There’s nostalgia to the New York/London duo’s lo-fi laptop sound, but their second album pushes them into vivid, weirder new territory

From Hudson valley, New York, and London
Recommended if you like the Books, Leila, Worldpeace DMT
Up next Rumspringa released 29 May

Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan recorded their first ever track as Ear on an iPhone in the Bard College library. That song, Nerves, pits their murmuring voices against weightless strings and barely perceptible drums. Just as it seems poised to float away altogether, the track is suddenly overtaken by a blaring bass synth that cleaves the first act’s aching plea into an emotionally fraught, black-lit banger.

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After the politically incisive late-night host said his final goodnight last week, Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed offered a grim look at where TV is heading

The applause, dear God, the applause. It has you bracing against the headboard and groping for the remote when Comics Unleashed detonates onto the screen just before midnight. A soulless barrage of whoops, cheers and apparatchik-grade terror clapping, it hits like a jet engine at takeoff, swallowing the show’s disembodied announcer in a silo of his own manufactured zaniness.

The applause snuffs out introductions to the guests, all stand-up comics – a who’s who of who’s that – and upstages a modest studio audience that appears to have been rounded up from pamphlet-clutching LA tourists. It even leaves the host himself, 65-year-old Byron Allen, limply shuffling to reclaim the frame as the show’s cameras whip around him from every conceivable angle. In the reverse shots, you can already see the night’s guests parked in the makeshift waiting-room setup at stage left, apparently settled in for Allen’s monologue. But there is no monologue. Comics Unleashed has no writers, no comic sensibility, no discernible point of view – because CBS bent the knee to Donald Trump, and Allen makes Jimmy Fallon look like Eugene Debs.

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The public is concerned. Fewer than half of US adults believe that Trump now possesses the mental acuity or physical health to be an effective president

American presidents don’t have a stellar record of transparency about their health problems.

After a polio diagnosis that caused paralysis of his lower body, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used a wheelchair to get around, but went to great lengths to conceal it from the public. John F Kennedy suffered debilitating back pain, but most Americans never had a clue, seeing only a vigorous and youthful politician.

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Speaking at Amazon’s AI on the Lot event, the Rogue One film-maker Gareth Edwards said ‘it’ll do anything you ask’ and ‘it’s going to be better than CGI’

Jurassic World Rebirth and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards has enthusiastically endorsed the use of generative AI in film-making, saying “it is a fucking genius at helping you” and “it’s going to be better than CGI”.

Edwards was speaking at AI on the Lot, an event in Culver City, California, organised by Amazon, and in remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter said: “I can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t become interested in this stuff as a film-maker. It’s so clearly a tool that might be up there with the camera. It’s going to be better than CGI.”

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Updates from the sixth day’s play at Roland Garros
How players are feeling the heat | Mail Daniel

Now then. Swiatek is brilliant at coaxing herself through the rounds, but she’ll not be happy to be broken immediately, Linette leading 2-0 … er, make that 2-1, the advantage immediately confiscated. Meantime, Rublev has also been broken, the serving that settled set one forsaking him in two, and that, really is the difference; he hammers his racket into the clay, which is better than doing so into himself, and he leads 7-5 1-3.

Borges, who’ll feel unlucky to have lost the first set, breaks Rublev immediately for 5-7 2-0, while Linette holds in game one of her clash with Swiatek.

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Toch wel een beetje gek om aan de ene kant als krant een kruistocht tegen X te beginnen en aan de andere kant een complete brievenrubriek besteden aan reacties van KeurigeMeneer1234 en NetteMevrouw897 [Oekraïens vlaggetje] [Palestijnse sjaal] op het volstrekt zinloze gedeelte van het verder ook volstrekt zinloze debat waarin de hele Tweede Kamer van Lidewij Vos wilde weten of ze een nazi is, en zo ja hoe. Zo werkt de Volkskrant vrolijk mee aan het normaliseren van Mevrouw De Vos heur malle ideetjes (mag ook helemaal niet van Volkskrant-columnist Sheila Sitalsing), want als het beste argument tégen FvD's Bloed & Bodem retoriek is dat Nederland weer van de neanderthalers moet worden en/of dat er wel erg veel allochtonen in het Nederlands Elftal zitten (wtf echt) dan ga je zo langzamerhand toch wel denken dat er misschien wat in kan zitten. Als dit het geredigeerde Gesundes Volksempfinden is, doe ons dan maar gewoon het open riool van X.

Zelensky hopes the new aircraft will protect Ukraine by intercepting missiles and even putting Russian jets in the crosshairs.

…met TWEE nieuwe albums!

Kom je langs om ons te steunen?

De eerste editie van de Rotterdam Half was al snel uitverkocht. De kaartverkoop ging op 29 mei om 10:00 uur van start en na vijftien minuten was het al niet meer mogelijk om een kaartje te bemachtigen.

De eerste editie van de Rotterdam Half was al snel uitverkocht. De kaartverkoop ging op 29 mei om 10:00 uur van start en na vijftien minuten was het al niet meer mogelijk om een kaartje te bemachtigen.