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Your monthly round-up of the best of our Magazine

Issue Six – July 2025


As June rolls into July in London it’s time for us all to once again pretend we do actually really love tennis, and no we’re not just using it as an excuse to indulge in Pimms and strawberries and cream...

Anyway, we’ve none of that racket here in The Tonic. Instead we’re just serving you great articles and videos you’ll love, from netting an in-depth interview with the award-winning poet Raymond Antrobus, to rallying around Stravinsky’s London farewell.

You can take advantage of opportunities to get to know Gary Crosby’s Jazz Jamaica and Turner Prize-nominee Pio Abad, and court the music of Japan with a playlist from Frank Chickens’ Kazuko Hohki.

And we’ve a set of three pieces which give you an insight into how artists do what they do: Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s directors tell us how they create; visual artist Caroline Achaintre gives a tour of her studio; and a host of artists from this year’s New Music Biennial explain how they make music visual. Hit it.


A quiet word

The poet Raymond Antrobus, a man in his late 30s of British and Jamaican heritage with short hair, sits smiling on a wooden chair in a roughly kept garden

Raymond Antrobus: ‘I have zero interest in framing myself as some kind of victim’

Ahead of the launch of his memoir, the popular poet discusses his father, his evolution, and his life as ‘an investigator of missing sound’, with Precious Adesina.

Read now

Stage craft

Theatre directors Kelly Copper – a woman with long auburn hair piled high on top of her haid – and Pavol Liska – a bald man wearing sunglasses – stand in between a couple of motorbikes wearing biker-style t-shirts; behind them is a brick building beside a metal suspension bridge

How I create… with theatre directors Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska

The creative minds behind Nature Theater of Oklahoma explain the evolution and the key components of their creative process.

Read now

Seen and heard

The musician and artist Kazuko Hohki, a middle-aged Japanese woman with short hair that is shaved up one side and swept off to the other. The words 'My Mixtape' are placed over the artist

My Mixtape: Kazuko Hohki’s 10 Ura Matsuri favourites

The Frank Chickens singer shares a playlist of East and South East Asian artists, (almost) all of which have featured at her annual Ura Matsuri events.

A dark photograph of a pianist deep in concentration, his hand suspended in mid-air before he begins playing

Arts Unravelled: How do you make music visual?

Discover how music is turned into something you can see as well as hear by a selection of artists appearing with us at this year’s New Music Biennial.


Fitting finale

Igor Stravinsky, a small 83 year old balding man wearing black-rimmed glasses stands with arms stretched out at his stands as he conducts a rehearsal

Stravinsky conducts in the Royal Festival Hall

Journey with us back 60 years to a very special concert in our biggest auditorium.

Read now

Get tuft

Artist Caroline Achaintre, a middle-aged woman with long wavy brown hair, wearing glasses and a powder blue sweatshirt and sleeveless jacket, stands in front of one of her multi-coloured woven artworks

Studio Spotlight: Caroline Achaintre

As the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Material Worlds continues its tour in Nottingham, its curator, the mixed-media artist Caroline Achaintre, lets us into her studio.

Watch now

Quick reads

A person wearing white, looking to the camera with a silver artwork behind them and a drawing in front

Who is artist Pio Abad?

Introducing the Philippine-born Turner Prize-shortlisted artist who found his artistic feet in Glasgow.

Jazz Jamaica, a band of 12 musicians stand in an industrial backdrop with their instruments

5 things to know about Jazz Jamaica

Get to know the London-based pioneers of ‘skazz’ with an all star line-up in more ways than one.


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