Before attending C Duncan’s Oxford gig at the Old Fire Station, I didn’t realise the alternative music scene was missing a certain geeky sensibility. But, standing there in their shirts, jeans and trainers, the Mercury Prize-nominated Glaswegian musician and his three-piece band are not the standard indie rockers you may expect to stumble across in this tiny venue on a Friday night.

Christopher Duncan’s debut album Architect, released in July last year, really is all about the careful piecing together of sounds. But however intimate and endearing the band are, their live show does not quite match up to the sculptor’s deft accuracy with sound that we hear on recording.

Their sound does, at least, match the surroundings. The space is industrial and intimate. With the drum-kit set up on a child’s road-design play-mat, and various colourways of their album artwork and similar road-like designs projected on the screen behind them, the endearing group take to an appropriately idiosyncratic stage. But one thing neither this gig, nor any other gig, for that matter, needs, is a compere asking the crowd to “shout a bit louder” to announce the band before they take to the stage, as was felt necessary by organisers, Glovebox.

With both parents trained as classical musicians, and having studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland himself, it is no surprise that C Duncan’s musical precision is so acute. Thundering drums keep up the momentum of ‘Here To There’, as Duncan’s repeated “I’ll take you everywhere I go” becomes intriguingly chantlike. On acappella track ‘In Days Gone By’, his bandmates put down their guitars and synths to join him in vocal harmony, in a stunning, almost choral capacity.

It would not be fair to have C Duncan down as a classical musician pussy-footing his way around the ‘popular’ music scene without taking any risks. His choice to cover the Cocteau Twins’ ‘Pearly Dewdrops Drops’ is a surprising one, considering how far from the ethereal wave of the 80s/90s band C Duncan’s vibe is. But it pays off.

Even final track and single ‘Garden’ has a subtle exuberance when performed on stage, and is certainly one of the tracks most aptly transferred to a live setting. Duncan’s catchiest number takes on a mock-Beach Boys vibe, admittedly with less dense harmonies. Guitar solos in the second half become almost psychlike, which is far from what could ever have been expected from an album with such a calculated scientific branding.

When C Duncan and band really let loose, their chopped-up meticulousness is even more exciting than their modest and exact personae ever could be.

Created in Michaelmas 2014, Notes’ inaugural issue featured Megan Madden’s stark photograph of a tea-cup on its cover: a sardonic pun on the ‘mugshot’, and a visual nod to things casual and left-behind. In his introductory note, editor Domhnall Iain Domhnallach’s praised ‘the fleeting, the makeshift, the shapeshifting and the transient’, setting the tone not only for that issue – appropriately titled ‘Ephemera’ – but for what has today become Oxford’s most frequently-printed zine of new writing and art.

Rather than setting itself up as yet another glossy high altar of print publication, Notes strives to present a fortnightly screen-grab of what Oxford’s writers and artists are at work at. Looking over the zine’s back issues, we find workshopped poems, ambitious sketches, reimagined images, and plenty of category-defying prose. Think of Notes as the Snapchat of creativity in Oxford: instead of polished gems in gilt cases, we get the gritty works-in-progress of both regular and one-time contributors, complete with snarky captions. Each issue overflows with fascinating ideas and projects. As Sarah Murphy, editor of Issue 12: ‘Cornucopia’, put it: ‘This is our ode to bounty. Such plentiful. Very art.’

This is not to say that Notes sacrifices aesthetic quality for sheer frequency and quantity. In fact, one of Notes’ many strengths is the strength and consistency of formal innovation that finds its way into these pages. The most recent issue, ‘Snake’, features among its contributions a JCR Motion, a listicle, a transcript of a lecture, a reply to a call for volunteers in a cyborg lab experiment, and a delightfully self-referential digital illustration with the caption: ‘He had the Audacity / for a double-page spread…’ While not all these pieces have fully inhabited their chosen forms (we find, occasionally, the marks of inner grammarists telling the authors to dot their i’s and cross their t’s), there is a sense that these forms represent the true vernacular of Oxford life, and serve as an idiom for the university’s many subcultures.

Another note-worthy point is the wry humour with which the publication engages its own contents. The editorial notes that preface each issue are a joy – and often a laugh – to read, in the way they sit happily alongside their (highly varied) contributors as artworks in their own right. Mina Odile Ebtehadj-Marquis’ knowing One Direction reference thus provides the perfect segue to Rebecca Roughan’s ‘Sonnet 130’ in Issue 4: ‘Ugly’, while Surya Bowyer’s introduction to Issue 11: ‘Tip’ is a worthy addition to the other poems in the issue. The fascinating Issue 7/8: ‘Out/Liars’, printed in opposite directions on either half, with Abigail Taubman’s photograph of a reflected corridor forming the centre-spread, is itself a comment on truth-telling: the contents page for Issue 7 lists the pieces in Issue 8, and vice versa.  

Where could Notes go from here? The editors have thus far decided to keep the zine in hard-copy circulation, and print lends the publication not only its distinctive aesthetic but an enduring appeal to emerging writers and artists – Notes’ primary source of contributions. But for an enterprise dedicated to exploring new forms and voices, its light-touch approach to the internet is curiously limiting. The Notes Tumblr has been inactive since Issue 4, and its Facebook page is used primarily for publicity; it could, perhaps, take a leaf from SevenVoices or even the ISIS by creating a space for other aural and visual forms. Notes has, nevertheless, done well at the reverse, engaging the web from the printed page – screenshots, emails, webchats, Facebook statuses, and even a pedestrian crossing captured by a CCTV camera have all been explored (and exploited) as new, distinctive genres.

As it stands, Notes provides Oxford’s creatives with an unparalleled space for print experimentation, and for all the bold and baffling experiments that take place within, Oxford’s cultural life is richer for it. We ought to take it seriously not despite its quirkiness, but because it is a magazine that, unlike its more genteel and subdued peers, wavers bravely on the boundary between art and life. We recognize ourselves in its pages – rude, jubilant, incomplete, and sometimes undone – a ‘certain chaotic beauty’, as Sinead O’Donovan puts it in ‘Arrested’ (Issue 13). In an age of perfect media bodies and staged political marketing, there is reason all the more to commemorate the shapeshifting and transient, especially as they appear in the work of Oxford’s most startling new voices.

When I stepped out of a bitterly cold Feburary evening, into the (relative) warmth of St Peter’s college chapel, I was not prepared for the sheer onslaught of sound, fury, and very raw emotion that the cast of the rape of Lucretia were to provide me with. I would be the first to admit that I don’t really know anything about opera, and I’ve struggled in the past to connect with student productions of this inimitable art form. However, something about this production really struck a chord with me when I attended their dress rehearsal.

There is something eerie and fitting about staging this opera in the chapel – the high nave wall, embossed with stunning stained glass, backs the stage. This lends a sense of height to the production – the sound of some astonishing operatic performances, as well as the live orchestra completely fill this massive space – bringing out the pomp and might of Rome, and the full, evocative impact of Britten’s music. Director Peter Thickett has made some subtle choices in the staging of the rape itself; the highly choreographed menace of Tarquinius drawing out Britten’s lyrics – “The pity is that sin has so much grace, it moves like virtue”. This scene was the one that I had the most worries about being performed convincingly, and yet the understated violence of the act itself, compounded the narrators desperate laments to the empty bed left behind, brought me to the edge of tears.

Visually, this is a distinctly engaging production – subtle floral motifs abound through both the marketing and costumes (I highly recommend watching the profoundly disturbing trailer on the facebook event) – evoking a subdued sense of innocence without being too heavy handed. An absolute highlight for me was the lighting, which I watched being programmed over the course of the rehearsal. Two, automated and coloured spotlights on either side of stage move and change colour in line with the action. Shadows and lights throw various parts of the stage and chapel into sharp relief, immersing you in the events unfolding – particularly the aforementioned rape scene, where low, red light has the effect of mist, heightening the understated violence of the act.

This is a stunningly bold production, of incredible scale and vision. The wonderful combination of setting and talent really brings Britten’s work to life, in a way that its never come to life before for me – I strongly recommend checking out this exciting piece of opera, it will not be a waste of your time.

Ellie Gomes’s reflections following a conversation with Artistic Director Laura Grace Simpkins on the contemporary importance of this work. 

Britten’s 1946 work ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ was banned across Europe when it was first written – however any students of Ancient History will be familiar with the shocking tale. In its simple form, the plot describes the prince, Sextus Tarquinius raping the wife of his friend Collatinus because he is intrigued by her respectable chastity. As a result of the violation, Lucretia commits suicide, overcome with shame in a society obsessed with female purity. Thus, Lucretia was praised as the moral paradigm of a Roman woman- chaste, honest and ultimately driven by the maintenance of her honour. Britten’s adaptation saw the transformation of the story, which depicted Lucretia as such a figure of piety, into a political drama, examining the vile mistreatment of women in the context of the Second World War. Either narrative deals with the sad reality of women’s agency as secondary to the desires of men.

From the outset, the opera is rife with complex ambiguities which reflect the universal theme it discusses: rape and its consequences. Whilst the title itself may come across as imposing, the crew were keen not to skirt away from the sad fact of the reality of rape, which is no less pressing than when Livy put pen to paper.  The timing to stage such a play could not be more apt for our modern perception of consent, abuse and victim-shaming. According to the artistic director, whilst the rape scene is suitably traumatic, the emphasis is on emotional impact, rather than gratuity. Earnest conversation about sexual violence is immensely important in tackling it.

What can be guaranteed is that this play will leave you with a resonance of ambiguity and complexity, the play is harrowing, but so is rape, and that is precisely why it is such an important production to see. What makes dramatic tragedy in all of its forms, so thoroughly fundamental is that despite time period, whoever we are we are able to relate because the raw emotions we witness are real. This production will make you question the security of your experienced reality as you are returned to it. Life can be hard but the lives of those on stage, and our reactions to them prove that tragic situations can be overcome and offer us an insight into how such a crime can have lasting effect on a victim.

The Rape of Lucretia runs from the 3^rd-5^th March at 8pm in St Peter’s college chapel

Martin Garrix’s music belongs to a genre and a culture that I find detestable. I may well have partied to ‘Animals’ back in the day in some sweaty school hall and I’m fairly certain I was enjoying myself. But this is the problem: the aggressive big room house of ‘Animals’, and EDM more generally, seems to have a brash adolescence to it that I smugly believe myself to have outgrown.

I flick through videos of Garrix’s live shows, marvelling at the droves of fist-pumping fans in snapbacks and tank-tops; at his music videos with their montages of famous collaborators and farcical flashiness. But for all this preconceived cynicism, Martin Garrix is a nice guy. Within the first few minutes of sitting down at the Guild-hosted event he has admitted how nervous he is about public speaking, saying that he is more comfortable playing in front of thousands of people than he is about addressing this limited Oxford audience. He begins charting his journey as a musician by admitting that all the music he made in his first three or four years “was shit”, but that it was just about having fun with his friends rather than making sellable material – priorities, he insists, that have not changed. Already he’s expressed some aversion to what many see as the intense commerciality of EDM and shown himself to lack the arrogance of so many of the big names in the industry.

A big feature of people’s curiosity with Garrix seems to be his youth. He signed to record label Spinnin’ Records when he was just sixteen and released ‘Animals’, the track that catapulted him to fame, barely a year later. At this point he tells us he had a limited fan base and was mostly playing to crowds of twenty people at a club at home in the Netherlands. With the release of ‘Animals’, things took off. A weird combination of playing to thousands in Ibiza, continuing to play to small crowds in his usual spots in the Netherlands, and being at school on a Monday morning, commenced. He admits that he found the contrast of playing in front of large crowds with being sat in front of teachers who could make him stay after school if they wanted, odd.

Garrix is still only nineteen and hardly looks it, fresh faced in his tracksuit bottoms. He jokes about how when he DJs to sell out shows in enormous Las Vegas nightclubs he has to be escorted from the premises by security before his last track has even finished playing because he’s still underage in the US. Garrix answers questions in good humour throughout with a cheeky smile on his face and a perpetual excitement which betrays the newness of the lifestyle he has acquired. Asked if he has ever made a mistake on stage he springs up from his chair and puts on a video on Youtube simply called ‘Martin Garrix FAIL’, where his headphones slip off his sweaty head and his mix is interrupted. He later mentions an incident where a fan bit him on the neck. His jokes and stories elicit big responses from some clearly adoring Oxford fans, responses that seem more a show of appreciation for his friendliness than they do for his comedic abilities. 

Music does get a considerable mention amidst the chat about his life and fame. Garrix isn’t afraid to criticise, and something he keeps coming back to is his split from Spinnin’ Records which he announced in August 2015. The split arose from a considerable debate over the rights to Garrix’s earlier work, especially ‘Animals’, and his official statement at the time said “I am extremely disappointed that the discussions have not led to a change in the agreements or return of the ownership rights, and that is why I nullified them.” When asked about what advice he’d give to hopeful producers he warns against signing contracts at an early age without any prior experience of negotiation. He says this light-heartedly but later admits how troubling this was, that he “doesn’t want to get too deep into it”, that it was an incredibly difficult decision but one he’s glad he’s made.

This unfortunate chapter in his career reminds me of the seemingly incredibly money orientated commerciality of EDM. However, Garrix takes a critical rather than supportive tone on this issue, saying that it’s understandable that record labels need to make money, but many within the industry are focused on making “lots of extra money”, something he doesn’t seem comfortable with. As he discusses Michael Jackson, one of his favourite artists, someone inquires what MJ song he’d remix if he could. He responds that he could never remix a Michael Jackson song because they’re all too good, that he only remixes when he feels he has something he can add to a track, and that he dislikes it when people mess around with songs that are already perfect just to make money.

Given that it is supposedly not about the money, what did draw our friend Martin to the ethos and sound of EDM over other more underground genres of electronic music? He simply responds that he liked the sound, the atmosphere, the dancing. He cites Eric Prydz as a formative influence, that at the time “it was all so new, I like it a lot, I still like it a lot.”

He is asked a question about whether he’d spend more time on learning some of the more advanced mixing techniques, clearly a reference to the criticisms levelled at EDM DJs who are often referred to as ‘press play’, or ‘push-button’ DJs. Garrix begins talking about how he’d love to play with a live band at some point, clearly not quire grasping the nature of the question, or perhaps wanting to avoid it. However, it is clear from his newer material that he is branching out.  These more recent tracks are still unmistakeably poppy, but more melodic and vocal orientated than his previous more aggressive tracks. Throughout he frequently says that he is open to multiple influences, that he likes “all music”, that every track should be different and that the main thing to do is just “be you” rather than adhere to any specific genre. Eager to show us as much he insists on playing a few snippets of the songs he is currently working on, despite the protestations of his press agent. One is called ‘Video Games’ and includes a line about Mario Cart; the other he says arose out of “being in Amsterdam just having the time of my life.” Both are fun to listen to and light-hearted but hardly the greatest departure from previous material, nor do they possess the emotional musical depth he earlier said he was now looking for.

Garrix is continuously friendly, fun and engaging as an individual. Despite the inanity of many of the questions, he continues to respond in good grace, seeming to relax and enjoy himself. Not only this but much of what he says about music is far less disagreeable than I had been expecting. His criticisms of the money making ethos of many record labels, the necessity of being open to numerous influences and the desire to make music as an individual, are intelligent comments from someone who has clearly given these issues some thought. Yet I can’t align these attitudes with the music he likes and the music he makes. There seems to be a disparity between what he says and the reality of his personal production and that of the industry. Maybe the experience of setting up his own record label will give the opportunity to put what he says into practice. He’s made me willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the meantime.