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Adaptations of this musical have famously been met with varying degrees of success, but this modern version was charming. Full of sex, social satire and entangled relationships, just as it should be, it managed to give us characters that were hilarious caricatures and nuanced studies in human emotion simultaneously. That struck me early on as […]
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I saw that you produce music for films and documentaries, could you tell me a bit more about that, please? When I was at Oxford, I played in a student band which broke out a bit, we made a record which was played on Radio One. Most people that do film and television music seem […]
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When asked to review this evening of jazz from the Red Brick Jazz Sextet, and comedy from The Oxford Revue, I had to make a rather odd confession to the editors. “But I’m performing,” I explained awkwardly. Thankfully, performing a stand-up set amongst numerous others featured in an evening of mostly musical entertainment doesn’t actually […]
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Okay, so this idea has literally just popped into my head but I’m rolling with it. A general consensus across the world is that music is awesome and often food is too. Both can bring out feelings of joy, make me happy dance and burp a lot – they’re also my two best friends. With […]
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So, you were at the Brits last night – how were they? You took along a listener, can you tell us more about how that came about? Yeah, so we went with Katie. We do a thing called Bleak Mornings at around half past six to get the show going; we have people who share […]
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What do you think should be done about the cuts in music education? Should we let music as a discipline die out? What did you enjoy about music classes at school? Did you find them valuable? In truth, I am writing this because in the pitch for this article a particular question angered me: Should […]
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Like all the coolest students at Oxford University (myself sheepishly included), Gaby Elise-Monaghan studies Classics. What is even cooler is how, during the three and a half years she has spent here, she has become a regular feature on the city’s music scene, first as a member of two piece-band Coldredlight, then as front-person for […]
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What got you together as a band? So weirdly, James the singer, he and I met at a live band karaoke night. So I play in a live karaoke thing which is quite fun where you have a song book of sort of two hundred tunes from like Dancing Queen to like I Believe in […]
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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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A couple of weeks ago I had the absolute pleasure of headlining Mansfield Ball: it was a well-organised event, the crowds were insane and I was up on stage with some of my best friends in the world playing music that I love. It would be misleading to pretend that playing at balls isn’t a […]
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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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A campaign has been launched to advocate for an Oxford Musicians’ Minimum Wage. The campaign aims to bring the reimbursement of student musicians at college balls more in line with the Musicians’ Union National Rate for functions, to £162.00 per player; currently, student bands are sometimes expected to work for as little as £25 per player, […]
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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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With the corporate hollowing out of the media now commonplace, music journalism is fighting back. The battle against commercialism, clickbait headlines and contemporary trends is well and truly alive and kicking. Online hoaxes, shoddy reporting and all things ‘fake news’, 2018 has truly made its mark as a media meltdown. In Britain, reached journalistic rock […]
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John Joubert, one of the most celebrated British composers of our time, died on 7 January at the age of 91. Born in South Africa, Joubert lived in England for most of his life, residing for nearly half a century in the city of Birmingham. He held professorships at the University of Hull and the […]
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