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HOW TO SPEND YOUR DOWN TIME.

GNOMON GNOM BY NICK HARKAWAY

One of the clearest threads in Nick Harkaway’s sprawling, spraw surveillance-society novel follows a disedisembodied sociopath who falls backward in timtime to commit four assassinations. If that seems seem more intriguing than intimidating, then this paranoid puzzle of a mystery is for you. you Best known for his philosophically deep neo-pulp neo adventures, when writing Gnomon, Harkaway Ha asked a complicated question – in a system that knows everything about you, y can you possibly be free? – and included i a little bit of everything: “I briefly knew k about the history of cryptography, the life Haile Selassie, the language of flowers, the habits of late Roman syncretism,” he says of his process. “I wasn’t just writing a book, I was remaking myself in order to do so.”

ASH BY IBEYI

Twin sisters Naomi Diaz and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz were born in Paris, raised in Havana, and lead a band with a Yoruba name (it means “twins” in the West African language) that sounds like it’s halfway between a smoky jazz club circa 1935 and a warehouse rave circa 2005. Their new album serves as a spiritual journey around the world and across different eras. On the inspirational single “Deathless,” a drum machine builds a beat in concert with batá hand drums as the sisters sing layers of haunting harmonies punctuated by the fiery saxophone of Kamasi Washington.