Plutonic Rainbows

Darkness Darkness’s debut album, Animation, is a richly satisfying exploration of extended deep cuts and machine-soul fragments, living up to every bit of its early promise. Issued by the mysterious imprint A Visiting Link as their first full-length vinyl release, it arrives in the form of an eight-track LP that showcases a range of oddball downtempo electronics — an ideal fit for anyone drawn to Actress, Andy Stott, Purelink, False Aralia, West Mineral, or 3XL.

Comparable in spirit to classic works by The Connection Machine or Actress, the album’s immersive flow runs from start to finish. Two ten-minute-plus compositions anchor the set: the stuttering, cavernous techno dub of the title cut and the febrile dream sequence of ‘Beauty of the World’. They’re complemented by shorter, more abstract pieces such as the choral pad play on ‘Exp Sample’, the lustrous harmonics of ‘Smile’, and the glowingly somnambulant techno-tronics of ‘Empresszzzz’. Written and produced by Darkness Darkness at Magnetic Dress and Dedicated Computer Realm, Animation forges a hypnotic path through spacious sound design and reflects an artist with a keen ear for detail — highly recommended for those in search of deeper musical frontiers.

The new high variant of the o3-mini from OpenAI took only 33 seconds to model this simulation, featuring a hundred colourful balls bouncing inside a rotating sphere. Each ball stores a brief record of its recent positions and draws line segments between them with gradually increasing opacity, creating a graceful fading trail. Collision detection is handled by checking whether a ball’s centre (plus its radius) has moved beyond the container sphere’s boundary, after which its velocity is reflected accordingly. This is seriously impressive stuff.

Today’s release of OpenAI’s new reasoning model offers insights that reveal more about China than the long-established American company. Deepseek has altered the trajectory of progress, impacting both the pace of development and the cost incurred by users.

Offering a generous 150 prompts a day for users on the $20 Plus subscription is likely to prompt many on the $200 Pro subscription to question whether the additional expense is justified.

Bois Talisman, the latest addition to Christian Dior's La Collection Privée, is a unisex Eau de Parfum crafted by Perfume Creative Director Francis Kurkdjian. This fragrance pays homage to Christian Dior's affinity for lucky charms, blending Kurkdjian's personal superstition of carrying a sugar cube with Dior's tradition of keeping a piece of wood for good fortune. The scent features a harmonious blend of cedarwood and vanilla, with cedarwood providing a warm, woody foundation reminiscent of pencil shavings — a nod to Dior's sketching tools — while the opulent vanilla note is expressed through various extraction methods, including infusion, absolute, and CO2 extract, adding depth and complexity. The result is a warm, creamy perfume that offers a unique olfactory experience, embodying the essence of a personal talisman.

The fragrance opens with a prominent vanilla note that is sweet but not overly so, gradually revealing smoky cedarwood as it develops on the skin. This progression creates a balanced composition that is both comforting and sophisticated. Some reviewers have noted that while the scent is pleasant, it remains relatively linear throughout its wear, with the initial sweetness persisting alongside the woody elements. Despite its simplicity, Bois Talisman has garnered attention for its unique inspiration and the quality of its ingredients, making it a noteworthy addition to Dior's esteemed fragrance collection.