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Friday night brought us a celebration of all things jazz and funk, with The Red Brick Jazz Sextet, The Donut Kings and Rough Edge Brass Band offering up an eclectic mix of jazz standards, pop arrangements and timeless classics. First off, The Red Brick Jazz Sextet brought us some upbeat numbers which featured two saxes, […]
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Above: Michael Kiwanuka A number one album in the UK charts and numerous awards and award nominations would appear enough to banish any musician’s notion of imposter syndrome. Yet, in an interview with The Guardian, Michael Kiwanuka talks about how he has only just learned to discard this feeling. There is no sense of this […]
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Above: Kanye West Finally! After a long 10-month period, Kanye first announced that he is dropping his ninth studio album‘JESUS IS KING’ on September 27th but after some delay, it is finally here! This year has been a rollercoaster for Kanye, from his political interest aligning with that of Trump’s, to his controversial statement […]
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At long last, Rex Orange County’s new album Pony has graced our Spotify playlists, our well-loved stack of CDs, our vinyl collections and finally, our hearts. Tender lyricism conjoined with a smug, wry cynicism characterise his indie pop, where equally mournful, self-deprecating lamentations can be (somehow) also quite the uplifting modern-day love songs. Within his […]
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Above: Lake near Nisswa, Minnesota My earliest memory of listening to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, his ‘Emperor’ Concerto is at my maternal grandparents’ house in Nisswa, Minnesota, a lakeside town in the Northern United States. That’s where my grandparents moved when Papa retired from his job with Ford Motor Company in 1994. My […]
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Above: Lana del Rey Weeks have passed since the release of Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Lana Del Rey’s 6th studio album. NFR! was reviewed glowingly by the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, and with ‘Video Games’ being recently pronounced ‘Song of the Decade’ at the Q awards, it seems like Lana Del Rey has […]
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In certain instances, it is hard not to allow the life of an artist to cast a shadow over their creative output. Sometimes it’s impossible. With an album as deeply personal as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Ghosteen, released the 4th of October, the listener is obliged to confront the tragedy from whence its […]
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From their beginnings as a small university band in Dundee, to touring internationally, and releasing the most played song on UK radio of the 21st century, it seems fair to say that the Snow Patrol have done rather well for themselves. Ahead of the release of their eighth studio album, Reworked, marking twenty-five years as […]
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Who would come up in your mind when you think about rock bands? Queen, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bring Me the Horizon, Vampire Weekend… All those big names from Europe and America that have thrilled generations and have dominated the global rock music industry, in which we can hardly find any Asian faces. Can you […]
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I caught up with The Murder Capital’s drummer Diarmuid ahead of their performance at Oxford’s own Ritual Union festival on 19th October. When I Have Fears is a staggering debut album for The Murder Capital. James McGovern (vocals), Cathal Roper (guitar), Damien Tuit (guitar), Diarmuid Brennan (drums) and Gabriel Paschal Blake (bass) haven’t been together […]
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(Image: The Leisure Society playing in London) Ahead of their gig at The Bullingdon on 20th September, I caught up with The Leisure Society’s frontman Nick Hemming to discuss their latest album, Arrivals and Departures, his biggest influences, and the creative process that shapes his songwriting. Currently on the second leg of their biggest tour, […]
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‘Wu-Tang is for the children’. This is what Wu-Tang’s Clan’s Russell Jones, better known by his stage name ‘Ol’ Dirty Bastard’, proclaimed at the 1998 Grammys. Now, over twenty years later, on May 4th 2019, Wu-Tang Clan have had their very own district named after them, in their hometown of Staten Island, New York. Recognising […]
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On first listen, the soft-spoken melodies created by Australian rapper Genesis Owusu (born Kofi Owusu-Ansah) don’t immediately ring as political. Yet, his creative pursuits in both music and fashion speak out against racial inequalities and misguided preconceptions of his culture, with his lyrics consciously stemming from his own upbringing as a black person in the […]
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We’re all living in it. Or some did. Here. Eton Alive, the newest album from Sleaford Mods, is a fearful listen. Not least because in it we hear the lacerations that constitute a musical evolution. This is the least ‘Sleaford Mods’ album yet, and for exactly that reason it succeeds in demonstrating a band autonomously undermining […]
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“What was wonderful about going through some dark times,” confesses Katie Monks, lead singer and guitarist of rock band Dilly Dally, “was the fact that I had to turn inward”. Dilly Dally’s latest album, Heaven, might be read as a rallying, fiery expression of self-love and inclusivity. The record functioned as the band’s auditory toolkit […]
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David Pickard: choir schoolboy, Cambridge graduate, Britain’s leading classical music executive. For anyone interested in classical music, David Pickard is the man of the hour. He’s been at the forefront of the classical music scene for some time, leading notable organisations such as Glyndebourne, and has had stints with the European Arts Festival, the Orchestra […]
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Ahead of their recently-announced headline gig at the glamorous Freud bar on the 20th of February, I caught up with the student band Still Pigeon, who reveal the stories behind their latest lyrics and enigmatic band name. Their glistening and fresh take on R&B opened some big doors for them last year. With two Spotify […]
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Deftly hushed, confessional and yet timid, Cavernzz’ woozy bedroom pop sits on the fringes of collective security—drawn from the quiet, empty hours of the night, where shapes and shadows exist in ways you’ve never noticed before, in a unique and sometimes eerie strain of vulnerability. Sitting down to chat song-writing, Luke Bolitho seems conscious of […]
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James Blake’s mainstream popularity has always seemed odd. His naturally melancholic vocals, bleak and abstract lyrics, grating synths, jerky beats and overwhelming bass lines intertwine to create somber soundscapes that are often difficult to listen to. Assume Form doesn’t deviate too much from this surprisingly successful – if well-worn – rubric. But what is noticeably […]
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