Music

A tale of two venues: Oxford’s musical legacies

Oxford is a city full of firsts – historical, personal, degree class, and musicological. Two of its music venues, separated by about 250 years of history and a walk...

Culture Milo Man -

Night School: Oxford’s after-hours curriculum

The first time I saw Nahom and Ethan, it wasn’t on a night out...

Culture Maya Rybin -

Oxford Commas at the Fringe – Interview

The Oxford Commas are a contemporary gender-inclusive a capella group who had their Fringe...

Culture Lara Machado -

‘Aca-demic Weapons’ at the Fringe: Oxford Commas Review

★★★★☆ A capella groups from Oxford have long been favourites at the Edinburgh Fringe, with...

Culture Alexander Kwon -

Latest

Review: Taylor Swift’s ‘Miss Americana’

Taylor Swift’s last album, Reputation, was an unapologetically aggressive response to the ‘drama’ that she had endured during nearly a decade in the...

Marika Hackman and queer sexuality in music

Bolshy, brazen and unapologetically sexual – in Oxford, the first group of people to spring to mind from this description is likely to be...

From Kampala With Love

At its Southern extremities, the River Nile flows from Lake Victoria into the plains of Uganda as the Victoria Nile. The city of Jinja...

Review: Wire’s ‘Mind Hive’

Wire are a band that don’t like nostalgia, unlike most mainstream cultural figures. So much so, that they have been known to take...

The music of Little Women

For the characters in Greta Gerwig’s recent film adaptation of Little Women (2019), music is an essential part of their lives. Beth (the third...

Review: Frank Turner’s ‘Love, Ire & Song’

Frank Turner is an interesting character. Somehow famous enough to play Wembley and the Olympic opening ceremony, but not quite famous enough that...

Songs for the Sadgirl

Whether it’s due to a lack of sunlight that no SAD lamp can remedy, the post-December comedown, or the onslaught of Hilary term...

In conversation: Ross McNae, Twin Atlantic

In the heart of the Glaswegian alternative music scene circa 2006, Sam McTrusty, Ross McNae, Craig Kneale and Barry McKenna formed the rock outfit...

BRITs come in last place for gender equality

The 40th edition of the BRIT Awards is fast approaching, and with it, concerns over the lack of female nominees in mixed-gender categories are...

Review: Dustin Lynch’s Tullahoma

After an initial scan through the track-list for Tennessee-born country artist Dustin Lynch’s Tullahoma, you could be forgiven for presuming this is going...

Sung Sikyung: an ode to the Korean balladist

I often get asked whether I listen to K-pop. Although I answer “yes,'' I hate getting this question. In part this is because people...

Kate Tempest: the protest voice of a generation

“The whole thing’s becoming/Such a bumbling farce/Was that a pivotal historical moment/We just went stumbling past?” Not enough people have heard of Kate Tempest. These...

Star People: unearthing Miles Davis’ jazz-rock family tree

By the mid-60s, jazz was floundering. The preceding decade saw bebop – the most radical post-war interpretation of the breed – birth several pioneering...

Jazz Society launch record label

Oxford University Jazz Society have welcomed in the new year with the announcement of the launch of their new independent record label, JazzSoc Records. Describing...

Girls to the Front: a brief history of Women in Rock

It is encouraging news that, according to a 2018 study by the guitar manufacturer Fender, 50% of new guitarists in the US and UK...

Review: Vampire Weekend

Nine years after they last took Muswell Hill by storm, indie giants Vampire Weekend played a two-night engagement at London’s Alexandra Palace as part...