Thursday 14th August 2025
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Outreach programme launched for ethnic minority applicants

Marianna Spring
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Outreach programme launched for ethnic minority applicants

Target Oxford has launched a new outreach programme with Oxford’s Undergraduate Admissions office in a bid to target ethnic minority students applying to Oxford.

Over 40 state school students with African and Caribbean heritage stayed at St. Edmund’s Hall whilst they attended the three-day residential event.

The year 12 students received an introduction to life during and after Oxford, meeting both current undergraduates and alumni for mentorship.

They also took part in a number of academic workshops and lectures led by Oxford tutors and research staff.

Dr Samina Khan, Director of Admissions and Outreach at Oxford University, commented, “The first Target Oxbridge residential has been a real success: all the participants were fully engaged and particularly enjoyed the opportunity to see from our current undergraduates what life at Oxford can be like and how achievable an option it really can be. The feedback from students and participants alike was extremely positive, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Target Oxbridge to encourage and support more ethnically diverse applicants to Oxford.

“While Oxford is a popular choice for students from all backgrounds we know there are talented students who may not be considering us – we hope these initiatives will help shift the balance and put the benefits of an Oxford education on the agenda and within reach for more ethnic minority pupils.”

Naomi Kellman, Manager of Target Oxbridge, told Cherwell, “Rare launched Target Oxbridge in 2012 with the aim of helping black students to increase their chances of gaining places at Oxbridge and Cambridge. Since the launch of the programme we’ve helped 30 students gain places at Oxbridge, contributing to improving the representation of black students at Oxbridge.

“We are delighted that the University of Oxford has partnered with us this year to provide a three-day residential for the students on Target Oxbridge. We expect this residential to further help the students develop the skills they will need to succeed in the application process, and to envision themselves as future Oxbridge students.

“We look forward to seeing the outcomes for this year’s cohort, and hope to see a significant proportion of our students gaining places at Oxford or Cambridge.”

The programme is run by diversity recruitment firm Rare, which seeks to help students with African and Caribbean heritage increase their chances of gaining a place at Oxford or Cambridge.

The event makes up part of a yearlong programme by Target Oxbridge that supports students in their studies and application to university.

Academics and admissions staff from Oxford will offer subject-talks, master classes and application support before the admissions deadline on October 15 as part of the extended programme.

Oxford will also be hosting a new conference targeted at British Asian students in the Slough area as part of its aim to support ethnic minority students in their applications.

They already host an annual conference for African and Caribbean students.

Claims of anti-semitism hit NUS Presidential race

Zachary Klamann
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Claims of anti-semitism hit NUS Presidential race

Leaders of student Jewish societies at 48 British universities, including Oxford, have signed an open letter asking NUS presidential candidate Malia Bouattia to answer questions regarding comments she has made which they consider anti-semitic.

The Jewish student leaders specifically raises concern with a 2011 blog post in which she called the University of Birmingham a “Zionist outpost in British Higher Education” and commented that one of the problems she faced as a leader of Friends of Palestine was that the University had the “largest JSoc in the country” with leadership “dominated by Zionist activists”.

“I do not now, nor did I five years ago when I contributed to the article cited in [the] letter, see a large Jewish Society on campus as a problem.”

Malia Bouattia, NUS Black Students’ Officer

In a written response to the letter, Bouattia claims she has no problem with the large JSOC. “I do not now, nor did I five years ago when I contributed to the article cited in [the] letter, see a large Jewish Society on campus as a problem,” she writes.

The letter also references a speech she gave to start Israeli Apartheid Week at SOAS in February, during which she claimed the government’s anti-extremism policy, Prevent, had been fuelled by “all manner of Zionists and neo-con lobbies”.

She has since clarified these comments as referring specifically to lobbying done by the Henry Jackson Society, a non-Jewish organisation, for neo-con and pro-Zionist policies, but denies that they reference the Jewish people as a whole. “In no way did I – or would I – link these positions to Jewish people”, she says in her response to the letter from Jewish student leaders.

Indeed, she writes that Judaism and Zionism are not the same and that connecting religion and politics is “both unfair and unrepresentative”.

The open letter also brings up an endorsement Bouattia received from Raza Nadim, the spokesmen for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, an organisation that has been no-platformed by the NUS since 2004 for promoting belief in a world-wide Zionist conspiracy and once posted on their Facebook page to “take your holocaust, roll it nice and tight and shove it up your (be creative)!”. Specifically, the student leaders take issue with her reply to the endorsement, which was simply, “Thank you :-))”.

In her response to their letter, Bouattia claims she did not know Nadim, nor was she aware of his anti-semitic views, blaming her acceptance of the endorsement on an influx of support and a standardised response to it.

“I have a public facebook page with nearly 5,000 ‘friends’ on it, many of whom have posted supportive messages to my wall,” she wrote. “In all honesty, I was not aware of who Mr Nadim was or his position when he posted to my wall and responded in the same way I would to any post.”

She goes on to claim that as Black Students’ Officer at NUS, she has “a long track record of opposing racism – in all its forms – and actively campaigning against it. I am also an advocate of inter-faith work both inside of our union and beyond”.

Since the release of the letter, all four of the “Oh Well Alright Then” slate members representing Oxford to the NUS have condemned Bouattia’s comments and have thrown their support behind the Jewish student community in Oxford.

Additionally, the OUSU Sabbatical Team have released a public statement against her comments and urged her to answer the letter’s questions, going so far as to claim that “If these allegations are true, we believe it makes her unfit for the office of National President”.

“In order to help prevent the poison of anti-Semitism and ethno-religious hatred from spreading further, we need to make sure that the next NUS President doesn’t have anti-Semitic views.”

Alex Curtis, second year student at St Catz

The letter has also been signed by many current Oxford students, many of whom cited their concern for growing anti-semitism on  university campuses.

Alex Curtis, a second year student at St Catz told Cherwell, “As someone who is partially of Jewish heritage, I am worried about some of the rising anti-Semitism we have recently been seeing on university campuses across the country.

“In order to help prevent the poison of anti-Semitism and ethno-religious hatred from spreading further, we need to make sure that the next NUS President doesn’t have anti-Semitic views.”

The outpouring of support does not shock Oxford JSOC President Isaac Virchis, who believes “this is wholly indicative of the overwhelmingly positive and welcoming attitudes towards Jewish students and JSOC that are prevalent throughout the university.”

While Bouattia has offered her answers to the questions asked by the letter, many people see this breed of anti-semitism as widespread in universities and left-of-centre circles around the UK, including a vote by OULC to support Israeli Apartheid Week that set off questions of anti-semitism within the club and the party in general. Some see this vote as a sign of the increasing accepting of this form of anti-semitism within leftist group.

The resignation of Alex Chalmers as OULC co-Chair in February brought anti-semitism in the Labour Party to light.
The resignation of Alex Chalmers as OULC co-Chair in February brought anti-semitism in the Labour Party to light.

“If there’s one form of racism one can express freely in far leftist circles, it’s anti-semitism; often cloaked in the obfuscating language of Zionism and Zionists, the far left’s pathological obsession with Israel trumps any concern for Jewish welfare or the growth in anti-semitic attacks.” Labour activist Louis McEvoy said, “Obviously one can criticise Israeli government policy, but for some reason this is regularly conflated with dark murmurings of Zionist lobbyists and banks controlling the West, not to mention a pretty commonplace hatred for the very existence of the Jewish state. The candidacy of the utterly vile Malia Bouattia for NUS President is the peak of this phenomenon thus far.”

Indeed, many within the left have come to see the kinds of comments made by Bouattia as toxic to the role she’s running for and left-of-centre politics in general. “In light of this incident, this brings into question Ms Bouattia’s suitability for the role of NUS President where she will be representing the rights of students across the country from a diverse set of backgrounds, including Jewish students, when she is expressing views which are totally at odds with a role that requires impartiality and willingness to work with all students” said Brahma Mohanty, former OULC BME Officer and Social Secretary.

Nobody’s Fault But Zeppelin’s: When Influence becomes Plagiarism

Lorenzo Edwards-Jones
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Nobody’s Fault But Zeppelin’s: When Influence becomes Plagiarism

‘Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.’

And the greatest, it seems, manage to get away with it. Or at least, that was what Led Zeppelin front men Robert Plant and Jimmy Page thought until, last Friday, they were summoned to court for copyright infringement on 1971 hit ‘Stairway to Heaven’. The similarity between the song’s opening riff and the instrumental ‘Taurus’, released four years earlier by psychedelic band Spirit, was flagged up in 2014 by a trustee for the band’s now-dead guitarist Randy Wolfe and has since been making rifts in the music community.

Now, the band has seen its fair share of copyright lawsuits filed against them, many successfully and some rightfully. Many, however, have been largely unfounded, and can probably be put down to a mixture of financial opportunism and jealousy: when Led Zeppelin have taken from a song, their own version has usually been distinctive enough not to have to credit its influence. It’s also a question of genre. The blues has always been in conversation with itself: Chuck Berry stole from people, people stole from Chuck Berry, but at the end of the day, no one could do Chuck Berry like Chuck Berry did, and so that was that.

The ‘Stairway To Heaven’ lawsuit, however, is something quite different. It is no longer a case of taking words or tonality from traditional songs before then altering them. It is almost note-for-note theft. Led Zeppelin and Spirit toured together in the late 60s and, despite any claims that Zeppelin might make that the riff was developed without any knowledge of ‘Taurus’, Page is very likely to have come across it, not least because the album it came from reached #31 in the Billboards. Technical arguments stating that Spirit’s riff uses a musical technique too basic for ‘Stairway’ to be plagiarising it also don’t hold much water, given how close the riffs are both in terms of tone, tempo and positioning on the guitar neck.

A Led Zeppelin fan through and through, I will be the first to say that what they then go on to do with the riff is quite unique. The quasi-Elizabethan first section, the epic guitar solo, the transition into the hard rock finale that, as with so many great successes, caused an initial scandal in the media for not being ‘the done thing’; there’s a reason all guitar learners flock to ‘Stairway To Heaven’ as soon as they’ve had enough of ‘Wonderwall’. But, as far as this court case is concerned, Page and Plant need to face the music. The opening is Spirit’s, and credit should be given accordingly.

How to: A wrap detailed t-shirt

Aini Putkonen
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How to: A wrap detailed t-shirt

If you’re searching for t-shirt inspiration for summer or just looking for creative ways to procrastinate, keep reading. This t-shirt DIY is a fun way to make a plain t-shirt more special and unique. It is also quick and easy to execute.

You will need:DSC_0229

  • A plain t-shirt
  • Scissors
  • Pins
  • Thread and a needle
  • A tape measure

 

1. Cut off the hem of the t-shirt. Cut a vertical slit from middle of the bottom edge of the t-shirt to the spot where you want the knot to be placed. If you want to be precise, use a tape measure to make sure where the middle of the t-shirt is.

DSC_02332. Cut a small hole next to the slit on one side.

DSC_0242

3. Take the corner of the side of the slit that does not have a hole. Move it through the hole you just cut. It’s quite helpful to have the shirt on when doing this.

DSC_02464. Move the other corner under the bottom edge of the shirt. Tighten the bottom by pulling the corners.DSC_0251

5. Secure with pins. Now you should have the shape of the wrap detail visible.

DSC_02536. Take the t-shirt off and use thread and a needle to make sure that the wrap detail stays in place. It may take some trial and error to get this right.

DSC_0256

7. Done!

DSC_0260

 

Review: Disorder – dull and boring

Thomas Player
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Review: Disorder – dull and boring

ONE STAR

“Un, deux! … trois, quatre! Un, deux! … trois, quatre!”

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’re back in your first ever French lesson, mais non, it’s the opening quick-march scene of Alice Winocour’s latest thriller Disorder. Matthias Schoenaerts plays Vincent, a French soldier who is sent back to the south of France from Afghanistan. If the opening sequence does not hint strongly enough that he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the medical exam that follows certainly spells it out.

His army career over, Vincent becomes a security guard for home alone arms-dealer’s wife Jessie (Diane Kruger). With little explanation, the house is soon under attack by gunmen in balaclavas; presumably they’re after the secret documents Jessie’s husband is hiding in their mansion. Spoiler alert: it turns out they’re in the freezer in a zip-lock bag next to the nuggets de poulet.

Bored? I don’t blame you, I was.

Just one of the problems with this film is that it can’t make up its mind what it’s about. Is it an exploration of Vincent’s struggle with PTSD? A thriller about the collateral damage suffered by an arms-dealer’s family? The fledgling romance between a bodyguard and his VIP client? We spend a little bit of time with each of these but never properly get into any of them.

But mish-mash plot lines aren’t necessarily a problem. However, what is unforgivable about Disorder is the woefully underdeveloped characters. Considering Vincent and Jessie are the two leads, there is scant exploration of either their personalities or the relationship between them. Mon Dieu, they don’t even find out each other’s names until over halfway through.

A redeeming feature is the score by French techno artist Gesaffelstein. It does its job perfectly, racking up the tension until we feel that an attack is all but imminent. The problem is that despite sections with some great suspense and brilliant jump scenes, we still never feel any sense of threat due to a lack of engagement with the one-dimensional characters.

To add to the drudgery of the plot, the film’s colour palette can only be described as muted. It takes place almost entirely at night, and when it’s daytime the setting is a grey, washed-out version of the French Riviera. A bit of colour correction seems well needed. The dull colours make it feel like we’re back in 2006; accentuated by Vincent’s ugly blue tracksuit that wouldn’t look amiss on a most grime obsessed fresher in the smoking area of Cellar.

So, a boring story, poor characterisation, dull cinematography. What is there to like about this film? Aside from the score, the answer is not much.

Schoenaerts’ performance merits mention. Despite his very few lines he manages to successfully convey a man struggling with the anxiety and paranoia caused by PTSD once back in civilian life. But only toward the end of the film does his character begin to develop, and for me it was too little too late. The other performances were hardly memorable and there was little of substance to take away. I suppose I can report that, in an age of bloated films in dire need of a good edit, Disorder comes in at a mere 98 minutes.

So it is, at least, mercifully short.

Oxfolk review: Interloper

Ben Ray
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Oxfolk review: Interloper

Tom Kitching’s new solo album, ‘Interloper’, is truly one of the undiscovered gems of the English folk music scene. Filled with interesting and exciting takes on traditional folk tunes, Kitching polishes and reshapes these otherwise everyday melodies into new, sparkling creations, reflecting the vibrancy of the folk music scene and sure to get your foot tapping along. Indeed, this album seems to be Kitching’s attempt at ‘pressing the reset button’ in defining English traditional folk music- here, anything played by an English musician is fair game. This means his music can span a wide variety of influences, styles and techniques- and boy, does this album make use of them.

And yet ‘Interloper’ doesn’t come across as merely a simple experiment in folk music- instead, it seems a beautifully wrought, intricately structured body of music that, whilst pulling the listener in and playing around with the concept of ‘English folk’, is still an utter joy and easy to listen to. I particularly loved the tune ‘Cobbler’s’, where Freya Rae’s clarinet accompaniment gives the piece distinct klezmer undertones- just one of the influences that emerge from this album. Kitching knowingly experiments with this, taking the tune back to a more rooted, traditional fiddle riff before plunging us back into the haunting, seemingly exotic melodies of the clarinet. Throughout this album tracks are under laid with the complex rhythms of the percussionist Jim Molyneux, giving the music a textuality and a depth it could not otherwise have reached. On tracks like the opening of ‘La Rotta’ the perfect timing and use of pauses achieved by the percussion really draw you in, creating a fantastic underlay for the inventiveness and playfulness of Kitching’s marvellous prowess on the fiddle.

Despite the limited number of instruments on the album, their variety and abilities to mould into different styles means each track is kept interesting and absorbing. From the mellow, soulful clarinet solo in ‘Cheshire’ to the speeding, playful dancing of the flute and fiddle in ‘Fast Dance’, Kitching always manages to keep us on our toes. The beautiful accompaniment of Marit Fält on latmandola (it’s a Swedish mandocello- don’t worry, I had to Google what it was too) truly completes this tight-knit, exuberant set of musicians. Kitching has worked with many musicians and bands, from Pilgrim’s Way to Gren Bartley, and his versatility and ability to collaborate really shines through in this album- in seeking to define and push the bounds of the English folk tradition, Tom Kitching has definitely found the right direction.

Turn it off

Anna Wawrzonkowska
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Turn it off

How many hours a day do you spend online?

If you’re anything like myself, there’s probably hardly a moment during your day without being connected to the ever-buzzing, vibrant, notoriously egalitarian network that is the Internet. From googling film ratings (holy cow, Zootopia is 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, who knew) and random New York Times articles (yes, we all get it, Trump is a menace, bet all of you would want to get back to monarchy now, huh?) to scrolling through gorgeous recipes far beyond your culinary skills (thanks Proper Tasty, I’m drooling now), Internet activity has become a part of life just as mundane and universal as brushing your teeth in the morning: it’s there and you do it and if you don’t, you feel slightly guilty and icky the entire day until you catch up. According to the Telegraph’s report in 2015, in the last decade the time we spend online increased almost threefold: from weekly 10h 24min to 27h 36min. That amounts to nearly four hours a day, all week, plastered to the screen.

It probably looks less alarming than you had expected, given that you most likely check emails and Facebook on your phone at various times during the day – and assuming that you get a healthy amount of 8h of sleep per night, it is still a measly 1/4 of your time, leaving plenty of space for other activities.  But even with that, a weekly sum of 27h 36min is somewhat chilling: it is about three times the span of all my contact hours during an average Oxford week. Which means that for every hour I spend with my tutor or lecturer, I have three glued to the laptop.

Which is fine, right? When you make a comparison like this, you may only imagine the copious amounts of study that are going on based on my tutor’s input. – Yes, and all students know how that goes: you sit down to write an essay, and then emerge eight hours later with about 300 words of introduction and a surprisingly deep knowledge about professional kite-flying.

Essentially, what is happening is we spend the time idly browsing through the web whilst wallowing in slowly sharpening sense of guilt. The internet has made the art of procrastination maddeningly easy; and thus we are wasting away our stress-free existence one click at a time.  Let’s not lie to ourselves: many of us spend way more than four hours a day in front of the screen, and on what is definitely not work. Instead of doing our assignments productively, we ruin our attention span by feeding our brains the Buzzfeed articles, flashy cat videos, and random quizzes which are obviously nonsense because of all Harry Potter characters, I am obviously Hermione, not Hagrid. This is as much a fact of student life as the artery-clogging midnight snack at a kebab van, and there is hardly anything one can do about it except giving their gravely acknowledgment. It is just the term reality, and it takes its toll.

But it’s not term time anymore. It’s Easter vacation, and most of us are now blissfully forgetful of the Oxford lifestyle.

Are you really, though?

At home, when the relentless flow of challenges, experiences, deadlines, and stress subsides, you might find yourself falling back on the familiar procrastination habits – bombarding your brain with information, scrolling through Facebook to keep track on the events you’re missing, keeping in touch with people you’ve left. The momentum is still there, it’s been a rough fast ride, and your mind is still racing, still craving more input, more to satiate that hunger for short, easily processed information.

Turn it off.

Give your friends a quick heads-up that you’re going to be away, leave an automatic reply on your Oxford email if your tutors try to contact you, and get offline.

You’re going to be reeling for a while: what exactly do I do without Facebook, without Instagram, Twitter, external validation, constant connection?

I, for example, painted a Japanese-style landscape.

It used to be that outlet of mine, painting. I don’t really do it at Oxford, I’m not really sure why – I could if I put my mind to it, I just don’t. I don’t really pick up a book for fun either. My home has a rule that if you have a book on your shelf, it’s a disgrace if you haven’t read it; it used to be a commandment of mine. Now I’m glad that I’m more or less managing to get through one particular section I need for the essay. I never sew here either, I get annoyed if I don’t see the results quick enough, and with sewing you never do.

What is your thing that you give up for term time?

Drowning in the internet is easy. It’s the mental equivalent of junk food, providing you with empty entertainment without any actual growth. A day, three days, a week without the internet – however much you’re willing to try – is a detox for that. By being away from the instant source of cheap fun, you try to figure out what made you happy when you actually had to make an effort. You’re forced to get out. Pick up a book. Get some sleep. Plan something. Figure out how to make yourself entertained by working on it. And when you get back to the internet, you’ll be surprised how different it suddenly appears: instead of quicksand, a tool you can control.

So reclaim those four hours a day. They are yours to spend and for a month, there is no Oxford tutor telling you what to do with your time. Relax, take a deep breath, put the strain of the term behind you, and just turn it off.

Oxford shortlisted for the European Capital of Innovation Award

William Taylor
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Oxford shortlisted for the European Capital of Innovation Award

Oxford was shortlisted for the European Capital of Innovation Award, competing against cities such as Paris and Berlin for the prize set up by the European Commission “to acknowledge the role of cities as places of systemic innovation, with a capacity to connect people, places, public and private actors.”

At the prize-giving ceremony on April 8, Amsterdam took the €950,000 top prize and pride for being the European Capital of Innovation 2016, with Paris coming second and Turin third. Oxford could console itself with being praised for “its vision to openly share the wealth of knowledge within its world-class innovation ecosystem” despite being the smallest of the nine cities shortlisted from an initial field of 36.

Oxford’s bid to be this year’s European Capital of Innovation was staged by a board comprising a diverse range of organisations. These included the city’s two universities, Oxford City and Oxfordshire County Council, the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Venturefest Oxford. The Oxford Hub and the Low Carbon Hub also participated.

“Innovation is a key priority for the University of Oxford,” Oxford pro-vice Chancellor for research Professor Ian Walmsley said in the university’s release on the matter, “from the creation of spinout companies based on our cutting-edge research to collaborations with business and industry that have a real impact on people’s lives.

“Oxford has a complex and thriving innovation ecosystem where technologies and people converge to develop new, innovative solutions to global challenges,” Professor Ian Walmsley adds. “The University of Oxford plays an important part in this, alongside other local institutions, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and citizens. Oxford’s shortlisting in this year’s iCapital competition will undoubtedly strengthen these partnerships across the city.”

Lynn Shepherd, vice-chair of Venturefest Oxford stated “although Oxford was the smallest city on the shortlist we certainly punched above our weight.  The breadth of innovation across the City was particularly impressive.

“Venturefest Oxford was asked to participate in the bid because of its position as the premier networking platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the high tech sector. Oxford has a rich heritage of entrepreneurism starting with Oxford Instruments in 1959 (development of the first MRI) and latterly Oxitech (currently involved with tackling the Zika virus).  Innovative thinking is part of brand Oxford and a vital thread in the growth and economic prosperity of the county.  Venturefest is very proud to be part of this vibrant innovation eco-system and I was pleased that this position was acknowledged in the bid.” According to Lynn Shepherd, the future looks encouraging as “even though we were unsuccessful this time, it has given us a blueprint on how to move forward more collaboratively. Oxford will re-bid in 2018 and this gives us a great foundation to improve on the bid.”

Dr Caroline Bucklow from the University of Oxford’s Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team told Cherwell, “the University is becoming a lot more embedded in a whole range of innovation support networks and collaborating a lot more with Oxford Brookes, supplementing each other’s strengths.

“For instance, the two universities have a partnership to coordinate activity where university research strength can help support industry in Oxford.” Similarly to Venturefest Oxford’s vice-chair, Dr Caroline Bucklow was optimistic, saying “one of the things which grew out of getting the nomination was that it allowed us to have a look at what’s going on in Oxford and brings together all the information in one place – it will now be much easy for people to get an idea of the whole innovation network. A future bid for the European Capital of Innovation will be easier and people are already working on a bid for the Smart Cities Expo.”

Ringroad

Thomas Hornigold
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Ringroad

Spindly limbs of power cables rise up above me and my brother
Not as young as we used to be, on the ring road
headed for the city; to mark a day, another year.

I found it again, today: the fey, affectionate inscription
an artefact from when we were aggressively nice to each other.
I’ll still write that kind of thing. People don’t, now

Maybe they outgrew the rank sentimentality of hidden handwriting
as hearts grew heavy-laden and learned what not to take on board
and when to give parts of themselves away, for keeps.

You never get to take it back.

Spindly cables thread the grey skies next to the high rise:
how to look at such a place and not wonder about the lives
the presents, the pasts, and I look at the powerlines

and at the back of my mind I remember: aren’t these things
supposed to be killing us, slowly?

I remember it; in the back of my mind: a vision that came to me
when I was young and could not distinugish dreams and reality
when I was small and did not understand my ideas had been had already

I visualized the bonds that kept us together; the whole sickly species:
they were spindly cables too, reaching their skinny limbs up to
the moon, near invisible threads lacing across the sky, veins, arteries

that connected our warm heart through the cold rock
basking in reflected light; afterlight from a sun
fires already burned, ghosts flitting across the sky.

Sometimes, when you talk to someone you used to know well
It’s perfectly civil and pleasant and maybe you’ll even smile
and there’s a moment you realize that this could be your last conversation.
The bond has gone, the cable frayed and snapped.

I look then, to the moon, which will outlast us all
and needs poetry like a fish needs a bicycle
and I picture all of you, try to imagine what you’re doing now
and I see the wiry cables stretching off, arteries, powerlines into the sky

and in the back of my mind, I remember
aren’t these things supposed to be killing us?

Review: Parquet Courts – Human Performance

Lorenzo Edwards-Jones
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Review: Parquet Courts – Human Performance

“Socrates died in the fucking gutter…”

Parquet Courts, Light Up Gold (2012), ‘Master of My Craft’.

Now, I’m not saying that all lyrics today should sound like Shakespeare. In fact, I challenge anyone to try and fit one of his sonnets into a pop song without sounding like, well, a bit of a twat. But, as far as lyrical brilliance is concerned, indie-rock band Parquet Courts won’t be making it onto university syllabuses any time soon. Or at least, that is, until Human Performance came along.

In their latest album, the band show just how much they have come on since the failure of their last release. What was a slovenly crew of college dropouts has, for the most part, turned into a group of mature and sophisticated musicians, with influences as varied as the Ramones and The Velvet Underground coming together to create their most wide-ranging musical effort yet. 

Not everything has changed. Lead singer Andrew Savage, for one, still hasn’t lost his penchant for making almost anything rhyme. Call it a questionable grasp of the English language, his wordplay still makes for entertaining listening. The man who was “reading ingredients” as he asked himself “should I eat this” in 2012 hit ‘Stoned and Starving’ is at it again in the opener ‘Dust’, in which said substance “comes through the window, comes through the floor/comes through the roof and comes through the door” with a rhythmical insistence worthy of Dr. Seuss himself. Germaphobes will be up in arms at the equally poetic chorus, “Dust is everywhere, dust is everywhere, sweet, sweet”. Sweet.

This said, Savage’s lyrical playfulness doesn’t rob Human Performance of its emotional power, and one wonders whether the humour in the A-side tracks is Savage’s way of escaping from the heart-break and self-delusion that afflict him elsewhere in the album. The title track that follows sees him at his most complex, mourning over the fragility of human relationships and a darkness whose “grip” won’t “soften without a coffin”, whilst ‘Steady on My Mind’ takes after The Velvet Underground’s mellower and more heart-stopping tracks ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ and ‘Some Kind of Love’. The tone shifts back again with the simple but catchy two-chord riff of ‘One Man No City’, where Savage’s portrayal of urban loneliness reaches its climax in a 3-minute instrumental trance, with lead guitar battling against an increasingly demonic backdrop of african drums, bass and eerie SFX.

The album then gets political with ‘Two Dead Cops’, a storytelling tour de force about social injustice in Savage’s home district of Brooklyn. The story, which pits the insignificant death of two policemen against countless civilian mortality, is a perfect match for Savage’s vocals as, driven by Sean Yeaton’s romping bass line, they denounce in all their rasping urgency why “When shots are heard/When lives are lost/Nobody cares in the ghetto”.

‘It’s Gonna Happen’, the final track, is a somewhat disappointing ending to the album, whilst songs like ‘I Was Just Here’ flow too awkwardly to provide any sort of musical catch. Nonetheless, Human Performance shows the band at new heights. There are failed experiments, granted. But most work to great effect. The band’s voice is more nuanced, their instrumental base more polished. If Parquet Courts learn from their few mistakes and continue to blend their new-found maturity with the raw power that has worked for them before, one wonders what they could accomplish next.

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