork for Pulp’s More arrived as a perfectly pitched fit for this band of beloved returning heroes. Designed by graphic designer Julian House, whose work includes albums by Oasis (Dig Out Your Soul) and The Prodigy (Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned), the the album features a striking main image taken by frontman Jarvis Cocker whilst on a trip to the volcanic terrain of Kerlingarfjöll in Iceland in July 2024 – its high-contrast colours a bright marker of the energy of the record. Yet just in the distance, at the top of the mountain, sit the same cardboard cutout figures of the band from the cover of their 1995 opus Different Class – a knowing wink from a group who’ve always been knowing-wink masters.

Mac Miller, ‘Balloonerism’

The story of Balloonerism’s surrealist, Picasso-inspired cover art, painted by previously unknown Delaware artist Alim Smith, is a true testament to the power of the internet. Originally commissioned after Mac Miller discovered a self-portrait by Smith – who goes by the alias Yesterday Nite – the image found its way online and became a fan favourite; when posthumous album Balloonerism was released after Miller’s passing, Smith’s work was chosen to front it. Of the original image, Smith explained to Delaware Online: 'I needed to capture how awkward that phase is in life, like when you're not a teenager yet, but you're not a kid no more. You have two big teeth, and your body just looks wrong, proportion-wise.'

Saya Gray, ‘Saya’

Created alongside long-term collaborator Jennifer Cheng, the artwork for Saya Gray’s mononymously titled second LP was inspired by her Japanese great-grandmother. 'She was a performer in Japan and played [traditional three-string instrument] shamisen. The cover felt like an ode to her,' Gray tells Wallpaper*. Inspired by ukiyo-e portraits – renderings of artists and beauties dating back to 17th-century Japan – and the colour-tinted photographs of the 1900s, Gray and Cheng 'wanted to explore performers as both artistic beings and industrialised products through creating and collecting remnants – things that animals use as protection and leave behind, and bits of mechanical materials – as well as touching upon ancestral trauma and vulnerability.' The resulting image is poignant and beautiful, Gray’s face drawing on these rich traditions, but adding the harshness of metal and modernity.

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

In Sean Ono Lennon’s case, he’s taken one of his parents’ defining pieces of musical activism, recontextualised and reinvigorated it in a powerful mini-movie with the help of Peter Jackson and a Pixar legend, then won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 2024 Academy Awards, and now made the prize-winning animation freely available to watch on YouTube, with a built-in mechanism for viewers to donate to Warchild.

The apple, clearly, brilliantly, doesn’t fall far from the tree.

‘The idea was to do a music video for the song,’ begins Ono Lennon of a five-years-in-the-making project that resulted in War Is Over!, a beautiful, 11-minute feature – as its subtitle has it, ‘Inspired By The Music of John & Yoko’ – that launched online this week. The song is 1971’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s deathless, seasonally ubiquitous and thereby very familiar anti-war anthem. That inciting idea was to mark the song’s half-century, in 2021. But heading into that 50th anniversary four years ago, their son wasn’t feeling that particular idea. Or, as he puts it, 'I personally might not be interested in watching a regular music video for a song that I knew that well. We all hear that song every Christmas. It's sort of a standard at this point.

'So I thought it would be more interesting to do a short film that supported the message of the song. But then have the actual song drop in [at the end], like the score of a film would do. That was the basic idea: to make it more interesting to watch.'

The 50-year-old New Yorker – a musician and filmmaker in his own right, and careful curator of his parents’ artistic and personal legacies – partnered with Dave Mullins. The latter is an animator/director/writer whose storied CV includes Pixar favourites Ratatouille, Up, Cars 2, Incredibles 2 and Soul. Together, they imagineered a story set in a First World War-type battlefield, the action rendered in a combination of animation and the performance-capture perfected by computer-game creators. A pigeon carries messages between the trenches, with the story’s universalism and contemporaneousness underscored by the combatants and their uniforms/insignia carefully designed not to evoke particular nations. But rather than carrying battle orders, as these service animals did on the Western Front, this pigeon is carrying instructions for chess moves to and from two soldiers stuck on opposing sides. They're locked in a game of brotherly competition despite their armies being stuck in mortal combat.

'That was mainly because my parents love chess, and my mum is a big chess fan,' Ono Lennon says. 'And I love chess, too. So it seemed like a nice metaphor. And I liked the idea of a messenger pigeon, because, well, I just love birds. I always thought it was touching that so many pigeons sacrificed their lives to help humans through World Wars One and Two.'

Heavyweight help making War Is Over! also came from New Zealand’s Wētā FX, the digital visual effects and computer animation company. It was co-founded by Jackson, the filmmaker who pivoted from one epic fable series (his Tolkien adaptations) to another (his revelatory Beatles documentary trilogy Get Back). Without spoiling this perfectly executed miniature’s ending – which also features a score by 15-time Oscar-nominee Thomas Newman – the result is a film that delivers the never-more-urgent message of 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)' but sweetened in a compellingly persuasive new way.

In that regard, Ono Lennon is following in his father’s spirit. As John Lennon said after the success of his peacenik anthem ‘Imagine’, written earlier the same year as 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)': “Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey." In the artfully crafted, elegantly told, intensely emotional War Is Over!, Ono Lennon and his collaborators have done exactly the same: kids who've grown up with The Incredibles and Cars will come to watch this movie initially as a wonderful piece of animation in and of itself – and they'll come to the anti-war message secondarily.

'Well, thank you for that comparison,' says Ono Lennon. 'That is the best-case scenario for me. If this short film can be one more vehicle through which we can introduce people – young people especially – to the ideas and the message of John and Yoko's music and political activism, then we really succeeded. That would be, for me, an even bigger success than winning the Oscar.'

Watch War Is Over! here. Warchild donations link here.

How do you follow up the most talked-about, culture-creating album campaign in recent memory? For Charli XCX, the answer – as ever for the perpetually shapeshifting pop pioneer – has been to do a swift 180. In place of the feral lime green fever dream of Brat, a new world is emerging based around XCX’s soundtrack for director Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights: gothic, melodramatic, and rooted in a different aesthetic palette entirely. First came House, the singer’s violin-laden collaboration with The Velvet Underground’s John Cale; earlier this week, she released a more hooky but no less cinematic cut in the form of Chains of Love.

At the helm of the latter’s visuals is multi-hyphenate New York-based creative C Prinz. A modern polymath working across choreography, creative direction and film directing, Prinz was XCX’s movement coach for the whole of the Brat project, helping sculpt the singer’s visual language and taking it to stages from the Grammy Awards to a headline spot at Glastonbury. For Chains of Love, the pair drew on this established connection to create a video that is dramatic and extreme in an entirely new way. In it, XCX hangs off a giant white banqueting table raised to 45 degrees before being flung through the air. At other moments, a flurry of knives come hurling towards her; later she slams a heel through the table as shards of glass fly up around her. It’s passionate and visceral - a depiction of the song’s obsessive themes rooted in feeling and physicality.

'Chains of Love as an idea is that there's something that you're gripped to or from. We've all gone through these torturous heartbreaks where you feel like you're in a wind tunnel, just getting whipped,' explains Prinz. 'Some days you're totally fine and then you run into the person or you see a text message and it's like this total whiplash and you're ripped back to this really intense place of desperation. I started developing this idea of the dance of dreaded love, where you can't quite tell if you're in control or not in control; you can't tell if the love itself is coming from you or coming at you; you can't tell who's winning and who's losing. You're just getting thrashed around by the idea or the energy of love itself.'

For the shoot, the singer was fully invested, performing many of her own stunts and, at one point, quite literally bleeding for her art ('She was really going for it. She didn't even notice that she’d cut her knee on the table,' Prinz remembers). It’s a level of commitment symptomatic of the pair’s creative relationship, where nothing is off limits and the body is key. 'Me and Charli's relationship is rooted in the physical; the way that we crawl and thrash and spit and lick and shake our asses,' Prinz laughs. 'It's where our work lives. So collaborating in this capacity, although we wanted to shift it into this new aesthetic and this new tonal world, I think that the essence of an artist always prevails.'

Indeed, more than anything, it’s perhaps this inimitable performance style that links XCX’s new work to her previous era the most. The framing is different, but Charli is still Charli. Prinz remembers building this physical language for Brat in a very 'instinctual way'. 'I always say that if no one knows that I was a part of the project, then I've done a job well. It's my goal to be invisible across all mediums, but particularly with choreography,' she explains. 'We see so many performances these days by women in pop that treat movement like spectacle in the best of ways – like something manicured and polished - and it's stunning. But I think both Charli and I have never fully identified with that. When you put on her music, it makes you want to freak out and be your worst, and so that was what we did.

'The first iteration of Brat that we built, we were in this warehouse in Luton for 10 days, just playing the album so loud. The whole place was shaking and we were just trying shit out,' she continues. 'Sometimes I would perform the whole concert for her based on my own instinct of what I thought we should do, sometimes I would say, ‘Let's just thrash around’, and we would sculpt it in real time. That improvisational nature of how we built it, that's why it feels so invisible, because it was built on instinct.'

Though Prinz trained in classical dance at Chicago’s Loyola University, she came to the medium later than most. 'I was always the worst one in the room, and always having to catch up,' she recalls. Far from holding her back, however, this experience became pivotal to the way she approaches her own work. As exemplified with the Brat tour, Prinz’ outlook is one based on gut feeling and working with an artist’s own capabilities and skill sets.

'I never want to put anybody through what I went through of feeling like they need to fit into a box, so I've dedicated the movement side of my career to leaning into what people do naturally and then trying to heighten it times a million,' she says. 'Creative directing is a more multi-layered type of world-building, so there's definitely a bit more precision, but with any project I always try to keep a deep aliveness in it. The willingness to change is one of the best mindsets to have as an artist. Sometimes, if you hold things too tightly, they’re going to end up shooting you in the foot. So I keep this improvisational, very alive feeling buzzing beneath the surface across all mediums.'

Alongside her work with XCX, Prinz has established a longstanding relationship with several other of modern music’s most exciting and boundary-shaking artists, from Doechii to Caroline Polachek. Prinz notably worked with Doechii on her incredible 2025 Grammy performance, helping the meticulous hip-hop star craft an impeccably tight show that was military in its precision. To bring to life the three-minute section took the pair a whole month.

Though, on the surface, the approaches couldn’t be more different, Prinz sees a more important common thread. 'I feel like my films carry a lot of energy, and that energy creates the story and the feeling. It's hard for people to feel things through the internet today, and so maybe that charged energy resonates with people in a way that I didn’t realise [at the start] was going to happen,' she says. 'And when someone can feel something, then they hit you up for that. I think the only thing I believe in this industry is the law of attraction.'

C Prinz is represented by the award-winning global production house Smuggler.

Brighton punk duo Lambrini Girls have announced a new limited-edition run of their 2025 album Who Let The Dogs Out – with artwork by David Shrigley.

3000 copies of the vinyl will be available worldwide. In addition, Rough Trade stores will hold 500 coloured vinyl records and 500 limited-edition CDs featuring a live performance at Brixton Electric.

'What drew us to work with David is the dark sense of humour in his pieces,' the band tell Wallpaper* 'And that he’s sick as fuck!'

Lambrini Girls have had a momentous year, receiving nods from punk elders Iggy Pop, Kathleen Hannah and Carrie Brownstein and critical acclaim from publications such as The Guardian, Rolling Stone and NME – the latter calling their ferocious debut album 'loud, raw, and impossible to ignore'.

Phoebe Lunny and Macieira-Boşgelmez of the band gained a following with their outspoken politics, both in interviews and their music. Their debut record takes on the far-right, gentrification, toxic masculinity and trans rights.

The new vinyl, titled Slutcore Version For Kids Who Can't Read Good captures their humour and DIY ethos – a perfect pairing between two of Brighton's subversive creative forces.

How has music shaped your life? For many it’s a question that runs deep, and it’s also the subject that a returning initiative helmed by In Place Of War – a global charity that uses art and creativity as a tool for positive change within some of the world’s most vulnerable and ravaged communities – aims to explore via a new series of specially commissioned collaborations.

'We had the idea of a kind of “matchmaking” service for visual artists and musical artists from our network and beyond, for a conversation that would then inspire a new artwork,' explains the project’s senior producer, Rozenn Logan. Last year, Music Shaped’s inaugural outing featured creatives including legendary musician and In Place of War fellow Brian Eno with Icelandic artist Ragnar Jonasson, and Mercury-nominated singer Self Esteem (aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor) with Sheffield photographer Karina Lax. Raising money via an auction of the final works, the project raised £32,000, with Taylor’s photo currently displayed in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

In 2025, Music Shaped has upped the ante, with 24 creatives across genres and mediums pairing off to inspire a new collection as vibrant and varied as the subject itself. 'The conversations go off in different directions and tangents, but they’re always within the realms of music, art, creative process, and all the things connected to that,' Logan continues. 'Sometimes this spans politics or philosophy, comedy, identity, religion – or just simply how much the colour pink means to someone.'

Among those taking part are Idles vocalist Joe Talbot and Bristol artist Penfold, Radiohead’s Philip Selway and graffiti artist Remi Rough, and Norwegian singer Aurora, who returns for a second year alongside Italian photographic artist Petite Doll. Louis Theroux – who released a song sampling a previous interview clip in 2022 – is paired with Turner Prize-winning Jeremy Deller, while actor Maxine Peake, who has featured on tracks with electronic duo The Eccentronic Research Council, has worked with graphic designer Peter Saville.

Comedian and podcast host Adam Buxton teamed up with fellow comedian and visual artist Joe Lycett for their piece: a painting in Lycett’s bright, purposefully naive style of a Casio VL-Tone keyboard, adorned with the phrase ‘Fucking Amateurs’. 'I think we both feel like amateurs in some way, and for me [finding the Casio VL-Tone] was a really important moment of appreciating that you could make worthwhile music with very little actual musical skill,' says Buxton, who released his debut album Buckle Up earlier this year. 'I always loved that synthesisers and cheap keyboards opened the door to the world of music to someone like me. But I was also aware that a lot of people really hated those sounds for that reason, and thought it wasn’t proper music. So I guess the painting is giving a voice to those who really hate people like me,' he laughs, 'and the kind of music that I love and make.'

Another pairing across the project features Steve Ignorant – frontman of 1980s anarcho-punk band Crass – and visual artist Maisie Cousins. Cousins frequently uses collage in her work and wanted to highlight their shared DIY sensibilities and love of imperfections in her own piece. 'I feel like the visual language world is so polished, but we connected over looking at the human error in things,' she explains. 'I thought it would be more interesting to be paired with someone who was different than me – who wasn’t also a 30-year-old woman. But then we realised we're probably not that dissimilar.'

'We just hit it off,' Ignorant shrugs. 'I think it's because we're not snobs.'

There’s a camaraderie to the project – which will culminate in an auction of the artworks at Bonhams, online and in person between 25 November and 3 December 2025 – that showcases the power of music and art in sparking ideas and bringing people together; the exact reasoning behind In Place of War’s powerful investment in creativity as an act of resistance.

'We’ve seen how art and music can transcend other forms of communication and bypass systems designed to silence people, so it’s incredibly important to our work,' Logan says. 'From female musicians in politically oppressed contexts in Zimbabwe and Brazil, to the concept of “Beautiful Resistance” in Palestine, and how hip hop saves lives in Colombia, these radical, subversive people are using art as a creative response to multiple crises, and transforming their communities and the world around them.

'Art is the first thing that suffers when cuts are made by governments and it’s the last thing that’s considered in any way essential – especially in an emergency situation or where people are living under all kinds of extreme conditions. The last thing you think about is, “Where are we going to put the art!”' says Buxton. 'But actually, it’s a really essential part of making life worth living, and it’s what gives meaning and form to a lot of what we do, and it’s the fun part of what we do. Without it, things get a bit bleak, and for people whose lives are already extremely bleak, it’s even more important.'

Ignorant, who spent his career creating protest music with Crass, puts it simply: 'It's very easy to look out your window and put yourself into a little dark corner and think the world is always going to be shit and it always has been. I've done that before, and it's a very dangerous place to be. So if you can find something to look at that moves you, or someone comes up with an image that can take you out of the misery that we're in, that makes you smile or feel good for five minutes, then that's worthwhile.'

The pieces created for Music Shaped 2025 will form part of the Sound and Cinema Auction presented by Bonhams online from 24 November – 3 December 2025. Proceeds from the artworks will support In Place of War’s #HackMusic Programme, which provides critical catalyst funding to support the development of essential life-changing music projects with indigenous communities; LGBTQI+ artists; artists in conflict zones; and artists responding to the climate crisis.

inplaceofwar.net

Soundheads rejoice, with our guide to the best new books across all aspects of modern music. If you're tempted to delve into the inner workings of the Minimoog, explore the tall tales behind one of America's most famous recording studios, or simply study the history of recorded sound, the Seattle scene of avant-garde guitars, or new musical exponents, you'll find something below that strikes a chord.

New books for music lovers and music makers

Portables: A Visual & Historical Exploration of 222 Vintage Portable Turntables

Move quickly to secure your copy of Portables, specialist Brooklyn-based publisher Dust & Grooves’ exploration of the design and variety of the portable turntable, along with the collector culture that has sprung up to cater for these colourful pieces of tech. Featuring no fewer than 222 examples of the genre, this 470-page hardback features photography from Dust & Grooves’ founder Eilon Paz and a historical overview from the music historian Dan Epstein.

The battery-powered turntable is a true pop cultural artefact, frequently branded with toy and comic tie-ins. At the very least, they were brightly coloured, oddly shaped and favoured by design aficionados (the cult Sound Burger from Audio-Technica is still going strong). Portables delves into the key players, both literally and in the collecting scene, with page upon page of luscious imagery.

Portables: A Visual & Historical Exploration of 222 Vintage Portable Turntables, $89, DustandGrooves.com, @DustandGrooves

NME: The Cover 2024 – 2025

NME has come a long way from its origins as an inky weekly exploration of the popular music charts. Now a strictly online portal ‘music and pop culture brand’, the publication is veering back into print with this prestigiously packaged monograph, The Cover 2024–2025.

A celebration of the NME’s undeniable combination of grass roots access to new acts and excellent photography, The Cover includes portraits and images of 50 artists that have captured the industry’s fickle attention over the past 12 months

NME: The Cover 2024–2025, £160, NME.com

No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene

Coming in early 2026, No New York is author Adele Bertei’s personal memories of No Wave-era New York, a creative cauldron of the avant-garde that sprang from the mid-70s punk and went on to define a generation of the city’s art and music.

Bertei, who played in the Contortions and worked for Brian Eno, is a first-person chronicler of this very female-focused scene. From photographer Nan Goldin, artists and filmmakers like Kathryn Bigelow, Barbara Kruger and Lizzie Borden, through to avant-garde provocateurs like Lydia Lunch and Kathy Acker, Bertei brings the era to life.

No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene, Adele Bertei, $28.95, PenguinRandomHouse.com, AdeleBertei.com

This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich

One of punk’s less savoury shock tactics was the repurposing of Nazi imagery. It was far from the only genre or performer to flirt with fascism, as Daniel Rachel chronicles in his new book, This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll. Rachel is not looking to cancel or absolve but instead explore the musical obsession with atrocity and how it relates to rock history in general. A sadly rather timely book.

This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich, Daniel Rachel, White Rabbit Books, £25, WhiteRabbitBooks.co.uk, @WhiteRabbitBks, @DanielRachelAuthor

Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design

Walter Murch was one of the earliest employees at American Zoetrope, the San Francisco film studio set up in 1969 by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. The Oscar-winning sound designer and film editor worked on Coppola’s The Rain People, The Godfather parts I, II and III and The Conversation, along with George Lucas's THX 1138 and American Graffiti and many others, making him well placed to tell the story of modern cinema sound and editing. Replete with anecdotes about some of the most celebrated films in history, Suddenly Something Clicked is a gifted insider’s insight into the craft.

Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design, Walter Murch, £23.15, Faber.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk

Making It: An Intimate Documentary of the Seattle Indie, Rock & Punk Scene, 1992 – 2008

The story of Seattle’s shift from hard rock satellite to ground zero of grunge and beyond, Making It is a photographic portrait of a city’s music scene in full swing. Featuring a foreword from Megan Jasper, CEO of Seattle’s legendary Sub Pop Records, Holler’s pictures capture a live music scene that was briefly the subject of a global fixation.

Energetic and nostalgic, it’s a chronicle of a scene in the pre-streaming age as well as Holler’s own journey through the era. The photographer is also offering a number of different special editions through her own website.

Making It: An Intimate Documentary of the Seattle Indie, Rock & Punk Scene, 1992–2008, Bootsy Holler, $60, ArtBook.com, BootsyHoller.com, @BootsyHoller

Turn My Head Into Sound: A history of Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine remain niche but highly notable, a band that’s managed to transcend genres and remain innovative, abstract and influential for decades, despite a relatively scant recorded output. Turn My Head Into Sound is the story of the band and its founder and driving creative force, Irish musician and producer Kevin Shields.

Despite the 21-year gap between their second and third albums (1991’s Loveless and 2013’s m b v), Shields and his band – Deb Googe, Colm Ó Cíosóig and Bilinda Butcher – have stayed relevant, with Shields finding a side hustle as a member of Primal Scream and as a producer in his own right. Perer’s book traces the history of the band from the very beginnings.

Turn My Head Into Sound: A history of Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine, Andrew Perer, £16.95, Jawbone Press, JawbonePress.com, Amazon.co.uk

Freedom, Rhythm & Sound: Chapter Two

Stuart Baker and Gilles Peterson’s second volume of jazz cover art dives deep into the genre’s frequently avant-garde and innovative album cover artwork. Short of spending many weekends sifting through record bins, this chronology of covers from the world of radical jazz is the only way you’ll ever clap eyes on these obscure and illuminating pieces.

Freedom, Rhythm & Sound: Chapter Two, Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965 – 83, edited by Stuart Baker and Gilles Peterson, $49.95, Soul Jazz Records, ArtBook.com, Amazon.co.uk

Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant studios

Vintage diversions courtesy of a new history of Record Plant, the legendary studio that had outposts in both New York and California. Founded in 1968 by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, Record Plant helped shape the sound of the 1970s. It was here that Stevie Wonder shaped Songs In The Key Of Life, The Eagles checked into Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac got it together to create Rumours. Buzz Me In is an illustrated oral history of this legendary creative space.

Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant studios, Martin Porter and David Goggin, £30, ThamesandHudson.com, Amazon.co.uk

How Does It Sound Now? Legendary Engineers and Vintage Gear

The second edition of this insightful tome will be of especial interest to music professionals. Delving into the work patterns, gear preferences and technological evolutions of 32 key engineers and producers, including Bob Clearmountain and Alan Parsons, Gary Gottlieb has produced a book that's also pitched at audiophiles and vinyl obsessives.

How Does It Sound Now? Legendary Engineers and Vintage Gear, Gary Gottlieb, £46.99, Focal Press, Routledge.com

A Brief History of Sound Recording

The eclectic UK-based Museum of Portable Sound has produced its own ‘Fully Incomplete and Highly Biased’ history of sound recording, written by chief curator Dr John Kannenberg and designed to accompany an online and physical exhibit of objects, ephemera and the sounds themselves.

In addition to over 350 illustrations, the book contains a timeline of sound recording history and marks ten years of the museum. From the invention of stereo to the Dictaphone, black box recorder, compact cassette, mp3 and many more formats both weird and wonderful, the book is a true labour of love and well worth your time.

A Brief History of Sound Recording: Fully Incomplete & Highly Biased, Dr John Kannenberg, Available from MuseumofPortableSound.com, @MuseumofPortableSound

Everything We Do Is Music

Writer and broadcaster Elizabeth Alker’s new book traces the often unexpected parallels and cross-pollinations between 20th-century Classical music and the emerging world of pop.

From Steve Reich to Sonic Youth, The Blessed Madonna to La Monte Young, via Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Jean-Michel Jarre, Everything We Do Is Music is a fascinating journey that’ll have you reaching for the playlists.

Everything We Do Is Music: How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop, Elizabeth Alker, £20, Faber & Faber, Faber.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk

The Minimoog Book: The Synthesizer that changed music forever

The newest publication from music specialist Bjooks is this extensive history of the Minimoog synthesiser. Still finding favour amongst contemporary artists (with the Minimoog Model D now back in production), The Minimoog Book is both the history of a technology and the artists that used it to shape their sound and rewrite pop.

The Minimoog Book, £65, Bjooks.com

One Hundred Sheets of Guitars

In the past five years industrial designer Robin Stummvoll has modestly reinvented the art and aesthetic of the electric guitar via his company Verso Instruments. Both the Cosmo and Sine models depart far from conventional norms, yet have proved to be high quality instruments favoured by performers in a variety of genres.

One Hundred Sheets of Guitars is Stummvoll’s celebration of his first century (and more) of custom builds, chronicling each and every guitar along with many of the happy owners. Every instrument is a bespoke build, and the book showcases Verso’s blend of innovative form and beautiful craft.

One Hundred Sheets of Guitars, Robin Stummvoll; contact details at VersoInstruments.com, @VersoInstruments

A development with a difference

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

There’s a certain aesthetic – dubbed ‘modern luxury’ on TikTok – that, in my opinion, is the scourge of contemporary design. It’s a deliberate blend of minimalism, high-end materials and technological polish, and I see it so often in new hotels and developments that all those LED-lit, quartz-clad interiors start to blur into one.

So when I visited the showroom of The Capston, which marks the final phase of Embassy Gardens in Nine Elms, I sat up. This isn’t your standard, ‘safe’ London development. The Capston trusts that the right people will fall in love with its bold design, and they probably will.

The Capston’s interiors (developer Ballymore has created likenesses of some of the soon-to-be-built spaces in the showroom) are eclectic, sometimes eccentric, with more than a hint of art deco. There's a ceramic fireplace by Fabienne L'Hostis, stained glass from Stuart Suckling, a mural by Sam Wood, and enviable furniture from Bryan O'Sullivan Studio. The aesthetic will carry across 247 residences – studios to three-bedroom penthouses – in two buildings linked by a ground-floor pavilion and Japanese-inspired gardens.

What summed it up for me was the lift, which features a small niche housing a Vincenzo Muratore sculpture. Now that’s attention to detail.

A traveller's toast

Tianna Williams, staff writer

On the cusp of my friend spontaneously purchasing flights to Mexico, we celebrated with and evening of 'Vinyls by V87' at Viajante87. The Latin American listening bar is a hidden spot, a stone’s throw from Notting Hill Gate. ‘Viajante’ translates to ‘traveller’ in Spanish, reflecting the bar’s inspiration, which spans from Mexico down to Argentina, from Peru to Brazil. We were welcomed by Beatriz, who looked after us for the evening and explained the cocktail menu, divided into three sections: Be Courageous, Be Confident, and Be Curious. Naturally curious, I chose the latter – where you simply tell the bartender what you like, and they create a concoction bespoke to you. With drinks in hand, we enjoyed vinyls of Latin, Afro-international, instrumental jazz, funk, and soul while tucking into fresh guacamole and chips.

A Shoreditch surprise

Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

After a long stretch of deadlines, I finally took an evening to exhale and catch up with a friend over herbal tea. We met at what I thought was Nobu Hotel Shoreditch, only to find it had been reimagined as Aethos London Shoreditch, newly opened this October.

What was meant to be a quick tea turned into a slow, unhurried evening. The space feels beautifully composed – terracotta tones, brushed metal, and layered wood textures create a warmth that settles around you. The staff were warm and attentive, striking that rare balance between charm and calm precision – the kind of hospitality that makes you want to stay longer than planned.

Aethos draws on Shoreditch’s creative character, but with refinement; it feels more lived-in than staged, more conversational than performative. A new Japanese dining concept and members’ club will open soon, promising to deepen that rhythm.

Having stayed at Nobu before, I’ll be returning once the restaurant and additional spaces are fully curated. Something tells me it’s a place that will keep unfolding, one evening at a time.

An enlivening evening

Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

Thursday evenings are meant for domestic rituals and for pretending that early winter is restorative. Instead, I headed south for a night of performance. At Chemist Gallery, Fiontan Moran restaged Press Release, Hera Santos turned the bathroom into a site of soft resistance, and Anahita Harding held the room – and the staircase – in slow, devotional tension.

Later, at Ormside Projects, Coalesce combined narration, sound, and light. Helin Karabil, with Engin Eskici (aka DJ Baklava), delivered a visual and sonic architecture that transcended the ordinary, demanding full attention and immersion.

A runners reception

Anna Fixsen, US editor

The New York fashion world may lay claim to the first Monday in May, but the Big Apple’s running community owns the first Sunday in November – the day of the TCS New York City Marathon. While you won’t find me shivering on Staten Island at the start line this weekend, I joined Grammy Award-winning actor and singer Anthony Ramos (you’ll know him from a little production called Hamilton) Thursday evening to celebrate his first-ever run through the five boroughs. The event, hosted by Brooks, took place at Ramos’s own watering hole, Milly’s Neighborhood Bar, just blocks away from the marathon course in Brooklyn. He was joined by his coach, the one and only Des Linden, to discuss his training, his charitable efforts for Scholarship Plus, and – one of the biggest parts of conquering a marathon – his ‘why’: ‘I am doing it for my family, I am doing it for myself, I am doing it for the voices in my head that told me I couldn’t,’ the actor said. One of the themed cocktails of the evening summed up the audience’s sentiments best: ¡Vamos, Ramos!

A meeting of minds

Rosa Bertoli, global design director

This week, I was in Almería to take part in Cosentino’s C-Next event, a gathering of designers and other design professionals from 30 countries to discuss trends and the state of the industry from a variety of perspectives. Among the highlights was a welcome dinner inside a local greenhouse (pictured), and I had the opportunity to moderate a panel with designers Peter Ippolito, Chris Thornley of Conran and Partners, Rania Hamed, Amine Khouni, and Sam Boujada of Nexgen Construction. It was fascinating to hear such diverse perspectives on the industry and to discover how leading interior designers craft spaces that are both considerate and experiential.

A smooth journey

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

Flying Finnair from London to Tokyo is pleasantly calm for a long-haul trip. The connection in Helsinki sets the tone: pale wood, soft light, no frantic transit energy (from as little as 40 minutes). By the time you board the flight, you’re already half decompressed. The cabin has that Nordic, gallery-like quiet and lighting that makes the hours feel softer than they should. Service is warm in a low-key, almost discreet way, and the food hints at the enticing Finnish-Japanese overlap. You land feeling far less battered than expected: A smooth, minimalist bridge into the city of contrasts. Finnair flies from London Heathrow via Helsinki to both Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Narita, all year round, up to twice daily, from Helsinki to Tokyo.

The story of The Beatles’ rise from young Liverpudlians to, arguably, history’s most important band is one written into the fabric of British culture. But until now, the flight path of Wings – the group formed by Paul McCartney and his wife Linda in 1971 following The Beatles’ dissolution – has been less comprehensively documented.

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is here to change that, providing a rich and in-depth look at McCartney’s second decade in the spotlight through more than 150 photographs (many previously unseen) and first hand testimonies from the band, the wider McCartney family, his fellow Beatles and other prominent figures of the time. Curated by editor Ted Widmer from 42 hours of all-new interviews plus archival conversations, and overseen by McCartney and his team, the book is the definitive tome on the group, told via the words and images of the people who were there.

'The story of Wings is a few different things all at the same time,' explains Widmer. 'It's a story about a family as well as one about a very famous musician, and I think the story of the family is just as compelling. It’s also the story of a decade, but primarily it’s a story about rebuilding. Paul at one point says the breakup of The Beatles was like an atom bomb going off. So there is this problem [pertaining to] a man, and he’s a famous man, but it's something I think we all can relate to. When something ends in your life and you have to rebuild from scratch, it's hard. But we've all had setbacks and we've all had to do it.'

Published ahead of a forthcoming documentary, Man On The Run, which premiered in August at the Colorado Film Festival and will be released widely next February via Amazon Prime, the book picks a different path through this new pool of material. 'There was a very high premium on creativity when making this book, which I really respect coming from Paul,' Widmer explains. 'He didn't want me to see the documentary, and so instead I did my own thing. So you have two products that are related to each other but quite different.'

The book moves chronologically through the decade, from McCartney’s first pre-Wings solo album, through the band’s seven studio albums including seminal 1973 LP ‘Band On The Run’, and to their eventual break up in 1981. There are incredible first-person stories throughout, from Paul and Linda moving to rural Scotland and learning to craft tables and shear sheep – a hands-on, physical act of building their new life – to wilder, more dizzying tales as the band picked up steam and became a global phenomenon in their own right. 'There was an album of Wings' Greatest Hits where the cover photo features a statue of a goddess that Paul and Linda had bought, sitting on a little bit of a snowy mountain,' Widmer recalls. 'They literally flew helicopters with this statue into the Swiss Alps, and it was very dangerous, and cold – plus it's hard to land a helicopter on a pointy mountain top! They finally snapped this picture, and when they got back after nearly killing themselves for the shot, Paul said, "Well, why didn’t we just use some fake snow in a studio here in London?"'

The creation of that particular photograph may have been extravagant, but many of the images featured throughout The Story of a Band on the Run are distinctly more intimate. Linda, as well as being heavily involved in the creative direction of the band and its music, also documented a lot of their behind-the-scenes process. A pair of exclusive photographs seen below, showing Paul during home recording sessions for 1970’s ‘McCartney’ LP and in 1979, recording ‘McCartney II’, were both taken by her; unguarded snapshots into records that would go on to sell millions.

Similarly, the first-person nature of the text – all told through quotes – gives an easy, conversational feel to it all. For his part, Widmer wanted to ask McCartney equally close questions. 'I wondered if birds were important to him when he was a boy, which is perhaps a naive question, but you have to be unafraid to ask something that might be a stupid,' he says. 'And he told me a wonderful story about how he was an avid birder, and how he would ride on a bicycle into Lancashire to look at birds and that he had a bird study book. It was such a good answer.'

Wings, then, might have become multi-platinum, stadium-selling stars in their tenure, but Widmer tells the human side of their story: of a couple very much in love ('Paul didn't want to go on the road without Linda, so he built a band around the idea of being together'), and of art and music healing the fractures left following the break-up of history’s most famous quartet.

'I think it humanises a very famous musician, and I also think it gives an incentive to people who want to be creative that might not know how,' he says. 'The message of the book is: just do it. Grab a sheep and shear it. If you don't know how to make a table, give it a go. And I found that message really uplifting. Even if you don't know much about Paul, or The Beatles, or Wings, everybody needs to get through the challenges of life. And I found the story of this book very exciting that way.'

Lily Allen and David Harbour’s four-story brownstone in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, has hit the market for $7.995 million – a symbolic closing act to their marriage, which Allen confirmed in her new album, ‘West End Girl’, last week.

Originally purchased in 2021 for $3.35 million, the 22-foot-wide townhouse underwent an extensive renovation led by designer Billy Cotton (who was part of Wallpaper's USA 300 in 2023 and recently collaborated with Soane Britain) and architect Ben Bischoff of MADE. The result is a striking blend of traditional English charm and unapologetically eccentric maximalism.

Upon entry, guests are greeted by a living room wrapped in intricate Zuber wallpaper and anchored by a grand fireplace. Glass doors open onto a garden complete with a sauna and cold plunge, while crown mouldings, bespoke lighting and layered textures flow into the Plain English kitchen, outfitted with an Officine Gullo range, Ann Sacks tiles and a custom banquette.

The primary suite occupies an entire floor, swathed in more Zuber prints and Pierre Frey carpeting, with a cosy seating area, fireplace and walk-in closets. The upper level offers two guest rooms, a skylit lounge and a home office; below, the garden level hosts another guest suite, powder room and family room.

The couple gave Architectural Digest a tour of their home back in 2023, during which Harbour comments on Allen’s ‘bold, silly, fun, eccentric’ taste, as well as expressing exasperation at her wilder choices – tiger-stripe carpets, double-sided olive suede sofas, chandeliers suspended over clashing patterns. Cotton confirmed to AD that Allen was the creative driving force behind the home, saying, ‘Every time I tried to make it calmer, she kept pushing for more’.

This is the very property that the singer references in 'West End Girl's' title song, saying: ‘So we went ahead and we bought it / Found ourselves a good mortgage / Billy Cotton got sorted / All the furniture ordered / I could never afford this / You were pushing it forward / Made me feel a bit awkward.’

The home’s asking price – which is more than double what the couple paid – speaks to both the surging Brooklyn market and the meticulous renovation. Yet for many fans, its worth will lie less in square footage than in the symbolism – of love, art and heartbreak.

There is always a moment before sound enters the body. A moment where the listener has not yet heard the music, yet has already begun to feel its presence. An album cover contains that moment. It quietly introduces the world that the listener will soon inhabit. With Lily Allen's new album, 'West End Girl', this threshold feels charged and unwavering. The work has been described as raw and unfiltered. A woman speaking plainly about a life lived in public and shaped in private. The artwork that now fronts this new chapter holds all of that complexity within it.

Nieves González, the Spanish artist known for classical oil portraits that blend Baroque chiaroscuro with modern sensibility, was invited to shape the album’s visual identity. Her figures emerge from Baroque pictorial language yet remain firmly of the present. This sense of suspended modernity forms a signature of her practice – a gaze that feels ancient and immediate at once.

González describes the origin of the collaboration with quiet clarity. 'The project's creative director Leith Clark reached out to me because she felt my work aligned perfectly with her vision for the album's image. I have always dreamed of creating the visual identity for a musical project as music is one of my greatest sources of inspiration. And collaborating with an artist I deeply admire has been truly a privilege.'

Lily Allen has long shaped her artistic life around the act of speaking plainly with perception sharpened by lived experience. Her work moves through private and public memory without seeking to neaten feelings. González approaches image-making in similar ways.

The album artwork depicts Lily in a quilted jacket, seated calmly against a dark background. Her posture is unforced; the light is soft yet unyielding. González says: ‘I wanted to evoke everything that defines a West End Girl and that I also see reflected in Lily – strength, power and wisdom. The intimacy comes from the direct gaze and from the relaxed, almost domestic posture.’

The notion of the 'West End Girl' becomes an emotional anchor – a woman who has lived, learned, and speaks for herself. In this portrait, Allen doesn’t explain, she simply resides.

González's engagement with Spanish Baroque is deliberate. The dramatic play of shadow and illumination does not serve grandeur alone; it forms a site where reality and imagination meet. Layers build upon layers; the surface becomes memory. Beneath one gesture lies another. Each mark responds. Each layer questions and transforms. Meaning emerges from accumulation and time.

This depth is where her collaboration with Lily achieves its potency. The portrait is not an image of a singer, but an image of a person who has stepped into ownership of her narrative. It acknowledges the act of being seen and responds with its own terms.

Music and painting hold memory differently – one moves, the other stays still – yet both reveal an interior life. González listens to music constantly while painting: ‘Every sound around me leaves its mark. Music becomes an essential thread through my work.’

When asked how she balanced Lily's narrative with her own visual language, González responded. 'The balance came from recognising that we are working with similar tensions, in different mediums. My work balances between tradition and innovation, between the recognisable and the unsettling. We were telling the same story; the complexity of being a woman in the present navigating inherited codes while building your own.'

The statement is lived not theoretical. It resonates throughout the portrait. Lily sits in a pose echoing centuries of portraiture. Yet the energy now belongs to a woman defined by voice presence and the articulation of experience.

The album's tone has been described as unguarded and visceral. Yet the portrait remains steady.

'I knew the album's name from the beginning and its influence shaped my approach. I portrayed Lily as a powerful modern woman. I did not try to directly illustrate the music; the album's concept informed the energy; a balance between the immediate and the composed between confession and structure.'

The quilted jacket has become one of Nieves González's recurring motifs, appearing in many of her portraits. Soft fabric rendered with exquisite detail – a garment linked to warmth and protection. On Lily, it becomes a statement of presence: a chosen shelter and a form of steadiness.

While the album is visceral and candid, the portrait remains composed – steady, grounded, unshowy. It doesn’t perform pain; it sits with experience.

Oil painting is an act of duration. Layer upon layer. González speaks of tactility as truth. In an era defined by instant digital image creation, the decision to foreground the hand holds weight. The painting reminds the viewer that life is lived in time and that experience shapes the surface.

González has spoken of 'wanting the viewer to experience both familiarity and strangeness.' A recognition of humanity – alongside its well-known subject.

González’s painting, like Allen’s music, holds time, texture, and self-possession. It’s not a depiction of a celebrity but a portrait of a woman who defines herself.

It sets the emotional horizon. It teaches the eye how to listen.

In new film Mitski: The Land, the musician’s tour for her seventh album, becomes an immersive work of performance art. Directed by Grant James and filmed over three nights at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, the concert film distils the show’s stark theatricality – its precise choreography, stillness and sudden flashes of movement – into a meditation on presence and absence.

Every element of Mitski’s performance is meticulously composed, yet charged with emotion, and light becomes the invisible hand guiding the audience through it. Behind this visual language is lighting and stage designer Andi Watson, whose considered use of shadow and illumination shapes the show’s quiet intensity. A longtime collaborator of Radiohead, Watson brings a sculptural sensibility to live music – one that treats light not as decoration, but as a character and a storytelling tool. Here, he reflects on the making of Mitski: The Land, and the disciplined beauty of restraint, contrast and control.

An interview with Andi Watson

Wallpaper*: What were those early conversations with Mitski like? Did she already have a strong idea of how she wanted the show to look and feel?

Andi Watson: To a degree. Mitski and choreographer Monica Mirabile work very closely together, so they already had the choreography developing while I was designing the production. We met in Chicago, in the middle of a snowstorm, at the warehouse where we were building the set. That was a great moment because Mitski could get a sense of performing on the 14-foot circular platform that she's on for about 90% of the show. It also gave us a chance to adapt ideas and experiment together early on.

When you’re working with an artist for the first time, it’s about finding out what they want and how they want to be presented on stage – what the feel of it is, what their on-stage character might be.

With Mitski, there’s definitely a character to her performance. Unlike a lot of bands who just go out as themselves – although that’s never strictly true – Mitski’s very deliberate in how she performs. So it’s about understanding how she wants the audience to see her, and then moving on to the physicality of the stage: what’s on it, how we light it, and how we make sure the choreography reads clearly from every seat.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as cheap seats – everyone should have an amazing experience. Mitski is very receptive to that. So we focused on creating good sightlines and enough light to see what’s happening, while still using it sculpturally, as part of the performance.

More than other shows, the lighting here feels like an interactive and expressive tool, for Mitski to use. I imagine that's quite different from working with a band like Radiohead?

Andi Watson: What I consider my job to be is creating environments for songs to exist within when they’re being performed live. That's always the case no matter who the artist is. It’s about creating a world on stage that has an overarching meaning, and then giving each individual song its own world within that.

In Mitski’s case, Monica and I worked closely on how the light would interact with the choreography, and how the choreography would interact with the light. Mitski is such an incredible performer – she’s receptive, curious, and really wants to explore ideas. We wanted the lighting to become part of the choreography.

There are beautiful moments where that works perfectly – where Mitski dances with a beam of light, approaches a cage of lighting beams, or follows little breadcrumbs of light around the stage. She interacts with it. She feels the light. Watching her move, touch and play with those beams is incredible. From my side as a designer, that’s heaven – to have an artist that enthusiastic and engaged with ideas.

Were there added considerations when translating this from live performance to film?

Andi Watson: From the start, it was important that we were capturing the performance, not changing it. We didn’t want to add loads of light or make it something else. I wanted the film to show the actual show, because not everyone gets to see a tour in person. Some people can’t make it to a show, or a country, or see it twice.

So the idea was to preserve the experience. Grant James, who directed the film, had originally been brought in to handle live video when we started moving into larger venues. We’d already been working together, talking about how to make a proper capture of the show rather than a reimagining of it. Mitski, Grant, management and I were all on the same page about that.

The Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where the film was shot, has a very distinctive atmosphere. Did that present challenges?

Andi Watson: Every venue is different. It’s easier when you’re doing arenas or stadiums, because they’re similar every night. With theatres, it changes daily – the sightlines, the rake of the seats, even the size of the stage.

The Fox Theatre is pretty wild. It has that big faux-sky ceiling, a strange, almost surreal atmosphere. That’s very different from somewhere like Hammersmith Apollo. The challenge is to create something that works everywhere – something that feels the same emotionally, even if the physical spaces vary.

The lighting in the show feels minimalist but incredibly effective. Were there points when you decided to pare it back?

Andi Watson: It was always going to be quite minimal. There aren’t that many lights in the show. When we first designed it, before My Love Mine All Mine took off on TikTok, the budget and scale were modest. But honestly, it never needed more.

The focus is Mitski – her choreography, her voice, her performance. There’s no need to add things that would distract from that. Of course, there are moments like the mobile – the big sculpture of copper discs that comes down from above – where we shift the space, but it’s all about giving her something to interact with, to transform the stage for a moment and then return to stillness.

What stands out to you most when you watch the film back?

Andi Watson: There are lots of moments I love. There’s one where Mitski is behind a wall of light and a narrow slice opens up as her character changes. It’s so simple, but beautiful.

Another favourite is when she walks across the stage, following these tiny lights that appear one by one, each disappearing as she touches it. Eventually, she finds the one that doesn’t vanish – her light. It’s very delicate, and when I explained it to her, she just said, “That’s beautiful.”

Then there’s the mobile coming down – that’s a real “wow” moment. The whole audience gasps, and you see hundreds of phones rise into the air. You can feel their energy.

What did you take away from working on this project?

Andi Watson: It was a lovely tour to work on. Everyone – Mitski, Monica, her management, the crew – was working for each other, which isn’t always the case. It was a genuinely collaborative and creative environment.

It’s always rewarding when you make something that’s both beautiful and emotionally powerful. That’s not every tour. But this one was special — it all came together.

Do you still have goals, or artists you’d love to work with?

Andi Watson: When I started, I had a few goals that I thought were unattainable, and I’ve been lucky enough to achieve them. I’ve worked with amazing artists and collaborators, done shows that broke new ground.

At this point, it’s not about ticking off names. What excites me is when people have faith in you – when they give you the freedom to do something that might seem risky or untested. That’s when creativity really happens.

And finally, what’s your favourite thing about doing this work?

Andi Watson: When an artist like Mitski truly interacts with the light, treats it as something alive – that’s what it’s all about. Those moments where you see the audience respond to it, where light becomes emotion… that’s why I do it.

Mitski: The Land, is out exclusively in cinemas worldwide 22^nd October for a limited time.

It’s been just over a month since Paris’ Centre Pompidou closed its doors ahead of a five-year renovation project. In need of renewal, lead architects Moreau Kusunoki revealed their bold vision to Wallpaper* last year – a refresh that preserves the building’s signature colour-coded tubing, exposed services, and steel-and-glass expanses, while rethinking the spaces within.

But before construction began, the now-empty museum proved too tempting a stage for Because Music – the French record label marking its 20th anniversary this year. Long-time collaborators with the Pompidou (legend has it, Daft Punk were inspired to pursue electronic music after a rooftop rave here), the label saw it as the perfect setting for a weekend devoted to art, sound, and creative exchange. And working in close collaboration with the venue, Because Beaubourg came to life.

More than just a party, the two-day takeover drew on the label’s most illustrious names – Thomas Bangalter, Shygirl, Justice – alongside a new wave of diverse talent, breathing creative energy back into the dormant museum.

By day, the public were invited to explore a programme of installations and talks spanning fashion, art, music and gaming. American artist Mickalene Thomas led a masterclass; Michel Gaubert, Jeanne Friot, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Surkin examined the relationship between fashion and sound; and Sébastien Tellier joined mix engineer Tom Elmhirst for a deep dive into the art of music production.

Elsewhere, immersive experiences were created by select Because labelmates. Justice's mirrored light installation, Iris Augmented, invited visitors to step inside the world of a Justice music video. Shygirl presented Alias, a sensorial exploration of identity and the inner self. And Thomas Bangalter created a dual video exhibition of never-before-seen works, shot 19 years apart.

The Pompidou’s sixth floor – with its panoramic views over Paris – was reimagined as a roller disco, while by night the museum’s ground floor became the dancefloor, soundtracked by a rotation of DJ royalty including Soulwax, Thomas Bangalter and Erol Alkan, with surprise appearances from Fred Again.. and live performances by Christine and the Queens, Shygirl and Alewya.

'We have done a lot of things together over the last twenty years,' says Emmanuel de Buretel, Because Music founder and label boss, of the collaboration with Centre Pomidou. 'So this concludes a long friendship and a long respect for this beautiful museum which is very pure in the art it presents.'

As send-offs go, it was one worthy of the Pompidou’s legacy – a fusion of art, architecture and sound that captured the spirit of experimentation at the heart of both the museum and the label. As the building enters its next chapter, Because Beaubourg stands as a fitting reminder of what happens when creative worlds collide.

In the Fender guitar factory in Corona, California, beneath the gaze of the game-changing riff-masters (Jimi Hendrix, Phil Lynott, Jeff Beck) whose action-shot portraiture hangs high on the walls, the morning shift is hitting all the right notes – if those notes were the sound of whirring, sawing, sanding, buzzing, banging and clanking.

All this sweet industrial music is the sound of a hand-tooled production line, of multiple squads of dusty, visored, apron-wearing craftspeople building the 79-year-old company’s next generation of instruments: the American Professional Classic series.

‘People have this idea that when we mass-produce guitars, you throw a piece of wood in a giant machine and it spits out a guitar at the other end,’ says Allen Abbassi, director of Product Management at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. We do take advantage of modern technology with CNC machines that cut the bodies and necks initially. But there are over 150 hand processes that our operators perform on these guitars when they’re building them.’

After a protective goggle-sporting tour of the Corona facility – where the action is louder than many of the gigs I’ve been to – 52 miles east of Fender’s corporate HQ in Los Angeles, I can confirm that Stratocasters, Telecasters, Jazzmasters and Jaguars are indeed built, with care and precision, from scratch over some 22 days, starting with sawmilled hunks of ash, alder and rosewood. And also what Abbassi says is true: ‘The guys in the factory [are] artisans.’

Fender doesn’t just build guitars in the USA. The company’s factories in Mexico, China, Indonesia and India take care of more volume-focused models, including the Squier sub-brand, while Japan is another source of more specialist models. Corona, however, remains the motherlode, the most visible demonstration of the art and craft of modern guitar making.

‘The computerisation is really just to nail the geometry and the math,’ says Justin Norvell, president of Fender’s Americas division, talking of the iconic curves and contours of the company’s foundational rock’n’roll guitars, when we meet the following day in his Hollywood office. ‘Then hands blend everything and make everything work and get everything to fit – and wake it up as a product.

‘It’s not just the ingredients coming together,’ this tattooed C-suite rock stan continues. ‘It’s a system, and it’s the way that we put it together. If I make a meal next to a master chef out of the same recipe, mine’s not gonna be as good as theirs. So that love, that hand care – sanding off the edges of the fretboard that makes your hand fit like your best pair of jeans – is all-important to what makes these instruments iconic.’

With this new range, that iconography continues. The American Professional Classic series is ‘kind of a little brother to the American Professional series’, explains Abbassi. He’s standing, cradling one of the box-fresh new instruments, shiny racks of others behind him, in a demonstration space outside a Fender HQ meeting room labelled ‘Johnny Marr’ (one of the company’s ambassadors).

‘The “Classic” part is that all these guitars have a vintage vibe to them. In the 1950s and 1960s, Fender used very specific parts and styles of pick-ups. All these guitars represent that very well – they have vintage-style bridges and tuners. So they have this really beautiful, bell-like, chime-y sound that Fender’s known for,’ he says, pealing out a chord. ‘All the instruments are very personal,’ Abbassi adds. ‘They can be used for virtually any kind of music, from rock to funk to blues to punk.’

And they’re ready to rock. For all their design studio beauty, with a (relatively) accessible starting price-point of $1,499.99/£1,499 (€1,799, AUD2,599, ¥242,000), ‘these are road-worthy, ready-for-the-stage guitars that you could grab right off the hook [in] a store and go right to a gig and play’.

That vintage DNA is equally represented in the new series’ look. The colourways are also heritage: in the mid-20th century, Fender ‘borrowed’ from American car companies, spraying exactly the same lacquer paint on their guitars. ‘Lake Placid Blue Metallic was probably on some old Ford,’ says Abbassi. ‘Firemist Gold, Sherwood Green Metallic – these are all colours from the 1950s and 1960s.’

To put a contemporary spin on these heritage hues (which also include Dakota Red, Butterscotch Blonde and what Abbassi accurately describes as ‘the most ubiquitous and fan-favourite Fender colour of all time’, 3-Colour Sunburst), Fender has, paradoxically, found something ‘new and exciting’ by fading some of them, just as those old automobile lacquer paints would have faded.

The team researched washed-out, 70-year-old guitars online and at storied dealers such as Norman’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, California. Then they chose the hues they wanted, finessing those with paint company TCP, with ‘samples flying back and forth’ (‘make it five per cent darker’); it sometimes taking ‘eight to ten versions’ to arrive at the right shade.

‘So they have almost a patina to them. For instance, this [Stratocaster] HSS strap here,’ continues Abbassi, pointing to another instrument, ‘is a Faded Black. It’s almost like a beautiful, blue-hued charcoal.’

‘Or an old T-shirt,’ chimes in Joey Brasler, VP of Product Management, with a grin. ‘That’s what it’s supposed to be.’ Explaining further, he says: ‘Justin’s the one that came up with the faded black. He ran to his office and came back with – literally – an old T-shirt. So we took pictures of it…’

‘I have a vintage black Clash T-shirt that I bought in Tokyo,’ says Norvell, sat at his desk in front of a Shepard Fairey stencil rendering of Joe Strummer, another previous Fender collaborator. ‘It’s the idea that a brand-new black T-shirt isn’t the same as a faded, worn one. It’s that aesthetic [that speaks to the fact that] so many of our instruments are heirlooms. They live for decades. People are still playing ones from the 1950s. A lot of your favourite artists are still playing the guitar they had forever. How do you imbue the age into something, but without necessarily really beating it up? So it was the idea of ageing these vintage colours… How can we reinterpret them… in a new way that is still aesthetically comfortable?’

All that vintaging? It’s about evoking serious use and serious love. These are not museum pieces, or art pieces. They’re certainly artful, but of fundamental importance is the guitars having both utility and a baked-in, respectful feel of heritage. As Norvell puts it: ‘The history of Fender is littered with cultural moments that are the soundtrack of people’s lives – whether that’s Buddy Holly on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles on the [Savile Row] rooftop, [The Clash’s] London Calling, or Hendrix playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock or lighting his guitar on fire [at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967].

‘This culture map of music is inexorably linked to Fender,’ the exec continues. ‘So harkening to the past in that aesthetic way makes a lot of sense – and puts you more in touch with that past. Things that are classic or vintage, we don’t view as necessarily just old. They’re the icons that are timeless, not just timely.’

That timeliness is working in other ways, too. After years when guitar music – whether hard rock, indie or pop-leaning – has felt moribund and, frankly, unfashionable, there’s a resurgence afoot.

That’s embodied in younger British artists such as this week’s Mercury Music Prize winner Sam (no relation) Fender and The Last Dinner Party, and in insurgent American acts such as Geese or Turnstile, the latter the Baltimore hardcore outfit who are fronting the American Pro Classic campaign. It’s embodied, too, in the widening appeal, outside the US, of country music – a sound that’s embodied by the Telecaster.

‘Country’s been huge,’ acknowledges Norvell, adding that that’s certainly been good for FMIC business. But he also cites ‘pop artists choosing to grab guitars, like Olivia Rodrigo’, plus artists who are ‘bubbling up – you can feel that there’s a groundswell occurring. There are small things, too – the shoegaze revival, nu-metal revival – [where] you can feel the guitar tide level is coming up. But also,’ he adds with a defiant, true-believer flourish, ‘it never went away.’

And of course, this is also the year of the world-wowing Oasis comeback tour. Post-Live ’25, does this music obsessive – who is, naturally, himself a guitarist, his own cherished instruments propped against the wall in his office – think we’ll see a generational bounce of new players? He nods.

‘[With] all of these bands that have dusted it off and come back out, the Gen X-ers are bringing the kids,’ Norvell says – an observable fact to which anyone who witnessed the enraptured, all-ages audiences at this summer’s Oasis shows around the world can attest. ‘But the kids have grown up on this stuff, too. And are inspired by it. It’s definitely something we’re hopeful of – and it feels like it’s happening. You can sense that the guitar is entering another cycle of relevance and coolness.’

The Fender American Professional Classic Series is available globally now. For more information, please visit Fender.com, @Fender

War Child, the charity that provides support to children caught in war zones around the world, is back with another auction of original artworks. This year, the charity has invited 52 artists to create artwork inspired by Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ in honour of the 40th anniversary of the 1985 Hounds of Love album.

The efforts are for Sound & Vision, a fundraising initiative, exhibition and auction pairing music and art to raise funds to support children and their families worldwide. The particular lyric inspiring the art – ‘If I only could, I’d make a deal with God’ – was chosen by Bush herself.

War Child presents Sound & Vision

‘All wars leave horrific scars:ruined lives, families ripped apart, life-changing injuries, trauma, and loss on a massive scale – but it’s the children who suffer the most in so many ways,’ says Bush. ‘Their past, present and future melt away into fear and uncertainty. It is more important than ever that we support War Child and their invaluable work providing immediate aid to children caught in conflict all over the world, including in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and Syria. Projects like Sound & Vision harness the power of art and music to make a real difference to children living through war.’

Artists taking part include Maggi Hambling CBE, known for her works in the National Portrait Gallery, Tate, and National Gallery; painter Peter Doig (currently showing at Serpentine Galleries), Charlie Calder-Potts, Britain’s youngest female war artist; Unskilled Worker aka Helen Dowdie; Corbin Shaw; Susie Hamilton; and Ayobola Kekere-Ekun.

The online auction runs from Tuesday 28 October to Thursday 13 November 2025 (closing 3pm BST, 10am EST), while the works from ‘Sound & Vision: Running Up that Hill’ will be exhibited at Iconic Images Gallery from 4 to 8 November. Bidding starts at £100 for the original artworks.

Taylor Swift’s fandom, the Swifties, found Edwin Moreira before Moreira found Swift’s music. The designer, based in Managua, Nicaragua, created the font Gazzetta in 2021 as his final project while pursuing a degree in Type Design and Production at Tipografilia Estudios, Mexico. It went well for an academic project. The following year, he was offered a deal to distribute the font through TipoType in Uruguay, a company he still works with. That means it’s free to use for personal use through Adobe and can be licensed for commercial use. He was proud to see it used around the world. Then came Swift.

The album cover art for the singer’s 11th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl debuted online on August 13, features Swift in a risqué rhinestone body suit and jewels submerged in water. Surrounding her, in Gazzetta font, done in all capital letters in an orange glitter colour, is the album title.

Moreira describes the font as one that holds 'contradictions.' It’s an homage to the condensed typefaces once used in newspapers, contrasted with a 'contemporary and energetic character,' he says.

The first person to tell Moreira about the news was a former classmate, a Swiftie who recognised the font from school and wanted to check and see if it was true. Soon, Moreira began getting new followers on Instagram and receiving messages from fans who had traced the font back to him.

He believes that even just a few years ago, this level of interest in his work wouldn’t be present. 'I value that today's type design can enjoy a prominence within pop culture,' he says. While casual consumers have begun paying more attention to art direction, design, and styling, birthing a generation of armchair creative directors, it’s likely the interest is inherent to the Swifties, who will go to any depths to uncover potential lore about their idol.

Moreira is new to the music, but went ahead and ordered the vinyl anyway.

Since its earliest days emerging out of the garage rock scene of the 1960s and into its most canonised 1970s peak, punk has always been innately intertwined with a DIY spirit and a sense of scrappy aesthetic transgression. Many of the most famous results have been provocative ones: ideas such as Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren’s era-defining boutique SEX, with its bondage and safety pins. But for Blair Tramel of Nashville quintet Snõõper, the pairing of punk and art is something far more wholesome and inclusive.

Aside from the relentless energy and moshpit-ready riffs that populate Snõõper’s output (their second LP ‘Worldwide’ is set for release this week via Jack White’s Third Man Records), the band have become known for the playful and world-building nature of their live shows. Tramel – who double-majored in art at college – is both the band’s vocalist and unofficial set designer, populating Snõõper’s stages with colourful and idiosyncratic paper-mâché characters and props that have become increasingly adventurous over time, growing in scale and ambition as their self-coined ‘Snõõperverse’ has expanded.

Tramel’s current roster of paper-mâché pals includes a beloved green mosquito-like bug, a be-suited, globe-faced album mascot they’re calling Mr. Worldwide, and a pair of sunglasses-clad silver Floridians – one with mop-like blond hair, the other looking like a spikey radioactive ball. Most don’t have names, but many have stories. ‘When we were on a West Coast tour, we brought out the silver puppet for some video stuff and pretended that he’d left us to become a DJ in LA,’ Tramel laughs of her latter creation. ‘It turns into its own lore. Now whenever we post him on something, people think it means the song is going to be electronic because he’s the DJ.’

The original idea for the Snõõperverse began almost out of necessity. Having never played in a band before, when Tramel accepted the invitation to sing with Snõõper, she knew she needed some extra tricks in her arsenal. ‘I was so insecure about it that I thought, if I make stuff and have it on stage then it’ll be less about me and what I’m doing,’ she explains. ‘The props made me feel like I could connect with the crowd because I made them. I’m a naturally anxious person, but I do want to honour the fact that the crowd came to the show and keep that loop of energy between us.’

Readily admitting that she ‘sucked’ at painting and drawing, but feeling a natural pull towards creativity and tactile art, Tramel had begun using paper-mâché as a medium, initially creating character heads to populate the stop motion films she was making in class. The act of physically crafting something with her hands felt right. ‘I feel like I have really good control over my hands in a way that I don’t have with a pencil or a paintbrush,’ she says. ‘I loved stop motion because I could use my hands to physically manipulate things, and I thought it was so funny to have my friends come over and make these weird videos with the heads.’

Having always gone back to art as a means of quelling her lifelong anxiety and ‘making stuff as a way to make me feel good about myself’, she decided to create a stack of fake TVs to climb for the band’s first show; a skit nodding to the then-viral ‘crate challenge’ that would give the audience something additional to focus on other than just her performance. Then, she began integrating the heads into the show – donning the eyehole-less sculptures and heading out blindly and chaotically into the delighted crowd. When she realised the impact and the joy they created, Tramel started working out how she could include more people, looking to Bread and Puppet Theatre and their Cheap Art Manifesto for tips on how to elevate her creations above eye level.

‘Bread and Puppet are a political theatre in rural Vermont that make these giant puppets that take 10 people to work,’ she explains. ‘Everything is made from recycled materials and they’ve made protest puppets sending messages out about all kinds of things that I feel so politically aligned with. They printed this thing called The Cheap Art Manifesto, which had this awesome schematic for a puppet backpack: it’s just a piece of pipe with backpack straps from Goodwill and a belt put through, and the person can wear it so the head can then fit on top.’

Tramel also takes her DIY, make-do spirit from places like Bread and Puppet. All of her characters are made from found materials including old plastic bags and party hats while, she explains, the resourcefulness of working in this way has become her biggest inspiration. ‘All the coolest stuff happens when I find something random and put it together,’ she says. ‘My friend was over when I was doing some photos and she was like, ‘You’re kind of a sustainability queen!’ But it’s just a cool byproduct of using what’s around you.’

What started off as a particularly inspired coping mechanism has now built up its own dedicated following. Alongside being a practical tool for navigating some of the difficulties of being in a band (‘It’s so hard to get five people together to do anything so I started making puppets for promo where, instead of having all the band here, I’ll just invent a friend and he can be there instead,’ Tramel laughs), the Snõõperverse has helped people to connect with the band on a completely different level. Fans regularly go all-out in their dedication, getting characters tattooed on them, creating video games with the puppets at their centre, and making wildly elaborate fan art. At one show, the vocalist recalls with a grin, she was presented with ‘a renaissance painting Last Supper scene with all the puppets on it’.

The whole thing has been a wildly positive exercise in the connective and inclusive power of her art – not just for Tramel, but for her audiences too. ‘I’ve had a lot of girls come up to me after the show saying they never felt punk enough to be at a punk show but they had the best night ever,' she smiles. ‘And that was part of my experience in music too. I’ve been going to punk and hardcore shows forever and I remember sometimes thinking, “Do you guys even want me here?” So Snõõper has definitely been a jab at that: if this giant green puppet can be here, then we’re all good. We’re all welcome.’

Jehnny Beth may have come to prominence as the visceral frontwoman of post-punk quartet Savages – the critically revered, scene-leading group that earned the musician, born Camille Berthomier, two Mercury Prize nominations and a list of subsequent collaborators that reads like a who’s who of alternative music (Gorillaz, Nine Inch Nails, The xx, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie…). But her longest and most fruitful partnership began long before any of this global success, back in France, when she first started to work with musician and artist Nicolas Congé, aka Johnny Hostile.

The pair formed art-rock duo John & Jehn in the mid-’00s, releasing two albums before Savages took hold, but their creative communion has carried on in different forms for the past two decades. Most recently, the partnership yielded Beth’s debut 2020 solo record To Love Is To Live, and now follows its arresting, uncompromising successor You Heartbreaker You: an album that she describes as 'meeting the frustration' of a world in chaos.

The project marks an innovative new step in Beth and Hostile’s collaborative creative practice. Eschewing the larger pool of external artists they’ve brought on board in the past in favour of working rigorously and solely between themselves, they conceptualised the lyrics and the visuals simultaneously, using one medium to encourage the other. 'I think we've always been really shy about thinking of ourselves as visual artists, but for the first time we just assumed that title and it unlocked a lot of things for the music,' Beth explains. 'Music is easy. That was our mantra. Music is easy. Music is joy. Music is life. And if it doesn't give you all of those things, you're probably doing it wrong. And so to make the visuals, it was the same approach.'

Working in this instinctive, uninhibited way allowed the project to grow in holistic new directions. Album opener ‘Broken Rib’ developed from a T-shirt design of Hostile’s in which the first word is split over two lines (Bro / Ken) on a red background. Beth sang whilst wearing the design and felt her demeanour shift. 'It sounds very simple, but it changed something in me. It's about creating that world and having fun with what you do, and with what you create in different mediums. And those mediums are going to start having conversations together so then suddenly it multiplies the effect and it becomes more and more playful,' she says. 'It’s almost like a pinball.'

For Hostile, who makes all of the original items worn across the project including the selection of cheekily repurposed and altered Adidas sportswear pieces seen in the video for recent single ‘High Resolution Sadness’, this self-sufficiency speaks to a deeper facet of their outlook. 'For me, it’s about reacting and showing that things must change,' he says. 'I taught myself screen printing and sewing, and I pour love into every piece. Clothes say a lot about who you are, and wearing the logo of a corporation owned by the world’s richest shows you’re fine supporting a system that exploits everyone – from the workers making it to the customers buying it.'

Much of their practice involves a sort of internal capture and response; reacting to the process of creation itself as a means to figure out the next step. As Hostile says: 'I care about techniques, processes, and the path you take to create. That’s what sparks ideas.' Yet, for the uncanny video of ‘No Good For People’, in which evocatively-lit close ups are interspersed with controlled explosions – a tidal wave coming up behind the singer, or a deluge of inky black emerging from the doors of a lift – the pair also found inspiration in another outsider artist.

'David Lynch died during that period of time and, in a way, I think the surrealism in his films kind of infused a little bit,' Beth suggests. 'His films are like paintings, and there's really no-one like him in that sense. The no compromise aspect of his films is really interesting, and the distorted realities.'

To make the moving explosions in the piece, Beth and Hostile worked from still images, learning to animate them from Hostile’s original analogue photographs. 'From my analogue photography, we built a universe and a method to turn those images into moving visuals,' he says. 'Jehnny is a skilled editor, and she pushes me to explore everything I’m interested in.'

The cover artwork for the album itself, meanwhile, made an exception to their insular rule. Designed by Brian Roettinger, whose previous work extends from his early days in the West Coast hardcore punk scene to more recent, high profile projects with Mark Ronson and Childish Gambino, it features a black and white portrait of Beth with ‘You Heartbreaker You’ daubed across her face in graphic, violent font. The idea for the text came when Beth stumbled across a car that had been scrawled on by an angry ex-lover. 'Someone had written with their finger [in the dirt], "You cheating bastard, I'm pregnant with your child",' she recalls. 'And then I went online and saw all these other ones with graffiti saying ‘Cheat’, ‘Liar’, ‘Bitch’.'

To replicate the idea, she employed friend and artist Alexandra Dezzi to tag Beth’s own car with the titular phrase in pink, its jagged punk lettering nodding to Vivienne Westwood. Roettinger then lifted the text and imposed it over the portrait – notably, the first image that Hostile had taken of Beth at the start of the entire album process.

If the endeavour goes further than most ever would to capture the energy and spirit of an idea ('I was stopped by the police after, and they were asking, "Why is your car pink?"' she laughs), then it’s symptomatic of the total creative universe that Beth and Hostile have concocted for themselves. At the end of ‘You Heartbreaker You’, they wrote a 20-point list of lessons that had emerged during its inception: 'Art is not a bin for your inner turmoil'. 'Remember how it felt when you first started'. Perhaps most telling of their approach is the ever-inquisitive note upon which they leave it: 'Now I’m in the mood to go somewhere I don’t understand.'

Kid Harpoon is a multi-award-winning songwriter and producer who’s helped craft indelible hits for Harry Styles (he’s all over Harry’s House), Miley Cyrus (‘Flowers’), Florence and the Machine (‘Shake It Out’) – and, coming soon, Who Is the Sky?, the brilliant new album from David Byrne. With Styles' 2022 mega-hit 'As It Was’, followed by Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ in 2023, the Kid genius had the consecutive best-selling singles of the year.

This autumn, the LA-residing Brit formerly known as Tom Hull – who released a brace of fine EPs and an LP in the early noughties – returns to the day job. Well, a version of it. The 43-year-old from Kent has composed the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play Art. Playing the parts of the three art-botherers analysing the worth of an eye-wateringly pricey painting are screen and stage heavyweights Bobby Cannavale, James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris.

While juggling the onrushing deadline to complete the music ahead of the opening of this first New York production since Art’s 1998 premiere on Broadway, Hull answered some questions about the commission. He admitted he hadn’t seen the play before, but did artfully duck my enquiries about whether he’s on Florence’s upcoming album.

Also not forthcoming: the tea on what he and Styles were up to when they were spotted in Berlin this spring. Hey ho, Hazza’s fourth album is another kind of super-valuable art whose provenance should probably be kept secret for a bit longer.

In conversation with Kid Harpoon (Tom Hull) on his score for Broadway

Wallpaper*: Curtains up, Tom… What form does your music for Art take? Short, individual pieces for specific scenes? More of an overall score? Something else?

Kid Harpoon: Yes, short pieces in between and underscoring scenes. We saw it as a real opportunity to set a tone for the play during those moments.

W*: How did you get this gig?

KH: James [Corden] is a good friend, and we’ve had previous conversations about how I’d been interested in composing for film or theatre. He called me and asked how I felt about creating music for this particular play. As soon as I read the script, it was a no-brainer. It’s a great play.

W*: What appealed, generally, about composing for a Broadway show?

KH: The context of music in this setting is so different to what I have been doing for most of my career. I’ve been used to making music that has to grab your attention and bring you into an experience. Whereas this music is designed to enhance an already existing experience and help the overall aesthetic of the show.

W*: What appealed, specifically, about composing for Art?

KH: Firstly, the play itself. It’s simply stunning. Secondly, [director] Scott Ellis was quite specific that there should be no vocals in the music, as it is meant to support or contrast the dialogue in the scenes. Coming from a place where vocals usually need to be front and centre, that was super exciting to me.

W*:What kind of music have previous productions of Art had?

KH: I don’t know honestly, and having read the script with no prior knowledge, I wanted to come up with something that represented how it felt to me. Also, there hasn’t been a Broadway production for a number of years, so I wanted to take advantage of this moment and bring it into the 21st century.

W*: What brief, if any, did you receive, and from whom?

KH: I had conversations with Scott and then came up with a bit of music that felt correct to me. That became the touchstone of the whole palette. It felt really organic. They released part of that music as a teaser on the Art Instagram.

W*: What kind of collaborator is Scott?

KH: He’s a fantastic person and the kind of collaborator that gives you freedom to follow your own visions while steering you towards what he’s also shooting for. I felt like I could really go for what I wanted, without being constrained whatsoever. I couldn’t have dreamt of a better person to work with on my first Broadway show.

W*: In terms of giving you a starting point, how useful was reading the script?

KH: It was so useful. It’s an incredible play, and very inspiring. It made me feel a lot of emotions and I instantly had a ton of ideas. One of which was developing moods for all three of the characters. It was really fun leaning into those. In rehearsals I felt I could somewhat relate to the actors in how hard the nuances of getting those characters correct was.

W*: Were any other pieces of music for theatre – or scores for film – an inspiration?

KH: Not specifically, but I’ve always loved very synthesised film scores and how they create this unique mood. Blade Runner, for example, creates an entire universe with its soundtrack. The Tron soundtrack that Daft Punk did was incredible. Very different projects, but I really wanted to give that aesthetic to it.

W*: After your initial talks with James, did speak to the actors as you composed?

KH: Yes. I had [those] conversations with James previously, and met Neil and Bobby in rehearsal. It gave me a chance to connect with them and discuss aspects of their characters I’d been exploring – and of course, play them music. They are all sensational actors, and I hope what I’ve done only enhances their craft. I am blown away by how talented they are.

W*: Did you talk to Yasmina Reza?

KH: I didn’t. I would absolutely love to meet her. This is an extraordinary play, and I’m so honoured to get to be a part of it. I hope she likes the music!

W*: We’ve only heard a snippet, so does the music overall sound like?

KH: With three strong personalities in the play, I tried to have a blend of three things: guitars, pianos and synthesisers, [with] each representing a personality. Then, the idea was to use interesting and creative effects processing, like delays and reverbs, to bring those more organic instruments into that more synthetic world. Hopefully that gives us some feeling that we are suspended in time watching these three people figure out their dynamics, and relating it to our own experiences.

W*: With apologies for the broad, baggy question, how was it working on Who Is the Sky? with David Byrne?

KH: It was incredible. David has been an inspiration to me my whole life, so to be a part of his world was a dream come true. I also think it opened my eyes to how much more I have yet to explore with music. He’s a master of putting his creativity to different uses. It set me up perfectly to work on Art.

Art begins previews this week at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre. Opening night is 16 September and the play runs until 21 December 2025. Tickets here

At Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum – amidst the sturm und drang of impending doom rendered on album sleeves, the swashing dollops of tempera and gouache paints liberally applied to Covid-era canvases, the black-spider scribbles in notebooks belonging to one of our greatest and most confounding lyricists – there’s a wonderfully deadpan piece of writing. It's part of an extended text under one of the giant, wall-hung images that characterise ‘This Is What You Get’, a capacious and colourful and brilliant new exhibition of the work of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and his visual artist collaborator Stanley Donwood.

‘Donwood’s initial idea for the album cover,’ runs the caption beneath the pair’s sleeve artwork for Hail to the Thief (2003), ‘was to create enormous topiary phalluses, and digitally introduce them into the gardens owned by the National Trust, but Yorke was unconvinced.’

‘Hahahahah!’ says Yorke with a burst of laughter when I read that back to him. Why, one wonders, was he so unconvinced?

‘It was a brief conversation when Mr Donwood arrived in Los Angeles,’ the musician, 56, replies of the friend, real name Dan Rickwood, he met in the early 1990s during their time as art students at Exeter University, and with whom he makes all the visuals for Radiohead, for he and guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s other band The Smile, and for his solo projects. ‘He walked into the [recording] studio, sat down and started saying this. I had five minutes of panic.’

‘Yeah, because we were supposed to build the artwork in two weeks,’ replies Donwood, three weeks younger than Yorke. ‘But I didn't know how to do this, how to make this happen. I had joined the National Trust, though.’

‘The first thing I said to you, even before I said, “I don't think this is going to work”, was something like: “Don't we need three or four years to grow it?”’

‘Well, it was all gonna be about chicken wire and astroturf,’ clarifies Donwood. ‘I was gonna cheat.’

Yorke: ‘Oh, OK, ha ha!’

Thirty years into a creative partnership that began when they co-created the cover art for Radiohead’s 1995 album The Bends (they snuck into Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital to photograph an iron lung but ended up snapping a resuscitation dummy), Yorke and Donwood are still making each other laugh. Still making each other think. Still making each other step out of their comfort zone. And that includes today, with the pair yielding to something on which they’re hardly super-keen: an interview. Separately? Not likely, mate. Together, exclusively for Wallpaper*? Oh, go on then…

An exclusive conversation with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood

Wallpaper*: Thom, why submit to a five-month exhibition, in an august institution, that lifts the lid on one aspect of your creativity – and that has, as you've put it, ‘taken everything’ out of you?

Thom Yorke: Submit, ha ha. Submit being the word. Um... I think we were as curious as everybody else, really, about it… It was a slow-burning process from when we were going to do a Kid A installation [in 2020 for the album’s 20th anniversary]. Then that became a game…

Stanley Donwood: …because of Coronavirus. We were talking to all these places, like the V&A and the Albert Hall. It was really interesting.

TY: It was really interesting coming up against the municipalities as well. Anyway, oomph, dodged that one. But then, as a practical idea, it was bananas anyway. But we'd done all these digital mock-ups, which we're kind of into. What that meant was we were forced to go and catalogue [that] period of our work. Go and find all the books. Go and find all the scraps of paper. Go find the files and all that sort of shit.

That very slowly morphed into kind of an exhibition... An installation became an exhibition became an archiving process. And the archiving process became kind of interesting, although I was always very worried. [I remember] PTA – [film director] Paul Thomas Anderson – saying to me: ‘Don't look backwards, it hurts.’ But at the same time, it was weirdly fascinating.

W*: You've talked of the time around 1997’s OK Computer as ‘an odd time for me personally... of living in a bubble... touring endlessly... feeling like everything was moving too fast’. I see that reflected in the cover artwork, which is based partly around photographs you took of motorways and a highway interchange in Connecticut. In that very modern parlance, how triggering of those feelings is it to see those images now, in large scale, in the Ashmolean?

TY: I wouldn't say it's triggering, because, in fact, it was quite cathartic. When we finished [the OK Computer artwork], I felt it was a quite good full stop over that period. It's like: that's what it was like. Even though it's sort of nonsense, for some reason it said what we needed to say.

SD: There was a description of [that] artwork in a newspaper. Something like: ‘It almost looks like it means something’. Which I thought was fucking brilliant. Faint praise!

TY: Ha ha, damned with frame praise. As usual.

W*: Dan, for Kid A, you brought in huge, six-feet-square canvases and used Artex and palette knives. In what way was that a response to – or even a pre-figuring of – the music that Thom and the band were making – with, infamously, no little difficulty – for that album?

SD: I don't know. We rented a little art studio in a freezing cold warehouse. We had these huge canvases, and it was this idea of making huge, gestural marks. But I was always conscious that [the work] was going to be reproduced at 12 centimetres square on a CD cover. So you couldn't obviously pack a lot in there. And the music was happening at the same time. Then we moved the studio to where the band were working.

TY: It was a really, really long process. And there was lots of different flailing around. Same with the recordings. And generating a lot of things that made absolutely no sense at all. Until you start looking back at it. There was this part where Dan was moving these canvases into the main studio and hanging them if they were unfinished. That was a real [lightbulb] point. That coincided with us finally getting the beginnings of certain songs and arrangements. But, you know, that was months and months and months.

W*: In contrast, the initial impetus behind the next-but-one album, Hail to the Thief (2003), was to make it really quickly – two weeks in Los Angeles was the initial idea. You've said, Thom: ‘I was writing stuff that I wouldn't normally write lyrically because I didn't really have time to think about it.’ Once you got past Dan’s topiary knobs, were there parallels with the artwork that was eventually created?

SD: I was very unfamiliar with Los Angeles. It shouldn't really be there, because the climate and the landscape are quite difficult for humanity. And we went there, we went to this hotel – and we're in a desert, basically – and you go for a piss, and there's huge urinals filled with ice. Frozen water! In a desert! It felt like an incredibly decadent environment.

And there's a lot of plastic. A lot of products from oil everywhere. All of the colours that we used in the paints are coal tar dyes and artificial colours – chemically made colours. And everywhere there are so many words, on all of the adverts. Even little signs on lawns that say ‘armed response’. You're like, fucking hell, for what, walking on the grass? It's very heavy.

So I was writing all this stuff down, and the first couple of paintings were just completely covered in all these words, ripped down while going through the city.

W*: To digress to the terrific new Hail to the Thief live album: Thom, you went back into Radiohead’s archives as you worked on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent Hamlet/Hail to the Thief piece. What were you looking for, and what did you find?

TY: Obviously it's a weird thing anyway, to try and find other people to play the band's songs. But there was something about listening to the live recordings that made whatever that song was a little bit more fluid. A little less fixed. A little less ‘no, it must be exactly like this’ or ‘the sound must be exactly like on the record’. All that stuff.

Because when we do our live shows, it's rough and ready. We don't spend – we didn't spend – a lot of time. It was just [a case of] whatever we had, we'd use. A DIY sort of mentality of playing the songs live. Which, you know, works.

So there was a certain energy that I needed to find. Because one of the things that was coming up while we were prepping the Hamlet thing was trying to find frenetic energy. Something that was vaguely troubling in the way the music would be played. And weirdly, I found that the live performances that I got sent from the archive had way more of that than the record. They seemed to suit this quite wrought state of mind, where there's a sort of simmering anger – but it's misdirected and it's confused and it's lost. It's hard to pin down, but it had more of the right sort of energy. It was then really inspiring, because I could go to this new set of musicians and say: ‘Listen, it's not about the particulars of this. It's about this.’ It was just quite eye-opening.

W*: In the 30 years since you co-created the visuals for The Bends, album artwork has shrunk and shrivelled even further from the gaze. Now we don't even hold it in little plastic cases. We might see it just as a postage stamp illustration on our preferred streaming platform as we listen to this or that record. How is that diminishing impacting your views on how you make the art to accompany the music?

SD: We've always had this idea that, if you can see it across the record shop as a 12-inch-size picture, you're only seeing it as a little fingernail. And you go towards that if you're attracted by it. So we've always tried to make something that looks interesting enough to go towards – and then hopefully pick up.

TY: Also, the streaming thing in this context, it's more like the radio. The experience of using it is more like a radio in the background, rather than you really having a strong connection with what you're listening to. As you say, the fact that you just get a thumbnail of the image, it seems to be designed to make you not give a fuck.

Which is a shame. It gives you that sense of an endless stream of material which is all equitable. The same. Which is not the experience you would have got in a record shop. Or not the experience when you go around to your mate's house and they play you some obscure jazz record from the 1970s. That's not what that is. It's useful, but it's like an interim experience.

W*: That said, as we all know, vinyl is making a (pricey) comeback...

TY: I just constantly feel like there's another experience coming around the corner. I don't feel like this is it, you know? Obviously, yeah, the revival of vinyl sales helps a lot. But I guess what's important is the question of whether it matters, the visual element for an artist that goes along with their music. [Are we] freaks at the end of the cycle, or in the middle of another cycle that we don't understand? It's the same making videos, where you expend a lot of time and effort making one, and then they're like: ‘OK, so can we have the 15-second cut down for TikTok?’ And you're like: ‘Er...!’

It's all the same kind of things where [you think]: should I get upset about this? Or should I just carry on? I think I'll just carry on. Because, in a way, there's a compulsion to make this work. And there's a compulsion to see the two hitting, banging against each other. And it's really important to us. So that's all we know, really.

W*: What might the art for the next Radiohead album look like?

TY: [mirthless but playful] Ha ha ha ha ha. Moving on!

W*: I know you're getting back into the painting studio this autumn. It would be remiss of me not to ask when Radiohead are getting back in the recording studio.

TY: I have no idea. Not on the cards from where I'm sitting.

SD: [In terms of the art] I've got a few ideas that actually never made it very far. Did I mention about how I joined the National Trust...? [The topiary] is still there, still got it…

TY: We've got lumps of it out back!

'This is what you get' is on display at Ashmolean until 11 January 2026, ashmolean.org

A living artwork

Gabriel Annouka, Senior Designer

After sending our latest issue to press this week, I was rewarded with a skinny drink at the opening of Sincerely: Part 2 – the summer group show of the artists that make up this year's Sarabande (Alexander McQueen’s charitable foundation) residents. I found myself glued to Beverley Duckworth’s work Anthesis III (2025). At first glance, it’s a neat and precise patterned textile, but there are chia seeds embedded in the fabric, irrigated by a built-in water system that triggers germination over time. Nature hijacks the design, turning textile art into a slow choreography of growth and erasure. The pattern will eventually dissolve under the weight of its own symbiosis, the living matter overrunning human intention. Duckworth calls it a ‘meditation on our lack of control over the natural world’.

A brilliant brasserie

Tianna Williams, Staff Writer

On Wednesday I had a lovely evening catching up with an old friend who I used to work with in the scuba diving industry in Greece. We went to Brasserie Constance, a new restaurant on Fulham Pier, to watch the sun set over the Thames and catch up on the past six years. After some introductory cocktails we were escorted inside to tuck into the restaurant’s signature coronation chicken pâté en croûte, followed by the summer vegetable tart with hazelnut cream, which was fragrant and light. The dinner was finished with a divine chocolate ale cake with malted milk ice cream.

A soulful set

Charlotte Gunn, Director of Digital Content

At Crouch Hill's Church Studios, I was invited to a preview of Celeste's new album, Woman of Faces, out in October. Celeste was in attendance, performing a selection of songs from the record with just synth and piano. In close quarters, her divine voice is even more impressive – rivalling Winehouse, Fitzgerald and James – and somehow at odds with her nervous demeanour (though I often think there’s little more excruciating for a musician than an industry playback).

The new record was made during emotionally tough times for Celeste, who won the Brits Rising Star award in 2022. She’s in a sunnier place now – and reportedly her latest work is quite different to what we’ll hear on this album – but for those in awe of her slow-moving, modern jazz, it’s an impeccable nine tracks.

A freshening facial

Sofia de la Cruz, Travel Editor

I’m a big fan of the spa at 45 Park Lane: it’s relaxing, beautifully designed, and feels like a peaceful oasis in the heart of London. The hotel has recently partnered with Spanish skincare brand Natura Bissé, so I had to give one of the new treatments a go. I chose a skin-energising, glow-boosting facial that included a myofascial massage. It was the perfect two-in-one: deeply relaxing yet instantly revitalising. In fact, it’s one of the rare times I’ve had people look at me afterwards and say, ‘You look different!’ I’ll happily take that as a compliment.

Classic cars in California

Jonathan Bell, Transport and Technology Editor

A weekend in California, courtesy of Infiniti, which was showing a brace of concept cars at The Quail and Pebble Beach. Long considered the most important week in the classic car calendar, Monterey Car Week has now evolved into a tentpole event for contemporary luxury brands, with big names fielding big pavilions and product launches at The Quail and at Pebble Beach's Concept Lawn. As well as time with the brand, I caught up with Cadillac, Bentley, Aston Martin, Morgan and more, and explored the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway in the Infiniti QX80.

Coldplay went viral recently after a certain indiscretion at one of their concerts was caught on camera – leaving the hapless suspects feeling blue, perhaps. But this year also marks the 25th anniversary of the band’s seminal hit Yellow, first released in the UK on 26 June 2000 (feel old yet?). In celebration, Wembley Park – the north London district that’s home to Wembley Stadium, which will host Coldplay’s ten upcoming shows as part of their ‘Music of the Spheres’ world tour, beginning 22 August – has teamed up with Pantone to unveil a new public art installation: Yellow 25.

The large-scale artwork transforms the neighbourhood’s Spanish Steps into a giant Pantone colour chip (the brand’s swatch system). The location is not accidental: the 58 ascending steps mirror the melodic progression of Yellow. Each of the steps has been matched to a specific shade of yellow using the Pantone Matching System (a colour reproduction system used across visual industries). It starts with pale, muted tones and builds to deeper, more luminous golds – a graduation which, again, reflects the song's melodic arc. Jane Boddy, creative director at the Pantone Colour Institute, explains that Pantone was ‘inspired to explore how… the emotional journey of the song could be visually represented’.

Yellow is associated with optimism, warmth and creativity – all emotions the installation is intended to spark in visitors. ‘Wembley Park is shaped by music and shared experiences, a place where energy is always in the air. So this felt like the right fit,’ says Claudio Giambrone, head of cultural programming at Wembley Park and curator of Yellow 25.

The Spanish Steps – a pedestrian link between Wembley Stadium and the OVO Arena Wembley – have become a kind of cultural stage. In 2024, they were transformed with a mural by Frank Styles to celebrate Taylor Swift's ‘Eras’ tour. Now, Yellow 25 joins the free Wembley Park Art Trail as its latest (and brightest) addition.

Yellow 25 turns music into something tactile and immersive – it is a celebration of Coldplay's legacy, but also of the enduring power of art and community.

A potent performance

Anna Solomon, Digital Staff Writer

Tonight, I’ll be wrapped inside the brutalist behemoth that is London’s National Theatre to watch Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia, the new play from the team behind Prima Facie. Like Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s global hit, for which Jodie Comer was showered with awards, Inter Alia is an interrogation of a broken legal system. The dramas act as counterpoints to one another: while Prima Facie followed a defence barrister known for dismantling rape charges until she herself is rocked by sexual assault, Pike plays a judge striving to reform the system only to be faced by an accusation close to home.

A lyrical launch

Jonathan Bell, Transport and Technology Editor

I spent an entertaining evening at Hammersmith's legendary British Grove Studios in the company of the team behind Telepathic Instruments and their newly-launched Orchid chord generator. With a new drop of the much-sought after songwriting tool on the way, along with updates to the software, the instrument was put through its paces by Manchester-based instrumental band OMA before we got a chance to get hands-on time with the Orchid. Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, co-founder of Telepathic and the driving force behind the Orchid, was on hand to show me the ins and outs of this highly desirable piece of kit, as well as hint at future plans for more devices.

A superlative salad

Bill Prince, Editor-in-Chief

Rare is the opportunity to importune a colleague to ‘pick up some lunch’ for you; but if the offer's there, why resist (particularly if otherwise busy tying up loose ends before a trip away…)? Which is how I came to discover the Salad Project – an eight-strong, London-based chain of leaf-based businesses that excel in packaging up the perfect lunch pail. Mine arrived (courtesy of our head of video) in a handsome paper bag large enough to swallow a watermelon, nevertheless packed to the brim with the best, most bounteous chicken Caesar I've tasted outside of the States: perfectly prepared (and sized) chicken, dressed in a sweet and sticky honey mustard, perched on a bed of crispy cos and healthy kale, all seen off with a slug of peach mineral water and pack of wheatgrain pitta bites. Thanks Seb!

An erotic exhibition

Sofia de la Cruz, Travel Editor

I visited The Courtauld Gallery’s Abstract Erotic exhibition, which features works by Alice Adams, Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse. Using humour and abstract form, these artists explore questions of sexuality and the body. They first exhibited together in 1966, when they were the only women included in Eccentric Abstraction, an exhibition curated by writer and art critic Lucy Lippard at the Fischbach Gallery in New York. I enjoyed taking the time to observe how their tense shapes, often made from industrial materials, can be both seductive and repellent at once. The exhibition is on view until 14 September 2025.

A resounding retrospective

Gabriel Annouka, Senior Designer

I visited Hamad Butt: An Archive at Whitechapel Gallery. Born in Lahore and raised in East London, Butt was a key figure in the city's 90s art scene. His show ‘Familiars’ at Tate featured a Newton's cradle made from glass spheres filled with chlorine gas. Precise, beautiful and genuinely hazardous. In one note, he wrote: ‘I want to incorporate into my work, or as my work, a notion of fragility and a sense of balance where this fragility lies’. Butt died in 1994, aged just 30. His legacy remains to this day vital. A queer, HIV-positive artist who worked with real risk. The gallery display brings together notes, sketches, sci-fi fixations and diary entries full of intent. The archive becomes a space for memory and for the histories that are often left out. On until 7 September 2025.

Glastonbury’s famous South East Corner might be synonymous with late-night revelry and after-hours raving, but this year the vibrant area is adding a fresh dynamic to the mix with Dragon’s Tail: a new field, between Shangri-La and Unfairground, designed to provide a calming slice of respite away from the madness.

At its centre sits a specially commissioned new work by Somerset-based artist Edgar Phillips: a huge, 40m mixed-media dragon crafted from steel, printed fabric and his primary medium, stained glass. Formed of a 6m head, 10m body sections and 20m wings, it is a beast of a thing: a gigantic undertaking of a scale in keeping with the mythical creature it depicts. Over the course of the day and night, its lighting will fluctuate like a magical beacon, while the sculpture is functional too, with built-in seating for punters wishing to get quite literally taken under its wing.

'From one angle you’ll see a complete dragon, and from another you’ll see a Loch Ness Monster trundling through the earth. The idea is it can be many things,' explains Phillips of the design. 'The head is the feature piece in the centre, which I wanted to be able to be used anywhere at the festival, even if things change in this field. It’s essentially a dragon head-shaped greenhouse, glazed with beautifully coloured stained glass that’s iridescent and mouth-blown, and I’ve chucked in some Victorian jewels from my collection of antique glass.'

Realised with the help of local metal fabrication team Aller Engineering, The Dragon has been a true labour of love, crafted over 11 weeks of up-to-16 hour days. A life-long stained glass artist who completed his apprenticeship aged 16 and has since made work for Hollywood royalty including Elizabeth Taylor, Al Pacino and Carrie Fisher, it represents his most ambitious undertaking so far.

Unsurprisingly for a large-scale glass work in a hedonistic festival setting, the challenges have primarily lain in ensuring its durability and safety. 'The steel has to be fixed to the ground and stand well. If a little bit of glass gets broken it’s not the end of the world, but if people get over-exuberant there has to be a limit,' he explains. However, Phillips has a long history with Glastonbury and the Eavis family at its helm, which has helped prepare him for this hefty endeavour.

His first work for the festival was a pair of rainbow-coloured stained-glass wings known as the Wings of the West, commissioned by Emily Eavis after she saw a similar, red-winged piece made by Phillips following a period of deep personal trauma. In a visual manifestation of triumph over adversity, Glastonbury has also commissioned a pair of white wings from the artist; both of which have 'developed their own little culture' on the Worthy Farm site.

For Phillips, the beauty is in bringing this dramatic and often inaccessible art form to as many people as possible. 'For me, it’s about the light. Whatever stained glass window you create will be a thousand different things every day because of the movement of light and the mood and the change. That’s why I love working with it,' he says. 'It’s such high art, especially in hand-painted, kiln-fired stained glass, that it’s almost a shame that it’s so high up and lofty. I love the idea of bringing it down to earth.'

First introduced to Glastonbury Festival last year, Terminal 1 is a space designed to encourage conversation within the midst of Worthy Farm’s temple to hedonism. Situated next to the festival’s giant scrap metal sculpture Carhenge, the space operates under the ethos of ‘No Human Is Illegal’, providing a vital commentary on the plight of migrants whilst also promoting the work of a diverse and international community of artists and performers.

Terminal 1 at Glastonbury Festival 2025

Curated by Oriana Garzón and produced by Paula Clark, with Miguel Torres Umba returning as creative consultant and performance director, the central experience within the area is an immersive walk-through – designed to replicate the border control experience of migrants attempting to gain access to the UK.

Attendees are first required to answer a question from the UK citizenship test, with wrong answers sending them to the back of the queue. Those that pass the initial barrier are then sent through three escalating cabins, the first designed like a refugee camp, the second an installation entitled Jungle Gym, conceptualised by Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger, and the third a harsh confrontation with border police.

'Part of the creative process in the beginning was from my personal experience,' Garzón, who was born in Colombia, explains. 'When I was designing Terminal 1 with our team, I was doing the exam for the UK Leave To Remain, so we took inspiration from that. It’s a very personal space for me. When the sign of Terminal 1 was hung, I was on the phone with the lawyers submitting my papers. It was like a movie; very profound.'

The signage is salvaged from Heathrow Terminal 1, while the bar is adorned with specially commissioned textiles, reimagining the flags of the world in intricate, African fabrics. For his part, Wallinger created Jungle Gym around the idea of play, and how limited the access for migrant children can be to these spaces of innocence.

'I was thinking about the children in all this – the ones that have no say and no power. And at the same time I was thinking about the UN and Unicef, and some bodies of hope that have impact, but also these superpowers that attempt to stymy that at every turn,” he explains. 'The installation binds this vision of childhood and play, with a jungle gym at the centre of it, but the whole thing has been occluded by a maze of chainlink fencing. I wanted to make something that had an ideal of childhood, but then [contrasted by] the actuality for so many people.'

Alongside the installation, Terminal 1 will host live performances across the weekend and is also home to La Linterna – a Colombian print shop that will be live-screenprinting bespoke designs for the festival, as well as selling prints made on its home letterpress machines, which date back to 1860. It’s one of several initiatives across Terminal 1 that make active contributions to improving the lives of the communities they’re working alongside.

The bar is run by the Cleaners and Workers Alliance Union, while the team have provided ten mentorships giving people from Africa, Pakistan and elsewhere the chance to learn venue management and production.

'Festivals are not just about escape, they’re about possibilities. And it’s rare you have a better canvas than Glastonbury Festival to deliver a message like this,' says Garzón. 'I think Terminal 1 brings another kind of energy to the site and invites critical thinking but emotional engagement too. It’s important we make a space for these kinds of installations at these kinds of festivals. At Terminal 1, you have to be prepared to be deeply moved and then completely uplifted. That’s the experience.'

Having spent the last four years turning their corner of Glastonbury Festival into a debauched comment on capitalism with their former theme of Everything Must Go, this year the team behind Shangri-La – helmed by creative director Kaye Dunnings and creative producer and director Robin Collings – have reinvented the entire field with a new direction prioritising community and optimism: Everything Must Grow.

With a focus on sustainability, and creating a constantly evolving space that will physically blossom over the coming years, Dunnings and Collings have filled the area with plants and trees – surrounding the main stage with live greenery and vegetables, and commissioning a series of collaborators including queer zine publication Black Lodge Press and music and nature initiative Sounds Right to create their own take on an allotment plot, with variously traditional and more conceptual responses to the theme. Billboards around the space are festooned with edible plants, while their Grow Room contains a jukebox where every song chosen will correspond to a seed planted in Shangri-La’s permanent site outside of the festival.

‘Shangri-La has always been reflective of what's going on in the world. This theme is more about trying to reflect only the beauty that isn't getting enough reflection. Joy is an act of resistance these days, which is ridiculous because we all really, really need it,’ Dunning says of the concept. ‘People come to Glastonbury to have a big, shared experience, and they carry that energy with them beyond the festival. That's what we're really trying to do here, but on a bigger level; sending the vibrations a bit deeper.’

Much of the plant life in the space has been grown by the Shangri-La team themselves and will be maintained before returning for the festival’s next event in 2027, following Worthy Farm’s 2026 fallow year. The spaces and stages in the area, meanwhile, have also been conceptualised with a parallel theme of folklore and storytelling in mind. Queer space Nomad is the only returning stage, while new areas include Luna, a repurposed geodesic dome that will house ‘darker, heavier’ music; Azaadi, which will provide a global soundsystem with a focus on the South Asian diaspora; and Lore, a platform for more underground artists and performers.

Of Lore’s ethos, Dunning states: ‘We thought about the future of storytelling and what we want our kids and ancestors to read about 2025, and it’s not everything we're hearing in the news right now. There are good things happening too. There are amazing projects happening everywhere, and that's what we're going to be capturing over the next few years in that space.’

Meanwhile, alongside an installation from Amnesty International – a sprawling tree fashioned from scrap metal and adorned with brightly coloured ribbons upon which people can write messages of support for women’s rights – the space has been curated with diversity in mind. They explain: ‘Talking about nature teaches us about diversity. Nature flourishes when there's biodiversity; 80 per cent of the plants in the British garden are non-native. The English rose is not from England. The tulip is not from the Netherlands. A lot of these things have come from the East, and they bring colour and vibrancy and excitement.’

More than just a space for revelry, Shangri-La’s new creative shows the potential for festivals to curate and design in ways that are sustainable and purposeful, with future iterations and generations at the fore.

To mark the 150th anniversary of Audemars Piguet, two of contemporary music's most timeless artists – Raye and Mark Ronson – have joined forces to create an original track.

'Suzanne' is a big band summer anthem with a serendipitous name. On the pair's first studio session, Raye felt a strong pull towards the moniker. Little did she know, it was the name of a vital yet unsung person in Audemars Piguet's history, Suzanne Audemars, who encouraged her children to go into watchmaking after the loss of her husband. They went on to found the haute horologie brand.

'How random is that?,' Raye says today, beaming at the song's first playback in the Vinyl Factory at 180 Studios on the Strand.

With a clear sonic synergy, it's surprising to know that Ronson and Raye have never worked together before. Fans have Audemars Piguet's longstanding collaboration with Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland to thank for the pairing. While Ronson has been part of the AP family since 2022, it was Raye's memorable 2024 Montreaux performance which resulted in the house asking her to come on board to join their music programme.

'My family are Swiss and I got to perform in front of my grandad for the first time that night,' Raye shared of the special moment. 'I was crying – my whole family were crying!'

'Suzanne' was recorded in London, New York and Los Angeles and the pair hinted that the sessions have spawned a few more unheard tracks.

'I've admired Raye's artistry for years now,' says Ronson. 'Watching her evolution from songwriter to the powerhouse artist she's become. When Audemars Piguet brought us together, it felt like the stars aligning at exactly the right moment.'

'I actually used to work in his studio when I was an up and coming songwriter,' admits Raye, of Ronson. 'I used to hear stories about him like "Mark Ronson only rides around in black cabs," so it was very cool that we got to get in the room together. He's the king of creating music that outlasts trends.'

'Suzanne', will be released on Friday 13 June 2025

Deep beneath the city streets, 20m below ground level and stretching across a sprawling 1,500km network, the Paris Catacombs are home to the remains of more than six million citizens. Consecrated as the Paris Municipal Ossuary (a container for the dead) in 1786, it is the largest example of its kind in the world: a monolith to mortality lying still under the bustling hub of the French capital.

It’s a space that has long captured the imagination of Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, since he first attempted to visit 18 years ago. The band have spent much of their 30-year career exploring the precarious seesaw between life and death, and this week, the storied Californian desert rock outfit will release Alive In The Catacombs: a performance film recorded last summer alongside director Thomas Rames and La Blogoteque that represents the first time any artist has been granted permission to play in the bowels of the landmark.

Far from transposing their heavy live show underground, the performance is contemplative and meditative, reworking five songs from across their back catalogue into new acoustic forms, with strings, glockenspiels and more. The endeavour, Homme explains, calling in from his Malibu home, was an exercise in letting your surroundings dictate the action. 'We never had any intention of playing loud in there, that just seemed disrespectful somehow. You can’t plug anything in and we really didn’t want to. It was more like, "What shall we play for these people who are much older?"’ he chuckles. 'It was about trying to be romantic with the people who were in there.'

‘Very early on, the band made it clear that the catacombs should be the true star of the film,’ Rames explains. 'They wanted to appear only as ghostlike echoes, blending into the scenery. That concept led me to collaborate with cinematographer Théo Fauger, whose work I greatly admire. He developed an incredible tool called the STEMIRAX, which allows real-time superimposition effects. Since this was a live performance at its core, it was the perfect tool to create a spectral, layered look without disrupting the band’s energy.'

Years in the planning, the project gained an added layer of symbolism and reactiveness when, midway through a stint of European shows and in the run-up to the proposed filming, Homme began to develop serious health issues related, he tells us, to his previous cancer battle and subsequent surgery back in 2022. The night before the shoot, the band were forced to cancel a proposed festival date in Venice in order for Homme to attend a nearby hospital for emergency tests. Faced with the doctor’s instructions to remain on the ward, he discharged himself and went ahead with a 102.8 fever that 'only kept on creeping'.

‘The day after the catacombs, I was on an emergency flight and, from landing, I was under the knife three hours later,’ he recalls. ‘[On the day] I was lying down in a cot between takes, but I just couldn’t let it go. I knew that if we didn’t play it then, it was gonna evaporate like trying to catch smoke in your hands. But that made it better too, because then there’s something of "Don’t just play here, stay here…" I need that romantic risk. I need that shit to feel good sometimes.'

Many of the film’s most striking moments arrive as a result of this uniquely extreme confluence of scenarios. The opening moments see Homme lying still on an altar before standing to begin opening track ‘Running Joke’; a shot that came to pass out of necessity. ‘I just needed a place to lie down for a second. I’m in the foetal position on this altar and Thomas is like… “Wait! Can you just stay there?”’ the frontman remembers. At another point, he’s heard muttering 'When you’re going through hell, keep going' – a pep talk to himself that was caught on the wireless mic and kept in the final edit. 'Everywhere you look, it’s you. You’re next,' Homme recalls of his surroundings. 'It was intense and you feel the intensity.'

Negotiating these considerable challenges, there’s an electricity to the recording that, explains Rames, came from prepping enough to allow the 'happy accidents' to occur. 'The goal is to make the technical aspect disappear in favour of spontaneity and the live experience, while still delivering a polished, cinematic result,' he says. Inspired by German expressionism, he employed 'static shots and very slow zooms' to immerse the viewer in the room. 'The 4:3 aspect ratio was a deliberate choice: it works beautifully with the vanishing lines of the catacombs' endless corridors, and it allowed us to isolate the band members within the frame, almost like figures in a painting.'

Homme and the band, meanwhile, fully embraced the new possibilities afforded to them by the visceral location. 'That space makes you do things,' he says. 'With Thomas, we were like, “Right, when you say ‘action’ we’re not gonna do anything for 20 seconds so don’t trip out. We’re gonna stare at each other and let the ceiling drip, and let the vents just sort of moan, and when we’re done with the tape let’s just not do anything for 20 or 30 seconds. We’ll play for these people and then we’ll turn the room back over to them.”’ Necessarily inventive with the staging, the wider shots of ‘Villains of Circumstance’ fully plunge the watcher into the tightness and claustrophobia of the environment, while, conversely, ‘I Never Came’ finds Homme walking through a corridor of string players – a strange juxtaposition of precision and grit.

'What I am proud of is you’re hearing Take One of two, or Take Two of three. There’s no fixing, there’s no correcting. In the first song, there’s a moment where I [groan] instead of singing – it’s this guttural thing, and what am I supposed to do, take it away? Frankly it’s my favourite part,' he suggests, 'because this is the lifelong search to just feel real for one moment, and it’s not easy but I don’t care about that. I just want to feel normal for one fucking minute, and in that environment it’s funny how you can feel like you’re exactly where you should be.'

The project has made the band consider what else could be possible for their live show. 'We’ve been talking about reimagining reams of our songs and maybe going and doing a tour this way. I just love going where I’m not supposed to. We’re in Wallpaper*, right?’ Homme laughs. 'So this catacombs thing is making me think we should go to venues where we wouldn’t normally be, where everyone’s all dressed up. Infiltration in the best way possible: infiltration and corruption as if it were a good thing.'

Alive In The Catacombs also lays the breadcrumb trail for what might come next for the band, as Homme exits while singing a line from what appears to be a new song with the lyrics 'insignificant other'. 'You might be right…' he teases when the idea is suggested. Back in 'great' health, the band have been writing extensively and with a new lease of life following their brush with the Parisian dead. 'We’re very busy right now, and [the catacombs] has impacted everything in the way we really hoped it would,' Homme says. 'You’re always looking for something to charge your batteries and send you in a new direction. This has sent us off on a search and that search is the most exciting part.'

Alive In The Catacombs is available at qotsa.com from 5 June 2025

Medaina, a transporting festival that just took place in Jordan (21-26 May), is the latest event from Tithorea, a platform that crafts ‘cultural experiences’ around the world and has swiftly become a phenomenon among in-the-know electronic music fans since its founding in 2021. It might also herald a new approach to encouraging tourism in a country that’s in a beleaguered geopolitical position (full disclosure, the UK Foreign Office advises against travel to certain parts).

Founded in New York by Shahin Mani and Sherif Koyess, Tithorea is known for its immersive events and the transplantation of artists into sites of incredible natural beauty or cultural heritage. In previous years, it has staged boutique festivals in Cappadocia, Turkey; on the coast of Guanacaste, Costa Rica; in Romania’s Transylvania; and in San Miguel, Mexico, with Tithorea fans travelling across the world to attend the multi-day experiences.

This year was no different, as the five-day Medaina festival kicked off, setting up shop in perhaps Jordan’s most notable locations. The opening ceremony and first night took place in the ancient rock-built city of Petra, while the third night was presented in the stunning desert landscape of Wadi Rum – both are Unesco World Heritage Sites.

In between the festival evenings, guests were encouraged to explore the surrounding areas. You could take a camel tour, be hosted by a local family and tuck into delicious local cuisine, including dishes such as ‘Mansaf’ (a Jordanian Bedouin dish of tender lamb on a bed of fluffy rice, and a tangy-jameed-based yogurt sauce), or enjoy historic ruins such as those in Amman or ‘The Treasury’ in Petra.

As attendees moved from location to location following the festival, hotels collaborated in hosting and providing a luxurious base at which to reboot from the night before. These included the Fairmont Amman Hotel, Hyatt Zaman in Petra, and a ‘bubble hotel’ called Suncity Camp in Wadi Rum. The final ‘decompression’ days after the festival were hosted at Hyatt Regency Aqaba Ayla Resort, which allowed guests to fully recharge and relax after a week of dancing and exploration.

The setting

The setting was breathtaking in its natural beauty, with Petra’s notable rose-coloured sandstone cliffs and carved rock architecture, and Wadi Rum’s dramatic sandstone valley, with 25,000 petroglyphs (rock carvings), 20,000 inscriptions, and 154 archaeological sites discovered so far. However, given the rich history of both sites, whether taking advantage of the locations in this way was appropriate is a moot point.

Jordan relies heavily on tourism (it equates to nearly 15 per cent of the country’s GDP), but given its geography – it is sandwiched between Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Israel and Saudi Arabia – the surrounding political climate proves to be a deterrent for many wanting to venture into this corner of the Middle East.

Unsurprisingly, Jordan’s tourism industry has suffered in recent years, with the number of visitors falling by nearly 4 per cent last year. Cultural festivals such as Medaina, which was sponsored by the Jordan Tourism Board and Royal Jordanian Airlines, are perhaps an answer to the decline – a way of crafting week-long experiences around the country. Nonetheless, the conservation of protected sites seemed to have been sacrificed somewhat during Medaina, with many guests climbing up the ancient walls, which felt disjointed and out of touch.

Tithorea’s Mani and Koyess made it clear that Medaina was built around five key pillars, namely music, art, gastronomy, culture, and sustainability, with the aim to create an immersive experience for visitors, allowing them to see Jordan’s different cultural areas in a short time. The opening ceremony, which took place in Little Petra, was in collaboration with charity Action For Hope, a Belgium-based nonprofit that provides access to cultural expression for marginalised communities across the Arab region.

Medaina was designed for 1,500 festival-goers, who were encouraged to keep attire culturally appropriate. However, many guests showed a disregard for local sensibilities. Some (white Westerners) used traditional keffiyeh scarves (usually used as a headdress to protect from the heat) as tube tops, others were scantily clad in bralettes and shorts, and there were adaptations of belly dancing outfits. It felt like an Arab-themed Halloween parade.

Even though tickets were available to Jordanians at a discounted local price, there was a huge gap in numbers between local attendees and those from overseas. Speaking to locals who came or were working there, I heard mixed opinions; some were ashamed to tell their parents they were assisting with the festival, while others were excited about sharing their culture and enjoying the variety of music.

The sound

The line-up included a variety of local and international artists, with sets from German house and techno duo Âme, Aline Umber, Brooklyn-based duo Bedouin, Swiss musician Jimi Jules, Italian group Mind Against, Lebanese artist Rolbac, and Geneva-based DJ Sonja Moonear.

The sets included a variety of electronic music, with some DJs drawing on the soundscape of the Middle East as inspiration while others nodded to 1980s influences. Overall, it was a cultural mixer of immersive sound and scenery, and a beacon for a global takeover of Middle Eastern electronic music.

The stage

The set-up for each festival night was spectacular. Given the backdrop of rocky architecture and desert mountains, the scenery was bound to be a winner; however, the integration of local furniture, pastel-pink lighting, and sci-fi space ships helped to craft an otherworldly experience. This vision was realised by Melissa Valentina, Tithorea’s creative director.

‘The first thing we did was scout the location. The goal was to find a place that pays tribute to the culture, the artists, and the nature found here,’ Costa Rican native Valentina tells Wallpaper*. ‘It was about understanding the topography and transforming it into places that can be experienced as comfortably as possible.

‘For the opening ceremony in Little Petra, the theme was the heritage of the loom. We tried to make everything resemble these machines. We worked with local artists and providers throughout the project to help bring the design to life.’

Materials and furniture used were rented, avoiding waste. In some locations, there was no stage for the artists to perform on, and instead the organisers made use of the topography for natural elevation. Bars and mirrors were repurposed for each location.

‘The pink colours, the orange sand, the rocks, the canyon and the rough formations surrounding it. How do you play with this? How can you inspire beyond this marvellous setting?’ says Mani. ‘We wanted to add to the scenery and not interrupt and disrupt the ecosystem.’

The question on the tip of everyone's tongue is ‘where next?’. The co-founders hint at Kazakhstan as the next festival destination.

There is no denying that the Medaina festival is an incredible, otherworldly experience offering a kaleidoscope of culture. Yet when you peel back the glamorous façade, you unveil a deeper ethical narrative that may not sit easily with everyone.

tithorea.com

To mark their 25th anniversary, British band Gorillaz have announced a new London exhibition, ‘House of Kong’, as well as four live performances.

The exhibition at Copper Box, set to run from 8 August to 3 September, promises an immersive tour through the history of the virtual band created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Delving into the world of singer 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, drummer Russel Hobbs and guitarist Noodle, the exhibition will span from the band’s debut single, ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’, released in 2000, through to the present day.

Ticket holders for the exhibition will be granted pre-sale access to the Copper Box Arena, where Gorillaz will perform four live shows, on 29 and 30 August, and 2 and 3 September. The events coincide with a new album, which Albarn has confirmed will be released this year, the first since 2023’s Cracker Island.

While few details have been released concerning what we can expect from the exhibition, the band promise a multisensory experience. They say: ‘Visitors to “House of Kong” will take a jaunt behind the curtain of Gorillaz’ extraordinary world. A journey through the band’s life of misadventures, musical innovation and groundbreaking virtual ways since these four outsiders – Murdoc, 2D, drummer Russel and Noodle – first came together to blow up a pre-digital world with the release of “Tomorrow Comes Today” in 2000. An exhibition like no other, “House of Kong” is an experience for the brave and bold.’

Get tickets at houseofkong.gorillaz.com