We chatted with Ruel just before his 21st birthday and Halloween. Rewind ten years earlier and you’d find six-foot-one eleven-year-old Ruel in full Slenderman costume riding the high provided by sweets and the thrill of terrifying tinier peers. It feels like we’re met by this version of him - playful and present-oriented.

Come, play beneath the closing sky! Emily Hlavac Green slows time - before emerald turns to amber, before bicyclists zip past in blurred flashes. Today, New York wants to linger.

When we chatted with James McVey, he just put his first solo show on sale, describing the feeling like being on a “knife edge” (‘head of a needle,’ perhaps?) We talk about this specific feeling, the one he might be experiencing now having just released his EP, ‘Manabi’, “a fucking public diary entry!”