Stories that hold a room

Features, essays and photographic stories from across the diaspora, art-directed at the story level and consistent at the platform level.

Cover study, single window light, no fill.Photography / Development image

The Edit · Cover story

The quiet authority of a generation

Twenty years in the studio taught her that restraint is a form of power. The producers, stylists and directors she trained are now redrawing the sound of a city.

Words: A. Mensah
Role: Contributing editor

Words · A. Mensah
Photography · Studio archive
12 min read

In this issue5 stories

Sound

Report · 9 min

The second clock

Between the last train and the first shift, a generation of players rebuilt a scene that never fully went quiet.

Style

Essay · 7 min

Tailoring as argument

A silhouette can make a claim before a sentence does. Four makers on cutting for a body that moves.

Movement

Portfolio · 12 frames

What the body remembers

A twelve-frame portfolio on the gesture that survives translation, from the yard to the stage.

The pressings that taught a city to listen

A short history told through nine sleeves, two pressing plants and one persistent bassline.

Image

Essay · 6 min

Not yet, still now

An image essay about photographs taken by people who were told they were early.

Also in this issue

NoteOn reading a city by its record shops
4 min
DispatchThree rooms, one night, no photographs
6 min
LettersA reply to the last issue
3 min

Development story