The last 15 years has been an innovative period for music replay. First we saw the advent of the Steve Jobs’ iPod, condensing a room full of CDs into the palm of your hand; and around about the same time came the final crack downs on our beloved P2P file-sharing networks. Gone are the days were one could haphazardly click on a collection of fun sounding tracks on Napster or Kazaa whenever your mate told you about a cool new band.

Instead, we now look to Spotify in these very same situations. Spotify’s viral spread and immense ease-of-use has empowered even the most rapidshare-inept among us with quick and legal access to a huge collection of music. It seems that it will remain the next big thing for a while now, especially with new ‘social’ capabilities they’ve recently added. But the software is far from perfect. Understandably, for free users it’s hard to foresee the application ever dissociating with those pesky ads every 3 or 4 tracks; and perhaps more annoying than the ads is the gaping hole made by the lack of artists of the Warp label, and others of such calibre. Reasons such as these may mean that it could never replace your own library on iTunes.

In view of the future, one thing that comes to attention is the innovation of the very new ‘Playbutton’. It is a small badge sized mp3 player containing the content of a single album, letting the music enthusiast proudly display their taste while supporting their favourite artist at the same time. It aims to bridge the gap between those who want more than just an online download but find the idea of a new CD a bit lacklustre. While the idea seems pleasant enough, it will be interesting to see just how in demand they are in when they’re actually released later this year.

Joan Wasser has long maintained a curious position, her tendencies towards the avant-garde always denying her a more mainstream love. The emotional content has never been easy either. The death of her partner, Jeff Buckley, is a constant thread to the Joan as Police Woman aesthetic. Emerging from her work on Antony & The Johnsons’ I Am a Bird Now, she arrived with her 2006 debut Real Life. But it was 2008’s To Survive, a record that almost seemed to slip by unnoticed, that made for truly compelling listening. The manipulation of her classical training to a stunning display of taut craftsmanship found fragile revelation in To Be Lonely, the album’s emotional core. But her 2011 return with The Deep Field, her ‘most open, joyous record’, is a frustrating proposition.

David Sylvian and Rufus Wainwright, who both marked her previous musical outing, are nowhere to be seen. And an unfettered Joan Wasser has found a new sound that is hard to appreciate. While the record’s name evokes distant reflection, she now employs a directly confrontational palette that seems to borrow off Laura Veirs’ sound world. It’s right there in the opener Nervous as field recordings weave through chiming and a drifting beat before Wasser hurls ‘I want you to fall in love with me’ through frenzied textures. Overambitious ensemble carries through to The Magic and ends up sounding rather flat. But for the parts of The Deep Field that soulfully wander into muzak, a balance is found in the orchestrated climaxing of ‘The Action Man’ or the pure night music of ‘Forever And a Year’. And the record finds an almost cathartic moment in ‘Flash’, 8 minutes of romantic soundscaping and snatches of the softly spoken. A patchwork of found sound washes through the album in a beautiful backdrop.

The Deep Field sees Joan as Police Woman taking uncertain steps away from the emotional loss that informed previous musical explorations. Repeated listening reveals a more challenging sound that will surely find firmer ground in the future. And the fact that artists as far removed as the Unthank sisters constantly name-check her tells you just how pervasive Wasser’s influence is. For all its flaws, The Deep Field is necessary listening. In the week that also saw Adele’s latest sterile offering, you could do a lot worse.

Having built their reputation on inscrutable lyrics and dissonant melodies, California indie rockers Cold War Kids have crafted a much more straightforward rock album in their third outing, hiring producer Jacquire King (whose credentials include Modest Mouse and Kings of Leon) in the process. But with their newly acquired studio sheen, much of the charms that made ‘Hang Me Up To Dry’ and ‘Hospital Beds’ indie mainstays in the mid-decade are lost in Mine Is Yours. Gone are lead singer Nathan Willet’s strained vocals – smoothed over by King’s production – removing one of the most alluring aspects of the band’s earlier work. Gone too are the unconventional and often religious lyrical themes, replaced with rather more pedestrian musings. ‘Skip The Charades’ highlights this lyrical blandness, with Willet crooning the likes of ‘I’m the one that’s acting like I’m so strong, you’re the one that’s acting like nothing’s wrong’. Album single ‘Louder Than Ever’ might be a standout were it not for the utter banality of the lyrics; at the close, Willet seems to run out of his trite lines and resorts to mindlessly repeating the title. But, most significantly of all, Cold War Kids’ studio treatment has removed much of the raw sound, borne of their self-recording process, which made them intriguing in the first place. After the breakout Robbers & Cowards in 2005, the band had already mis-stepped slightly with the inconsistent sophomore effort Loyalty to Loyalty. The catchy Behave Yourself EP released last year generated some excitement for a new album and possible return to form, which makes the final product all the more disappointing. Abandoning their rough blues- and jazz- influenced riffs was surely a move designed for a wider audience, and if you enjoyed Kings of Leon’s latest, this may be up your alley. But if you were a fan of Cold War Kids’ distinctive sound, don’t expect to find it here.

Bruno Mars has been buzzing around the airwaves in various collaborative guises for so long that it seems somewhat surprising to realise that he has only just released his own solo effort. Following on from the success of lead singles ‘Just the Way You Are’ and ‘Grenade’, Doo-Wops and Hooligans was always going to attract a certain amount of hype. At the time of writing Mars is in possession of pole position in both the UK singles and albums charts. The question is: why all the fuss? Whilst Bruno isn’t in the business of redefining any far reaching musical boundaries he certainly knows his remit. Namely to produce undeniable melodies and infectious choruses which re-occur in the mind with such incredible frequency that one begins to wonder if he isn’t at the forefront of some kind of psychological research into subliminal suggestion. Compared to the singles most of the tracks on the album successfully hold their own with ‘Marry You’ and ‘Talking to the Moon’ both possessing the potential to be number ones in themselves and, although Mars seems to have deliberately kept the number of collaborations to a minimum, ‘The Other Side’, featuring Cee Lo Green and B.o.B, is also one of the album’s stand out tracks. Perhaps one of Doo-Wops and Hooligans‘ greatest strengths is in its variety. It features a mix of laid back soul (think Jason Mraz) and piano led balladry (think OneRepublic) whilst still retaining, Michael Jackson-esque, an overriding sense of pure pop. There is occasionally a slight tendency to descend into lyrical absurdity with the main culprits of this being ‘Somewhere in Brooklyn’ (while we were waitin’ started conversatin’) and ‘Count on Me’ (you can count on me like one, two, three). Despite this slight complaint it is difficult to get annoyed with Doo-Wops and Hooligans. It has a refreshingly upbeat attitude with enough sincere warmth to brighten even the coldest winter’s day. So whilst Bruno Mars’ debut is unlikely to go down in history as one of the all-time greats it is a skilfully polished package of stylish pop; and there is nothing wrong with that.

A recent meeting to discuss the council’s proposals to close 20 out of its 43 libraries saw an impressive turn-out. About 300 people: ranging from students to workers; librarians to library users; the elderly to the very young, gathered in Oxford Town Hall to express their concern. No doubt the kids were mostly there to see Philip Pullman, the most eminent of the four speakers, but nonetheless it says something about the broad public appreciation of libraries. It is not only librarians who will suffer from the planned closures.

Everyone had stories to share about why libraries mattered to them. Librarians told of school children who had neither internet nor a quiet place to work at home, and of eighty year-olds for whom a library might provide the only human contact that day.A lecturer spoke of how his library had inspired him to become the first member of his family to go to university, and of his disabled son, for whom the library was vital. One campaigner read out a statement from a working mother who had spoken little English when she moved here, and found her library one of the only places where she felt warm, safe and welcomed.

Sure, these stories are sentimental, but they are also true. What sort of message do we send to all these people if we take libraries away from them?

The best storyteller was, of course, Philip Pullman. He began with an epic tale of the destruction of libraries in Alexandria, before recalling his own delight as a child in becoming a ‘citizen of the great republic of reading’ at his local library in Battersea. He mocked the government’s plan to put libraries in the hands of volunteers instead of local authorities, joking that Cameron’s ‘big society’ must indeed be big to contain all these volunteers with so much free time. He went on to challenge the wider government cuts, declaring our society haunted by the ‘greedy ghosts’ of capitalism, although he added lightly that ‘he didn’t blame Oxfordshire council for the whole degeneration of Western civilization’.

Whether or not you’re on Pullman’s side about cuts to public spending; whether you consider them a pragmatic necessity or entirely ideological, the assault on libraries seem pretty inexcusable. It is not only Oxfordshire libraries that are facing closure: across the country it is estimated that as many as 1 in 5 libraries are at risk, and in some areas- such as the Isle of Wight, where 9 out of 11 libraries have been earmarked for closure- figures are even more shocking. These cuts reveal just how empty statements such as ‘we’re all in it together’ are: the poor will undoubtedly be hit the hardest. The fact that the library in Blackbird Leys, one of Europe’s biggest housing estates, is set to close, while the library in David Cameron’s own constituency of Witney is safe, completely undermines the coalition’s pretences of fairness.

So what can we do to save our libraries? The strategy taken up by users of one Milton Keynes library- everyone withdrew their maximum allowance of books at once in order to convey the scale of the threat- is probably not the best one, though amusing. Oxfordshire residents were urged to write to their counsellors citing a breach of the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act, which requires library services to be ‘comprehensive’ and ‘improving’, to file a formal complaint at the council’s offices, and to join anti-cuts demonstrations in London. One speaker suggested that we calculate the cost to the government in providing bus passes for all those residents who, if the plans go ahead, will no longer be within walking- distance of a library. But then again, maybe they’ll just take away our bus passes.

Perhaps the most powerful thing we can do is to share our stories about what our libraries have done for us; to tell our council, in the words of Philip Pullman, that “YOU don’t know the value of what you are looking after.”

When have they ever needed a witness for anything? The descent into the dark underbelly of the Frewin Undercroft is all too apt an introduction to 1930s Nazi Germany: a world crystallized in the short scenes chosen for this adaptation in an infernal tightrope walk vacillating between peaks of paranoia and punishment. The team have worked hard on this, and demonstrate clear passion on all fronts. The venue has been chosen specifically, to try and reproduce the atmosphere of fear, oppression and censorship that gave rise to the piece in the first place: Everyone is a suspect. In the final production next week this will be further enhanced by the presence of SA guards, who will act as ushers and interfere with audience members, even interrupting the action of the play.

Written between 1933 and 1938 as a piece of counter-propaganda, this is one of Brecht’s most famous openly anti-Nazi plays. Most inspiring about it for anyone who loves theatre however, is probably its phoenix-like capacity for rebirth, of which the company have taken advantage. Ben Martin has furnished a strong adaptation of the piece, containing all its fear and frustrations. Perhaps even more impressive however is Oliver Murphy’s handling of the translation, of which he has done a fine job, with only A-Level German under his belt.

The cast fall out in a military line chanting in unison and experience a hundred deaths between each scene change in this nightmarish phantasmagoria. Over the course of each vignette, we bear silent witness to the atrocities inflicted by the Nazis on peoples’ everyday lives. For those unfamiliar with Brecht, the piece evokes a paranoia and disruption to the average individual in a manner akin to that experienced in The Lives of Others (2006) – though obviously in a much earlier, Nazi Germany. Fear and Misery tells several stories, depicting scenes from the lives of all corners of society, ranging from scientists, fleeing Jewish spouses, to Communist dissidents. A particularly touching vignette is that of The Spy, in which a family are left completely distraught about their actions being continuously monitored from within their own home. A statement such as Hitler’s Germany is not in my vocabulary, or the simplest assertion about the propaganda contained in the newspapers become life-threatening. Their son, a member of Hitler Youth, could be a potential informant, and a five-minute disappearance to buy sweets reduces them to despair, desperately trying to rewrite their history, lest the next knock on the door be that of the police. Through this scene and others, Adam Scott Taylor and Dugie Young offer especially polished performances, which, between whip cracks, will leave you gasping at the edge of your seat. Taylor displays a mastery of fear and pain, delivering blood-curdling screams that even fellow cast members were unable to watch. Young displays a great versatility, moving from the role of a suspected little Judas effortlessly into that of a tyrannical officer. The performance, at its best is utterly gut-wrenching, you are not coming here for mild entertainment.

(Maryam Ahmed)

(Clare Richards)

(Maryam Ahmed)

(Clare Richards)

(Maryam Ahmed)

(Clare Richards)

(Sonali Campion)

(Shaun Thein)

(Shaun Thein)

(Michelle Tan)

(Lauri Saksa)