Some of Cherwell’s more pop-centric readers may well have heard indie-lite posterboy du jour Ed Sheeran imploring us, on his latest single, to ‘watch how I step on the track without a loop pedal.’ Thank your stars he didn’t. The Field, alias Axel Willner, on the other hand, has been releasing loop-based, critically-acclaimed techno music since 2007, and Looping State of Mind, his third album, may well be his best effort yet.

 Where much of his earlier work centred around samples of artists as diverse as Kate Bush and Lionel Richie, this album is very much his. The minimal techno feel of his debut has been fleshed out, and his music benefits here from a softer, neater sound,

 What is so striking is Willner’s versatility of styles. Still wearing his soul influences on his sleeve, he has managed subtly and successfully to inject elements of funk into proceedings, without it being crass; second track ‘It’s Up There’ moves from euphoric trance to sounding like a more cerebral LCD Soundsystem, thanks to a choppy bassline which wouldn’t sound out of place on an Earth, Wind and Fire track, and the album’s standout track, ‘Burned Out’, is a fantastically bugged out, drugged up, seven minute long headrush; a delicate stampede of drum beats, synths, and haunting, sparse vocals.

 That said, Looping State of Mind certainly isn’t for everyone; while arguably more accessible than his previous albums, its reliance on the repetition of basic techno tenets may seem grating, and the stuttered rhythms of closing track ‘Sweet Slow Baby’ can be a little hard to swallow. Moreover, clocking in at over an hour, and with only seven tracks, it’s certainly no dip-in, dip-out experience, but there’s no doubt that Willner has created a powerful and immersive album that begs to be heard. 

I am slightly embarrassed by how much I like the new M83 album.  I am not embarrassed to like M83 – heck, even Urban Outfitters have given them their own streaming spot online. What is embarrassing, though, is that it has relegated me to the kind of socially awkward idiot who pushes into conversations at parties to ramble about how great the squeaky hook on ‘Midnight City’ is, man.  Unfortunately for everyone else around me, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is absolutely delightful. Anthony Gonzalez has outdone himself.

 Doing any kind of a ‘concept’ album is a bit scary, especially if it splurges into double-disk territory: it suggests a lack of critical editing, not to mention self-control. What a relief, then, that this album, ‘mainly about dreams, how every one is different, how you dream differently’ manages to avoid pretension and is instead a (rather long) treat. Quite apart from its considerable length, this record is also very large. These are big sounds and big, even overwhelming, synths – music for people with big hair and even bigger shoulders; music to make you thrust your lighter into the air. On a side-note: it almost certainly isn’t worth a listen if the 80s make your toes curl.

 An unexpected highlight is the charming ‘Raconte-Moi Une Histoire,’ a cutesy track about hallucinogenic frogs, narrated by a small child (which somehow manages to avoid being irritating). The album opens as it means to ‘carry on (carry on)’ with a swirling, shimmering track, ‘Intro’, that features excellent guest vocals from Zola Jesus. I won’t pretend that there are no dips in quality – Gonzalez has an unfortunate fondness for ambient shoegaze, and tracks like ‘Echoes Like Mine’ or ‘Soon My Friend’ do come across as a bit pointless. However – with the possible exception of the acoustically driven melody of ‘Splendor’ – this is excellent electropop, and, despite the odd sally into instrumental fillers, largely a very tight, focused album. To use a word from the appropriate era, with all its breathless connotations: it’s absolutely dreamy.

A passer-by strolling on Walton Street on the night of Tuesday the 11th might have noticed a particularly voluminous wave of sound emanating from The Jericho. The venerable tavern was playing host to Mazes and Milk Maid, both emerging lo-fi acts from the Manchester DIY scene, and throughout the length of their set every floorboard and panel shook with the wall of fuzz produced on stage. It’s been noted by some that the American nineties indie rock scene has been most faithfully recreated across the pond in recent years, and this evening was a case in point. Over heavy, distorted riffs and calculatedly messy instrumentation, Jack Cooper and Martin Cohen, lead singers of Mazes and Milk Maid respectively, wailed of lost youth and adolescent longing.

I caught up with both before the show. Milk Maid’s Cohen was first up, his features peeking out from behind a thick beard and pork pie hat. Formerly the bassist for Manchester alt rock quartet Nine Black Alps, Cohen’s solo efforts caught the ear of Mazes leader singer Jack Cooper, who’s own DIY label Suffering Jukebox put out Milk Maid’s first single, ‘Such Fun’. The single, like the rest of Milk Maid’s debut Yucca, is noisy, grimy guitar-led tune with buried vocals, but with hooks that stubbornly lodge themselves into your brain. Played live, Yucca‘s material was deliciously loud and jagged.

‘When I first started writing and recording, it was very acoustic based, but once you’re in a room with a drummer everything starts getting louder,’ Cohen noted. ‘I originally wanted to play quieter for a while [after Nine Black Alps], but that went immediately out the window.’

Yucca was originally due to be released through Suffering Jukebox, but when Mazes’ label, Fat Cat, heard the Milk Maid material, they begged Cooper to release the material through them, and Cohen found himself promptly signed to Fat Cat as well. ‘Amazing’ was how Cohen summed up the experience of working for small DIY and indie labels as opposed to Island, to which Nine Black Alps was once signed. ‘You can’t compare the two,’ he told me. ‘It’s something I’m getting more and more into. Instead of paying someone else to record me, I can just buy some gear.’

Mazes, for their part, have been long-time advocates of the UK’s growing DIY scene (which has spawned, among others, Male Bonding, Pens, and Cold Pumas). They’re soon headed stateside to tour with Sebadoh, 90s lo-fi pioneers, recently reformed. Cooper cites them as an important influence: ‘I think they’re probably the one band we call agree on, ’cause we don’t agree on much.’ Mazes’ debut, A Thousand Heys, has received nods from not only Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, but from ex-Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus as well. Its brand of superbly catchy lo-fi is distributed in array of bite-sized tracks, outsized sketches packing superb pop hooks. The approach is deliberate; ‘Jarin [the guitarist] and I are really into capturing the initial idea into a song,’ Cooper tells me.

Lyrically, the album pines for the loss of insouciant adolescence. ‘I wrote most of the songs when I was 29-30,’ Cooper confided. ‘You realize how good you have it between 15 and 20. It’s harking back to that, when you don’t have any real worries.’ Mazes’ attitude is perfectly exemplified in their single ‘Summer Hits’, whose lyrics champion (and regret the loss of) carefree and jobless existence. Cooper told me the literal style of ‘Summer Hits’ owed much to the influence of San Francisco trio Noddzzz and the Modern Lovers, noted documenters of the adolescent experience. Given the enthusiasm with which Milk Maid and Mazes were met at the Jericho, their approach, both in terms of emotional forwardness and throwback style, is certainly resonating with many. With this year’s preponderance of blasé vocals and reverb-drowned synths, gritty instrumentation and noisy enthusiasm are a welcome respite.

My feelings of happiness, relief and excitement were short-lived as soon as I had to organise the first meeting of the cast, production manager and the producer for the read-through: the impossible task of finding a time when everyone was free and available was an extremely stressful experience that I’m going to have to repeat every week with rehearsals. Nevertheless I managed to get everyone together and the read-through was less of a nerve-wracking experience than I feared it would be: although I came to the conclusion that a few scene cuts are necessary since the read-through went on a bit from the seat-fidgeting and yawning that happened towards the end.

Yesterday I had the first set of rehearsals which went better than I originally thought, but I think that the actors and co-director found my vocal warm-up technique slightly strange evident from their awkward facial expressions of bemusement. My two lead actors proved me right in my casting decision and we were able to get through more than I had planned to in the rehearsal; the second rehearsal went smoothly as well and ended my day on a good note.

Complacency is not an option in any way whatsoever and this fact is reiterated to me with ten times as much dread when I look on the OUDS website and see all the plays being performed in 7th week of this term: with two at the Burton Taylor, one at the Keble O’Reilly and one at the Union I have stiff competition regarding ticket sales. However, I’ve got a Marketing Manger and this week we’re starting a marketing campaign- with some interesting ideas- that will hopefully garner lots of interest and guarantee a decent number of ticket sales. I just want to avoid the awful vision that keeps playing in my head of nobody turning up to the opening night and then one person comes in, but then they leave as they realise they’ve come to the wrong show. Fingers crossed and touch wood that does not happen!!

Anyone who’s seen both a musical and the BT studio would be interested to see how the two could possibly intersect. Tradition dictates the former lend itself to grandiose shows of emotion, toe-tapping choruses, jazz hands and climactic anthems, while the latter sees more sombre, intimate affairs of theatre.

The Dummy Tree is exactly where these ideas meet. Restrained, nuanced, subtle – it’s thoroughly contemporary. The piece is a highly modern fairytale, with strong elements of the Romantic about it. Everyday characters (a mother; a bridegroom; the best man and wedding party) enact two threads that become increasingly intertwined, initially linked by the unifying theme of transience. The Mother (Kathryn Armstrong) coaxes her child, Jack, to move on and develop, giving up his dependency on his pacifier, while Paul (Chris Morgan), 17, frets over his impending wedding. Is he ready for this? Neither sees the other beneath the Dummy Tree, a warped kind of Faraway Tree in a twisted sort of Wonderland.

The set is simple but daring, its crowning pieces a bench and a tree. This is an immense tree, one which will sweep the studio ceiling, festooned with the various litter of unwanted addictions. With no space for choreography, a great degree of intricacy in movement and expression, not to mention oodles of atmosphere, will be called for if the audience is to keep engaged. Luckily, tension abounds, broken only briefly for sensitive and funny interjections by the supporting cast of watcher cameraman and self involved bridesmaids.

This is the first production of the musical since its YMT debut. From the very little I heard of the piece, MD Ben Holder has certainly been successful in drilling a tricky, tripping score into his talented cast and they have overcome the unexpected difficulty of a last minute replacement (welcome, Elspeth Cumber).

With only a simple piano accompaniment, you might mistake this for a simple sing – you’d be wrong. Voices are laid bare and the piano contends as much as it supports the performers; it’s definitely a complex production. The piece is reminiscent of Jason Robert Brown, of Sondheim. There’s something vaguely operatic about it, too, with the disconcerting, discordant motifs (‘Underneath the Dummy Tree…’). Its music is well-matched with its themes.

If Kathryn Armstrong’s opening gambit was in any way representative of what’s to come, there’s no doubt your aural thirst will be slaked. Her tone is sweet but wonderfully fraught, conveying well the sense of something not being quite right. The enunciation is pleasing, especially her vowel formation, heightening the terse efforts to maintain control, normalcy.

The only doubt for me is over the acoustics – the preview that I saw took place in a similar sized room to the BT space and I found the piano to be somewhat overpowering of Armstrong’s voice, surmounted only in the group number that followed (which made me shiver).

If anything’s going to pique your interest this term, it’s this. And if there’s anyone you can trust to pull off such a wacky musical creation, it’s the creative team behind Oxford’s last big hit, Spring Awakening. Book your tickets now, folks. I’m excited.

4 STARS

“This is fucking great. This is hilarious!” Max Fletcher is opening a package on Exeter’s front quad, tearing at the paper and giggling like some giant profane toddler. Inside are the costumes for his and Nick Davies’ new show, Failure, and How to Achieve it. “I just love the idea of two people doing a sketch show, A) in bathrobes, and B) in bathrobes with their names on,” he tells me, with an intensity of wild delight. He describes the new show as “frenetic and fast-moving” – which also serves to characterise his demeanour – and “character-based”, which also serves to characterise his character. Likewise, Davies is “one of those things that seems scattershot at first, but then as it evolves you see how well it comes together”, and that is also how he describes the show.

Failure; and How to Achieve it is the latest act to emerge from the Oxford Revue, the University’s longest established comedy group, but Davies, who will be heading the Revue this year as co-President alongside Imogen West-Knights (“We call her The Spitting Imogen”), does not view it as a branching out, and insists it does not represent a departure: “I mean for me it’s really not a branching out and I don’t think it really represents a departure”, he insists. “Our show takes some of [the Revue’s] absurdity and pushes it quite a bit further.” Fletcher maintains that the show is “totally reasonable throughout,” although cautions, “don’t necessarily not be expecting to be climbed over at some point.”

Davies and Fletcher are following in the footsteps of a number of lasting partnerships that started in the Revue. The creative affiliations behind Monty Python, Beyond the Fringe and Blackadder, to name just a few, can all trace their heritage, at least in part, to the Revue. Yet even those choice examples evoke the ugly shadow of The Other Place. Oxford comedy it seems is forever to be damned by comparison to the more established, and certainly better known, Cambridge Footlights. “When I told my friends in Canada,” admits Davies, “they were like, ‘Is that where John Cleese is from?’ ‘No, Cambridge.’ ‘Graham Chapman?’ ‘No, Cambridge.’ ‘Stephen Fry though, right?’”

Yet while the Revue might not have the prestige of their Cantab counterparts, they still labour under the weight of the Oxbridge tag. “You’re expected to be a certain way,” admits last year’s co-President, the beetle-browed Adam Lebovits, “People have an image of the Revue, or the Footlights, as frozen in time since the sixties. But it defines the audience more than the material. Nowadays, a sketch about Harold MacMillan wouldn’t go down well. If at all.” “All it means,” adds Lebovits’ former-Presidential partner, and current director, the beetle-browed Sophie Klimt, “is that sometimes when get reviewed at the Fringe people turn up and say, ‘IS THERE ANY PROMISE OF THERE BEING A FAMOUS COMEDIAN IN THIS LOT? NO.’”

Journalistic pessimism notwithstanding, the future is looking bright, both for the Revue as an institution and for its current members. In addition to Davies and Fletcher’s Failure – And How to Achieve it, which she is directing, Klimt will be continuing to work with transatlantic Revue star Molly Hart, while simultaneously going into pre-production with a sitcom for Big Talk Productions, the company behind Black Books and Shaun of the Dead. Vyvyan Almond continues to put on regular sketch nights in Oxford and London with The Awkward Silence, while Karl Dando hopes this year to turn twenty-four while still completing his undergraduate degree.

The Revue is nothing if not busy; following successful shows in London and Edinburgh over the summer, the cast have been auditioning for new members in Oxford, with a regular night at the Glee Club in the works, as well as a feature in the popular local pornographic magazine, Cherwell. The Revue has also been steadily building its profile within the University and as a force for comedy. Under the Presidency of Klimt and Lebovits, links were made with old members, including Stewart Lee and founder Michael Palin, to archive old material, while the Revue continue to encourage the comedy scene in Oxford, welcoming submissions from outside the group (most notably from local self-publicist Steffan Blayney), and showcasing student talent in the termly Audrey shows, open to all comers.

“Make your own opportunities,” encourages Nick Davies, “If you missed the Revue auditions don’t think it’s been and gone,” adding, with unexpected equine imagery, “We’re just one horse in the stable.” Adam Lebovits similarly encourages persistence, citing his own route into student comedy: “I didn’t actually get into the Revue officially through auditions,” he confesses, “but I turned up to the first rehearsal and [then President] Ollie Mann was too polite to make me leave.” “It’s quite good to do this sort of thing while still at university,” advises Fletcher, the worst case scenario being that “your friends might not laugh at you.” “If you don’t, you won’t ever know, because you won’t have tried,” he adds, with unnerving logic.

Oxford is bursting with opportunities to write, perform, and see comedy, whether as an extra-curricular pastime or, like Fletcher and Davies, the springboard to new projects. “The Revue line-up is only fixed for a year,” explains Lebovits, “which in Oxford is only 3 terms of 8 weeks, plus Edinburgh. It can only really be seen as a starting point – which perhaps sounds a bit fatalistic – but it’s the best possible starting point.” Nick Davies agrees: “You shouldn’t really paint our show as breaking away from the Revue,” he insists, “As a comedian you have to do something different.” And if I know Max and Nick, Failure and How to Achieve It will certainly be different.

Failure, and How to Achieve it is on at the Burton Taylor Studio Tuesday-Saturday of 3^rd Week (25^th-29^th of October). Buy tickets (£6, £5 concessions) from www.oxfordplayhouse.com