Music

Review: Oxford Opera Society enters the bullring for Bizet’s ‘Carmen’

If you recall Pixar’s UP, a comedy where an old man balloons with his dog to South America, a funny moment appears in Carl’s morning routine: the agonizingly slow...

Music Eleanor Hamilton Clark and Francois Cloete -

Your essential guide to the music of May Day

May Day: It’s unique, convivial and quintessentially Oxford. Only once a year does the...

Music Daniel Burns -

A review of The Crux: Djo turns music into a profession

In his new album, The Crux, Djo, aka Joe Keery, perfectly inhabits and evokes...

Music Tom Cockburn -

Fontaines DC and the (re) rise of indie Sleaze

I recently took to my finsta to post a story claiming that the Fontaines...

Culture Kiaya Phillips -

Latest

Review: The 1975’s ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’

Notes on a Conditional Form, the fourth studio album by The 1975, has created its own chaotic history even before its release. The band’s latest record...

Historical Opera: A Primer

The ancient Greeks were so moved by music that in their mythological conception, the father of songs, Orpheus, could move even the rocks. In less fanciful...

Songs of a Pride Cancelled

Pride 2020, which was supposed to be a celebration of our place in the world looking forward to liberation for even more LGBT+ people...

Streaming and the seismic shift in music release formats

Like many of us quietly fascinated with Matty Healy’s prolific output, I recently put in a shift to listen through The 1975’s sprawling new album Notes...

Live Album Review: Vulfpeck at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, NY, late 2019. A packed house. We see a stage, empty save for Woody Goss...

‘Don’t Walk Away in Silence’: Ian Curtis Remembered

Monday 18th May marked forty years since Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, took his own life by hanging himself in his...

The New Music Celebrity

The glossy pages of the likes of NME and Rolling Stone were pored over by music aficionados in the past, hoping for a snippet of the intent of...

“Ladies, ladies, ladies, ladies” – the women at the forefront of lockdown releases

My initial self-isolation playlist contained what I thought I would want to listen to during this indoor period - wistful folk-rock and simmering ambient, the types...

“It’s Not a Phase, Mom!” – In Defence of Teenage Clichés

“I’m not like other girls,” comes the mocking cry from my little sister across the kitchen table – a phrase I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually...

Album Review: Hayley Williams’ ‘Petals for Armor’

In ‘Misery Business’, Paramore’s 2007 breakthrough hit, Hayley Williams claimed that “second chances, they don’t ever matter / people never change”. She’s been proving...

A Love Letter to Eurovision

I first discovered Eurovision in 2015. Idly flicking through the TV channels one fateful night, I stumbled onto the largest, glitteriest, and most confusing music competition on...

Review: Laura Marling’s ‘Song For Our Daughter’

Laura Marling’s seventh album, Song For Our Daughter, was scheduled for release later this year. But, like many other artists and entertainers, the likes of Dua Lipa...

Modern Classical: Locked Down, Looking Back

Ludovico Einaudi is in lockdown. With time to think - to take a walk in the fresh Mediterranean breeze - perhaps the Italian pianist could...

Review: Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch The Bolt Cutters’

“All my particles disband and disperse/And I’ll be back in the pulse.” Music, to Fiona Apple, seems like a Schrodinger’s Cat kind of paradox; it relies...