Come Christmas, what’s on your table? Are there bowls overflowing with cranberry sauce? Plates filled with pigs in blankets? A prize bird gleaming on its platter? Traditions differ, but some dishes find their feature every year.
For most, the star of the Christmas feast is the turkey: the plump, golden-skinned bird that takes pride of place. But different birds have had their place; peacocks, pheasants and ducks all had their time on the table and before Victorian times, a goose was the typical centrepiece of the Christmas meal.
Henry VIII, a man then synonymous with decadence, may have been the first in England to try a turkey, but it did not come into fashion until Charles Dickens chose to emphasise the immense philanthropy of Scrooge’s gift to the Cratchits by swapping their traditional goose for turkey. No expense would be spared, and thus the Christmas turkey fell into vogue. Isabella Beeton, author of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and the Victorian authority on all things to do with housekeeping, bolstered this new trend by proclaiming that Christmas for the middle class “would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey”.
Two of the more controversial members of a Christmas dinner, Yorkshire puddings and Bread Sauce, both find their origins in leftovers. Although many would argue Yorkshire puddings should only be eaten with roast beef, they actually originated from the drippings of fat off mutton as it roasted. As dripping fell into a pan filled with a batter, a Yorkshire pudding – enormous by today’s standards – would grow. Anyone with a food-strict upbringing similar to my own would never imagine a Yorkshire pudding on their plate come Christmas, yet this favourite continues to divide the country. It takes just a quick google search to discover the years of articles that have piled up from yuletides arguing pro-YP or against!
Yorkshire puddings’ more traditional, but stranger cousin is bread sauce. The beige, lumpy, liquid-like substance is not much more than gloop to those who haven’t been brought up with it. But to a fan, it’s a haven of stodgy delight. Bread sauce also originates from leftovers. In the Medieval period, soups were thickened with leftover bread, rather than flour as used today. These soups were prepared for Christmas feasts and evolved into the bay/nutmeg/clove flavoured slop (can you tell I wasn’t raised on it?) that so many will douse their turkey with this week.
As with anything that has its roots in the dinners of yore, the veg on our plates at Christmas have been shaped simply by whatever our ancestors managed to grow. Brussel sprouts found their way to the UK from Belgium, being the only cold-hardy green around. Parsnips, the preferred partner to sprouts, are harvested in the winter. Their first frost causes sugars to be released from their starch stores, giving them their characteristic sweetness (you won’t find that fun fact in your cracker).
Christmas desserts may be the most reliably underwhelming part of the day. Dessert has the opportunity to hold such creativity and glee, and yet the dry, misshapen lumps turned out year after year hold nothing but an unbelievable amount of fruit. They also hold a considerable serving of history.
The myth of each of the thirteen fillings of Christmas cake representing the 12 apostles and Jesus is a fun tale, but the most interesting story is with mince pies. First, let’s clear it up – yes, mincemeat did once contain real meat. Dating back to the crusades when meat/spiced/fruit pies found their way back to Europe, mince pies evolved from rectangular “coffins” to round Christmas Pyes that were often found at bountiful Christmas feasts. They were famously held in disdain by Cromwell’s Puritan government because of the ‘more-gluttony-less-Jesus’ they seemed to represent. By the Victorian period, mincemeat was being prepared and jarred earlier and earlier in the year to allow flavours to mature, and hence, meat was left at the wayside – thankfully for us.
These Victorian mince pies largely look like those we have today – buttery pastry, spiced fruit (and suet) filling, decoration with festive designs on top. Though their status as a delicious treat may be divisive, mince pies, with their undeniably Christmassy aroma, remind you it’s a special time of the year, and for that they fulfil their role as a Christmas food tradition.
Whether you guzzle gravy or put away potatoes, your food has been through a lot to make it onto your table – so forget the Queen’s speech and tune into your food come Friday.
Oxford is to remain in tier 2 despite much of the South-East being placed under new, stricter tier 4 measures.
However, new rules for the festive period will apply to Oxford, with only one day of household mixing allowed on Christmas Day itself, rather than the five days originally proposed. Three different households are still able to meet for the day in areas outside of Tier 4.
Oxford will still be subject to tier 2 restrictions, as only areas in the South-East which are currently in tier 3 will be moved into the new tier 4. However, the neighbouring counties of Buckinghamshire and Berkshire will be living under the tougher rules.
The new tier 4 restrictions will resemble those imposed during the second national lockdown, with all non-essential shops closed and the public ordered to stay at home. Christmas bubbles are no longer permitted and travel in and out of the area is banned, with individuals only able to meet one other person from outside their household at a time in an outdoor public space. The new rules will affect about 17.7 million, with 17 million remaining in Oxford’s tier 2 level.
The new restrictions are being introduced following the discovery of a new, more infectious strain of the virus, which has seen cases and hospitalisations rise most dramatically in the south east over the last weeks. The measures are an attempt to contain the spread of the new mutation across the country and suppress the rate of infections locally, and will be reviewed by the government every two weeks.
It is not known precisely where the novel strain of coronavirus emerged from. However it continued to spread particularly quickly across the south east despite the lockdown measures taken in November to try and curb rising cases. Initial data suggests it could be up to 70% more infectious, although there is no evidence to suggest that it causes a more severe form of the disease.
In an announcement on Saturday afternoon the Prime Minister said that there was “no alternative” to the new measures and that “without action the evidence suggests that infections would soar, hospitals would become overwhelmed and many thousands more would lose their lives
“It’s with a very heavy heart we can’t continue with Christmas as planned”.
Professor Whitty, the government’s Chief Medical Officer, added that individuals who left tier 4 regions to spend Christmas elsewhere would mean a “significant risk” of the new mutation of the virus spreading to areas where it is currently less prevalent.
The full list of areas going into tier 4 are:
Kent
Buckinghmashire
Berkshire
Surrey
The boroughs of Gosport, Havant, Portsmouth, Rother and Hastings
Oxford University’s programme to test the student population before they left for the Christmas vacation saw 27 positive tests recorded, according to data released by the University’s COVID Response department.
4,536 students were issued lateral flow tests from 30th November ahead of the travel window. Students were advised to return home between December 3rd-9th to reduce the risk that they would seed new COVID outbreaks. These self-administered tests were to be taken three days apart, with the second being taken as close to their departure as possible.
The data shows that 0.59% of tests administered were recorded as positive. It is unclear how many of the 27 individuals who had to take confirmatory PCR tests were positive for COVID-19 since these results were combined with others from the testing service. However, lateral flow tests are highly specific once they detect a COVID-19 infection, having a false-positive rate of 0.32%
There have been concerns about the reliability of lateral flow tests. While a review by Oxford University found they could pick up 76.8% of cases, rising to over 95% for people with high viral loads, their sensitivity has been lower in “real-world” scenarios. When mass-testing of the public was trialed in Liverpool, accuracy fell to 58%. This means that in a situation where the public were administering their own tests with little training, up to half of COVID-19 cases would be missed.
Scientists have warned that mass-testing the public can lead to a false sense of security, encouraging people who test negative to engage in risky behaviour. Professor Jon Deeks from Birmingham University expressed concern that people would misunderstand the results of their lateral flow tests, telling The Guardian “a negative test indicates your risk is reduced to between a quarter and one half of the average, but it does not rule out Covid. It would be tragic if people are misled into thinking that they are safe to visit their elderly relatives or take other risks.”
There have also been concerns that mass-testing university students was a “recipe for chaos”. Taking a test was not made compulsory, leading the University and College Union to warn that students who did not take the test because they did not want to risk self-isolating at university could seed new outbreaks. Both undergraduates and graduates were eligible for tests at Oxford. With a student population of 24,000, that means fewer than 20% of students took at least one lateral flow test.
Oxford University says students are “strongly advised” to take lateral flow tests when they return in Hilary Term. These will be provided by colleges. Students are advised to return early enough to take two lateral flow tests three days apart before their subject resumes face to face teaching.
There are a few horror stories that
tend to get academic and critical attention—Frankenstein, Dracula,
The Turn of the Screw, The Yellow Wallpaper, maybe I Have No
Mouth And I Must Scream or something by Edgar Allen Poe. Everything else tends
to be blanketed as bottom-of-the-barrel pulp, dismissed as non-literary “popular
fiction”.
Recently I encountered an essay by
Jane Tompkins, commenting on the critical reception of 19th-century women’s
novels, which could easily describe the sort of elitism that claims the
inferiority of genre fiction. She notes that “critics have taught generations
of students to equate popularity with debasement, emotionality with
ineffectiveness”—anything that is read by millions stinks of the unwashed
masses; for decades even Dickens was merely a “great entertainer”, in the words
of F.R. Leavis. His criticism may be passé, but the assumptions it is grounded
in are still going strong. Just look at how few sci-fi, fantasy or horror films
make it to the Oscars.
But (to make a rather silly reference
to Poe) the pendulum is swinging the other way. Modern academics are reexamining
genre fiction, helped by a number of critical movements breaking down literary
elitism, and there’s a world of horror which is intelligent, complex and, most
importantly, terrifying. That’s why I’d like to nominate five counterparts to
the “literary” horror stories I’ve cited, as examples of what I think modern
horror has to offer.
The stories on this list are classics
for a reason, and even now Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
is spine-chillingly intense (perhaps because it hasn’t been adapted and
parodied to death). It’s a justifiably iconic feminist text and portrait of mental
instability, and the best counterpart to it is Asa Nonami’s Now You’re One
of Us. About a young woman slowly becoming suspicious that something is
wrong with her husband’s family, I first read it on the way to a restaurant,
and by the time I was there I literally felt nauseous. There’s no violence or
supernatural scares, just a terrifying portrait of gaslighting and emotional
manipulation. It takes the themes of Gilman’s story and places them in the
context of the dark side of Japanese traditions and hierarchies, weaving a
story that can sicken and fascinate.
Next on the list is a counterpart to Dracula.
While I considered some modern vampire novels, I settled on a left-field choice
that takes the fear of invasion and societal destruction that Bram Stoker
explores in a new direction. Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem and its
sequels are technically sci-fi, but I found them disturbing enough to merit a
spot on this list. Instead of vampiric invaders, this novel imagines an
invading alien fleet and a terrifyingly plausible explanation for their
hostility. Instead of heroic men of the British Empire defeating a rapacious
foreigner, it’s a world rooted in the real horrors of the Cultural Revolution
and international politics. And while in Stoker’s novel the Count crumbles into
dust, in this series there are no easy solutions, only a bleak race to delay
doomsday.
Even as a devotee of Henry James, I
struggle to call The Turn of the Screw a horror story. It’s a haunting
psychological tale that merits multiple re-reads, but I find that James’ slow
and complex prose takes the horror out of the story. This may sound
hypocritical when the book I’m about to suggest is experimental both in plot
and format, but House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is The Turn of
the Screw’s perfect counterpoint. James’ is a short story set in a
Victorian mansion, while Danielewski’s is a massive novel imagining an American
house which opens into a vast, ancient labyrinth. But they’re both about the
unreliability of knowledge, how trauma lingers in families, and the way good
people go mad, set in houses which become claustrophobic reflections of their
owners. Someone who wants a relatively simple horror story can focus on the
parts about the titular house and the mad, doomed expeditions through it, but I
found its metafictional weirdness and its interwoven narratives equally
fascinating. While you can rightly accuse it of being pretentious, as far as I’m
concerned, its cleverness outweighs its flaws.
The most recent entry on my list of
academically recognized horror stories, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
is essentially Harlan Ellison’s rendition of a nightmare, where bizarre
tortures are visited on the story’s protagonists by a godlike, demonic AI. Its
dream-logic finds a counterpart in the manga of Junji Ito, where anything and
everything can be frightening. I like to joke that his supernatural threats
were created via mad libs: zombie fish on robot spider-legs, human-shaped holes
in a mountain, a planet with a giant tongue, and spirals. Yes, this is a man
who made the idea of spirals terrifying. Psychologists talk about the
uncanny, the sense of something ordinary becoming strange, and Ito’s works find
horror in mundane scenarios and peaceful domestic scenes, taking root in the
irrational side of your subconscious. It’s delayed-action horror—when you first
read it, it’s absurd…but then, as night drags closer, you start to wonder why
you’re afraid.
And now, to conclude the list, a work
of fiction which parallels Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an exploration
of technological nightmares. For this, I reach not for lightning and revived
corpses, but our fears of surveillance, conspiracies and the fear that science
cannot explain this world, the building blocks of the SCP Foundation. It’s an
online collaborative fiction project, imagining the threats collected by a
secret organization whose purpose is to protect the world from the supernatural
nightmares that threaten normalcy. I could have written the entire article
about this site, whose contents range from comedic to heartwarming to stuff
that’ll keep you up at night. The sheer range of minds connected by this site
have yielded some of the most original works I’ve ever read, as much
philosophical puzzles as horror stories. They deal with the relationship of
fiction to reality, the failure of reason and human knowledge, moral dilemmas
and religious ones, and so much more. Reading them, I’m reminded of Jorge Luis
Borges’ short stories and how they all manages to explode some philosophical
idea with deceptive ease; the SCP Foundation, at its best, gives the lie to the
claim that genre fiction is just crude entertainment. It’s a microcosm of the
internet—at its worst it magnifies stupidity, but at its best it concentrates
brilliance.
Theodore Sturgeon famously noted that
critics who claim that 90% of science fiction is crap are in fact correct—and
that this statistic is true for all literature. “The best science fiction is as
good as the best fiction in any field,” he wrote. Times are changing for horror
fans, and for anyone who needs a little convincing that there’s true greatness
in the genre, perhaps my list will be your starting point.
The University of Oxford will grant all postgraduate research (PGR) students a four-week grace period before assessing whether they are liable to University Continuation Charges (UCC) in Hilary term.
This will allow students to submit their thesis by Friday of 4th week (12 February 2021) instead of the normal deadline of 0th week (15th January 2021) without incurring the UCC for Hilary. This could save PGR students up to £508 each.
The decision was made after a stretch of targeted lobbying by SU VP Graduates, Lauren Bolz, who urged the University’s Fees and Funding team to consider implementing the grace period.
This grace period will automatically be provided to you if you submit your thesis by 12 February 2021, and you will not need to apply for an academic extension to cover late submission of your thesis if it is submitted during the grace period.
While this grace period applies to UCC, it has not necessarily been extended to colleges’ continuation period. Oxford SU and Lauren Bolz have both pledged to continue to lobby colleges to support and match the University’s grace period.
The Oxford Union invited Graham Linehan, known by many for his anti-trans views, to speak in an upcoming debate. Linehan – who wrote and directed Father Ted and The IT Crowd – was invited to speak on the motion: ‘This House Would Cancel Cancel Culture’.
In the Union’s letter to Linehan of Tuesday 8 December, the President wrote that “it would be a great privilege were you to accept this invitation” and “it would be an honour if you were to join us in debate and continue this fine tradition” of hosting “world leaders from US Presidents Reagan, Nixon, Carter and Clinton, Sir Winston Churchill, iconic figures like Albert Einstein, Malcolm X, the Dalai Lama & Mother Teresa, musical stars from Sir Elton John to Michael Jackson to Shakira and many more”.
Responding to Linehan’s invitation and subsequent cancellation, a spokesperson for the Oxford Student Union LBGTQ Campaign commented: “These events are an inevitable result of the Union’s commitment to causing controversy rather than encouraging debate. The society has acted with poor judgement both in inviting Mr Linehan and in choosing to revoke that invitation, thereby opening themselves to the same accusations of ‘cancel culture’ they had originally sought to discuss. As a campaign, we are far more concerned by the original invitation as a testament to the very real and ongoing culture of transphobia at this university.”
In October 2018, Linehan was sued for harassment by Stephanie Hayden after he shared photos of her life before transitioning and had repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed her, as well as divulging her private details. He was issued with a verbal warning by the police to not contact her again. That same year he called anti-trans protestors at London Pride “heroes”.
This June, his Twitter account was permanently suspended following what Twitter described as: “repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation”. Earlier this month he created another account, posing as a trans man, which he used to call the Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland a “traitor to women”. The account has since been deleted.
In the invitation, the Union expanded on the motion Linehan was invited to speak regarding further by saying: ‘“Cancel culture” is the boycott of the 21st century. To practitioners, cancel culture is a new way of holding public figures and even companies accountable for their actions. Does cancel culture really facilitate the redemption of people? Or does it simply encourage virtue signalling rather than enduring progress? If so, does it truly justify the destruction of the reputation and livelihoods of public figures?’
The Union later cancelled the invitation on the grounds that they can no longer accommodate “Mr Linehan due to logistical difficulties, and feel it would be unfair to pursue this at this time”. They do, however, indicate that they “very much hope to accommodate him in the future”.
An Oxford Union spokesperson said: “It is Union policy to not discuss preparations for future events until the release of the next term card. Debates go through multiple line ups based on a variety of factors, especially during this year, and this term is no different.”
In the Substack forum where Graham Linehan shared this news (in a post which has since been deleted), he commented: “Wow, what an opportunity to really get to grips with cancel culture and what it means to our society. I’d better start thinking about the line I’m going to take, and give a few examples of oh wait no it’s been cancelled.”
Big Thief’s album covers — hazy, warm-eyed snapshots of earthy nostalgia — are a fitting prelude to their deeply intimate folk music gnarled among vocal and instrumental tapestries. Their songs are all-encompassing and circular—they stretch around notes and harmonies in a manner that reflects their performance style. In concert, the band members cluster around each other as a single organism.
On her latest solo album songs / instrumentals, Adrianne Lenker, Big Thief’s singer, distils the lush intimacy of the band’s discography into space: the space between notes, the silence between windchimes, the pregnant stillness before the cacophony of rain, the distance separating people. In the Spring, as the pandemic hit the United States, Lenker fled to a Massachusetts cabin where, in the aftermath of a breakup and the covid-induced cancellation of Big Thief’s tour, she proceeded to write and record a new album. Although two separate albums, songs and instrumentals are co-dependent explorations of grief and memory. The songs, which were recorded straight to tape, feature relics of recording typically purged in the production process — the taps of wood against fingernail, the brush of skin across a taut guitar string, the creak of a wooden chair. Instrumentals has no vocals; the second (and final) track of the album is a meditation by wind chime.
The writing on songs is some of Lenker’s best, drawing on painfully vivid imagery to capture memories as they are present in our minds — fragments of smells and tastes flirting with one another until they all lose shape. “Everything is constantly being born and decaying simultaneously,” Lenker explained in an interview with GQ. “We’re both growing and becoming, and also unbecoming and decaying simultaneously.” On the song ‘Ingydar’, Lenker’s words paint a blooming portrait of decay — a beautiful and macabre defiance of time.
Drying blueberries, figurines and the angel leans
At the head of the bed
The juice of dark cherries cover my chin
The dog walks in and the crow lies in his smile like lead
Everything eats and is eaten, time is fed
Many of the songs on songs / instrumentals are painfully private, addressed to a past girlfriend with lyrics so precise that listening feels like a violation of human relationship. “I wanna witness your eyes looking,” she sings on ‘anything’. “I wanna listen to the sound of you blinking.” The space between Lenker and her addressee expands and contracts, delving into the microscopic (the “Mango in your mouth, juice dripping / Shoulder of your shirtsleeve slipping” ) and the cosmic (“Weren’t we the stars in Heaven / Weren’t we the salt in the sea”). She sings directly to her, and in these verses, we disappear altogether:
You held me the whole way through
When I couldn’t say the words like you
I was scared Indigo but I wanted to
The album delves deeply into the dichotomy between the verdant and the bleak, locked into a consuming embrace over life and death. On ‘come’, the pitter-patter of rain, accompanied by gentle guitar, swells urgently into a comfortable solace with death: “Take my life into your life/Take a branch with your knife/Come help me die, my daughter.” The emotional fulcrum of the album is ‘zombie girl’, a song that starts with Lenker waking up from a dream about an absent lover, and which grows into exploring emptiness and the space that solitude occupies. Birdsong interrupts throughout — a reminder of life and wakefulness in a piece about the unbearable weight of absence. The track closes with the whispered buzzes of a fly, circling above an undead love, crescendoing into silence.
Sleep paralysis, I sworn I could’ve felt you there
And I almost could’ve kissed your hair
But the emptiness withdrew me
From any kind of wishful prayer
Oh, emptiness
Tell me ‘bout your nature
Maybe I’ve been getting you wrong
Instrumentals consists of two tracks — ‘music for indigo’ and ‘mostly chimes’. The first, a nearly 20-minute piece, was written by Lenker as a backdrop for her former girlfriend to fall asleep to. Careful guitar melodies and windchimes paint a swirling picture of tender love: gentle, all-encompassing, nurturing affection that had been caressed and cultivated with painful understanding over the course of songs. On ‘mostly chimes’, the emptiness disseminating throughout the album returns in a quiet coda. The track starts with sparse guitar, disappearing in crests to give way to the sounds of wind, leaves, and chimes. The song is the aftermath of emptiness, of leaving, of retreating, of venturing into cabins in Massachusetts, of breakups, of heartbreak. “Oh, emptiness/Tell me ‘bout your nature,” Lenker asks. On ‘mostly chimes’, emptiness answers.
Originating from Baltimore, Future Islands were three albums into their acclaimed discography when they hit the mainstream in 2014 with their iconic Letterman performance of ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’, a single which went on to be named the song of the year by Pitchfork, NME and The Guardian (high praise indeed). They followed up on their newfound popularity with 2017’s The Far Field, an energetic set of hits that cemented their style and featured a cameo from none other than Debbie Harry. Now, Future Islands have returned with their sixth studio album, As Long As You Are.
On As Long As You Are, Future Islands stay faithful to their signature sound – a passionate layering of powerful basslines, synthesisers and driving drumbeats that has become their trademark. But this familiar sound has been taken in new directions, with a stronger emphasis on more personal, emotional, and reflective tracks, interspersed between the band’s more characteristic, upbeat numbers.
There are moments of beauty and heartbreak, particularly on the more subdued ‘I Knew You’, which takes the listener on a journey through a toxic past relationship, and the moving single ‘Thrill’. On the latter, lead singer Samuel T. Herring is at his most vulnerable, as he reflects on past issues with addiction and social isolation. These sadder tracks are sonically beautiful – simplistic in their melodies, yet hard-hitting in their storytelling.
Not wanting to dampen the mood too much, these more sombre moments are more than matched by the energetic, synth-laden anthems for which Future Islands are best known. The lead single ‘For Sure’ is perhaps the standout track of the album; synth and bass roll over each other during the verses, building to a surging, euphoric chorus in which Herring declares “I will never keep you from an open door”, capturing the song’s messages of love and trust. Fans of 80s synthpop will be drawn towards ‘Waking’, with its bursts of pulsing synth and its upbeat rhythm, reminiscent of the likes of OMD and New Order. The album finishes on this note too, with ‘Hit the Coast’, a new fan-favourite that would feel at home on any road trip playlist.
One of As Long As You Are’s key strengths is its demonstration of the power of Herring’s vocals, so raw with emotion that at times you can feel his anguish through the music. This coincides with Herring’s distinctively more introspective and thoughtful songwriting, his lyrics grappling with a range of personal challenges and timely political issues.
‘Born in a War’, a pounding track where bassist William Cashion really comes into his own, tackles issues from gun violence to toxic masculinity: “You’re scared/that when a strong man cries/is when a strong man dies,” Herring laments. He despairs at the prevalence of alcoholism and gun culture in rural America (“Raised up in a town that’s 80 proof/Shotgun shells under every roof”) – all of this against a backdrop of shimmering synthesisers and one of the band’s most powerful basslines.
On ‘Plastic Beach’, Herring presents a moving description of his struggles with body dysmorphia and self-deprecation, most poignantly in the lines: “Spent a lifetime in the mirror/picking apart what I couldn’t change/But I saw my mother, my father, my brother/in my face”. It is this vulnerability in Herring’s songwriting that marks the biggest shift for Future Islands; the tracks, while maintaining their easy, indie-pop vibe, have a deeper meaning.
Perhaps the only thing the record is missing is the punchy energy that courses through much of the band’s earlier work. Previous albums The Far Field and Singles jump from hit to hit, with each song capable of getting you on your feet. As Long As You Are, on the other hand, is punctuated by more subdued and sombre tracks that slow the pace of the record. However, whether this is necessarily a bad thing, I feel, is a matter of personal taste. For me, there is something about the album’s less formulaic composition that sets it apart – it has a delightful mix of upbeat anthems and deeply personal and powerful lyrics, that combine to give the album a level of emotion that isn’t felt in much of the band’s previous work. As Long As You Are is a brilliant addition to Future Islands’ discography; one that sees the band exploring new avenues and tackling the big issues, while remaining faithful to their trademark sound.
It’s been a testing year, but the music hasn’t stopped. From impressive debuts to lockdown albums from well-established favourites, 2020 has seen its fair share of new tunes. Yet the shared listening experience has seemed more precarious than ever: no live music; no sweaty, gleeful club nights; no new relationships to set against a carefully-curated soundtrack. Albums and songs have been digested solo, earbuds plugged back in while the UE Boom collects dust in a corner. So it is by recommending music to one another that we may find a new way of connecting through the sounds of the year 2020, from one locked-down household to another, from tier to tier.
As a parting gift, Cherwell wanted to get as many of its readers involved as possible, challenging contributors to review a selection of music released in 2020 in just one sentence – and they certainly delivered. So, here it is: Cherwell‘s list of albums and songs to listen to before the year ends.
Albums
Aluna – Renaissance
Aluna’s voice sounds amazing on these clean, quirky pop tunes with some mad feature guests. Danny Roade
Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters
A genre-defying rock album stepping on the patriarchy. Sophia Zu
Alina Baraz – It Was Divine
You think it’s chill, and then it hits you with something real. Lucie de Gentile
beabadoobee – Fake It Flowers
Bea Kristi diverges from her bedroom pop roots on this angsty, guitar-driven album, which is 90s to the core. Sofia Henderson
Bohren & Der Club of Gore – Patchouli Blue
Smooth, sultry saxophone blends seamlessly with a noirish ambiance in the new set of Lynchian soundscapes from this German outfit, the acknowledged progenitors of ‘Dark Jazz’. Frank Milligan
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
On hating Nazis, daddy issues, and the apocalypse – the perfect album for 2020. Sophia Zu
BTS – BE
The iconic kpop group’s self-written and produced lockdown album has some highlights, such as ‘Telepathy’, but is simply more of what we’ve heard before. Sofia Henderson
Charli XCX – how I’m feeling now
A punchy gift from the hyperpop genre, this lockdown-curated treat will simultaneously get you in the feelings and inspire you to dance alone in your room like the main character that you are. Jennifer Goodier
Dan Deacon – Mystic Familiar
Think Animal Collective if they took even more psychedelics: grandiose, poignant, life-affirming. Alec Holt
Drive-By Truckers – The Unravelling
Lamenting children in cages, theocracy, the opioid epidemic, and gun control, Drive-By Truckers’ middle America sound weeps from within for the damage that can’t be reversed even once Biden is in office. Perfect to “stick up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers”. Angela Eichhorst
Eartheater – Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin
A deeply personal, deeply sexual, utterly ethereal meeting of glitchy electronica and folk, with individual narratives of love, loss, and resurgence told in terms of primordial geological processes by one of the most singular voices in contemporary music. Alec Holt
Roger Eno and Brian Eno – Mixing Colours
A great instrumental/ambient album which has helped me in many a study crisis. Thomas Barker
Alexis Ffrench – Dreamland
Even if you’ve never liked piano albums, you have to try this one. Pretty modern-sounding but definitely not boring: Alexis is so skilled. Danny Roade
Jack Garratt – Love, Death & Dancing
Painfully raw and bitter-sweet at times, Garratt writes music with honesty and sincerity. Katherine Schutte
Hannah Grace – Remedy
Remedy is honest, sensitive, and warm – these are songs written from the heart, for the soul. Katherine Schutte
JARV IS… – Beyond the Pale
Great and groovy tunes from the northern legend. Best track: ‘Must I Evolve?’ Thomas Barker
Ka – Descendants of Cain
A truly Biblical experience, with Ka brutally detailing his life through allusion to the Hebrew Bible and unmatched lyricism. Oliver Hogg
The Killers – Imploding The Mirage
This album gives my younger Mr. Brightside-loving self some much needed nostalgia, and has re-ignited my love for The Killers (not that it ever really went away). Danielle Perro
Adrianne Lenker – songs / instrumentals
Heartbreak and solitude have never been written about so tenderly. Sophia Zu
John Lennon – Gimme Some Truth
A great reissue of Lennon’s finest: great to walk to! Thomas Barker
Fenne Lily – BREACH
The Bristol songwriter is Britain’s answer to Phoebe Bridgers – I knew the name from when my sister saw her supporting youtuber Dodie about 5 years ago, but the songs on BREACH are mature, many-layered, and infinitely cryable. Fred Waine
Tkay Maidza – Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2
A compelling 25-minute listen from quick-witted Australian rapper Maidza, who is already onto her fourth extended release aged just 23. Best track: ‘Awake’ ft. JPEGMAFIA Fred Waine
Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder – Dinner Party
Atmospheric, melodic hip-hop – it fills your ears. Orna Rifkin
Declan McKenna – Zeros
Channeling 1970s space vibes which Bowie would certainly be proud of, McKenna’s latest release deals sublimely with the ‘Key to Life on Earth’, all whilst in the musical realm of outer space. Jennifer Goodier
Zeros, in almost every way, is bigger than McKenna’s debut, taking on influences from the past to create a thought-provoking exploration of a complex world: a record full of urgency and theatrical crescendos. Elena Buccisano
Memnon Sa – World Serpent
I know nothing about the band Memnon Sa beyond the fact that this album is a swirling, majestic exploration of cosmic forces: The Comet Is Coming would be proud of that blistering sax and – is that the voice of Sinead O Brien, one of 2020’s outstanding British vocalists, on ‘Golden Ram Of The Sun’? Fred Waine
MisterWives – SUPERBLOOM
Delicious and a wonderful pick-me up. Angela Eichhorst
Emily Montes – Emily Montes
Album made by a six-year-old tiktoker. Orna Rifkin
Moor Mother – Circuit City
A vital poetic rail against the racial and class-based discriminations of the US housing system, adapted from a 2019 stage production set in an imminent big-tech-ruled dystopia and soundtracked by the liberation technology that is free jazz. Alec Holt
Moor Jewelry – True Opera
Vocalist Moor Mother and producer Mental Jewelry combine for a gut punch of a rock album with a heavy punk ethos. Oliver Hogg
Fish Narc – WiLDFiRE
With this debut album, Fish Narc combines the nostalgic sounds of 90s/00s emo with subtle influences from hip-hop, offering an ode to pop-punk with an interesting twist. Charlie Croft
Navy Blue – Àdá Irin
One of the most personal releases of the year from renaissance man Sage Elsesser, with a catchiness unparalleled in other abstract hip-hop releases. Oliver Hogg
Nazar – Guerilla
A breathtaking collage of gunfire, muffled dialogue, and glitchy beats, inspired by experiences of the Angolan civil war. Fred Waine
Oh Wonder – No One Else Can Wear Your Crown
These are songs that make you feel alive. Katherine Schutte
Oneohtrix Point Never – Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
Fresh off a pair of space-aged soundtracks for the Safdie brothers, Lopatin’s latest might be his most accessible yet, fusing elements of pop and psychedelia into his trademark collages of abstract electronics. Frank Milligan
Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin kynsi
Colossally heavy, headily atmospheric psychedelic black metal from Finland which thankfully doesn’t take itself too seriously: more accessible thank you might think! Alec Holt
Kelly Lee Owens–Inner Song
Some really soothing songs made of spacey, energetic electronic beats. Danny Roade
Knxwledge – 1988
One of the best beatmakers showing off his masterful sampling with super-replayable instrumentals. Danny Roade
PLK – Enna
If foreign rap is something you dabble in, PLK’s new album (French) is definitely worth a listen; also great for waking up on your way to a tute. Eva Vang-Mathisen
Raye – Euphoric Sad Songs
A good soundtrack to being a mess with confidence. Lucie de Gentile
San Cisco – Between You And Me
As always, San Cisco’s brand of catchy pop rock guarantees a good time. Deepra Sinha
Alexandra Savior – The Archer
Savior’s second album is sad girl central, and feels notably softer and more authentic than her debut. Sofia Henderson
Rina Sawayama – SAWAYAMA
Sawayama emerges shimmering on her debut LP, featuring the stand-out 2000s-inspired pop tracks ‘XS’ and ‘Comme des Garçons’. Sofia Henderson
Shit and Shine – Malibu Liquor Store
Veteran underground hedonists Shit and Shine gruffly transport the listener to an amorphous backwater landscape of narcotic-filtered triple suns and “Hillbilly Moonshine” with this curious store of lurching, stifling Krautrock rhythms. Alec Holt
Soccer Mommy – color theory
Sorry Phoebe Bridgers, but Soccer Mommy actually released the best album about being sad this year. Deepra Sinha
Songhoy Blues – Optimisme
Songhoy Blues go rock! Probably the most important West African band of this century, the Malians add another layer of fuzz and swagger to their joyous desert-blues sound on Optimisme. Fred Waine
The Streets – None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive
A great mixtape: very witty and contemporary! Thomas Barker
The Strokes – The New Abnormal
New York indie-rock legends produce a fittingly melancholic album after a seven year hiatus – and it has absolutely no skips. Sofia Henderson
Tame Impala – The Slow Rush
There’s no better way to appreciate the immaculate presentation of time by Kevin Parker on this album than during lockdown, where both ‘One More Hour’ and ‘One More Year’ suddenly hold so much more significance. Jennifer Goodier
Taylor Swift – Folklore
Not exactly unheard of but a definite new direction for Swift as a songwriter and a must-listen for Swifties and non-Swifties alike. Clementine Scott
Thundercat – It Is What It Is
Jazz training brought to bear on hip-hop and electronic genres – It Is What It Is forces you to stop and listen. Orna Rifkin
Yves Tumour – Heaven To A Tortured Mind
A genre-bending tour de force of rock, pop and soul from one of experimental music’s boldest figures, its songs as precisely constructed and visceral as they are radical in their aesthetic scope. Frank Milligan
Loud, anti-pop pop – intense. Orna Rifkin
‘Gospel For A New Century’ is an epic opening track that could get anyone into psych-rock, and Yves is such a character too. Danny Roade
Tricot –真っ黒 (Makkuro)
As catchy and compulsively relistenable as anything you’ll hear this year, the Japanese quartet’s first of two 2020 releases sees their singular bubblegum approach to math rock at its most refined. Frank Milligan
Anna von Hausswolff – All Thoughts Fly
The Swedish organist finds herself in even more ethereal territory than the song-oriented efforts of her past records, eschewing conventional structure in favour of a kind of liturgical drone. Frank Milligan
White Boy Scream – BAKUNAWA
A harrowing experimental classical noise project that will make your ears ring with masochistic joy. Oliver Hogg
Hayley Williams – Petals For Armor
Born out of therapy, this relatively unconventional solo debut from Hayley Williams is a welcome and laudable progression from her Paramore roots. Deepra Sinha
Yaeji – WHAT WE DREW
Electronic dance-y stuff that packs lots of punch. Orna Rifkin
EPs
Bring Me the Horizon – POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR
In true cyber-punk style, BMTH attack the misery of lockdown in a series of apocalyptic ballads which serenade the ‘end’ of humanity as we know it. Jennifer Goodier
Christine and the Queens – La Vita Nova
A raw take on heartbreak, this EP featuring the incredible Caroline Polachek simultaneously tugs on the heartstrings and supplies fiery emotional intensity, all within the space of 6 songs. Jennifer Goodier
Jockstrap – Wicked City
As if being known as the next big thing in classical-EDM crossover wasn’t enough, London duo Jockstrap expand their palette on Wicked City to cover abstract hip-hop, stadium rock and opera. Fred Waine
Slauson Malone – Vergangenheitsbewältigung
Slauson Malone delivers an emotional storm on this melodic soundscape of plunderphonics and jazz, the title of which translates as ‘coming to terms with one’s past’. Oliver Hogg
Soham De –About Happier Things
Recorded during lockdown, Soham’s alluring voice and expressive piano make for a wonder. Deepra Sinha
Soundtracks
Baltic House Orchestra – ‘Blue Monday’ (From the Wonder Woman 1984 Trailer)
After a year of waiting for the ever-delayed Wonder Woman 1984 movie, I have managed to find some respite in this orchestral version of the music from the original trailer (the fact that desperation has led me so far as to look for alternative versions of music from a trailer does add a particular 2020 flair to the experience as yet another let down in a long list). Aside from this discouraging context, the music itself is exciting, up-beat and takes the listener to a world of action which I would thoroughly recommend. Naomi Reiter
Alex Baranowski – Staged (Music from the TV Series)
Great instrumental pieces from a lovely show that helped me cope in the first lockdown. Thomas Barker
Julia Holter – Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
A master of textural subtlety, Holter once again proves her versatility with this sometimes-poignant, always-anxious synth/horn soundtrack to one of the best films of 2020. Fred Waine
Singles
Deathcrash – ‘People thought my windows were stars’
A stellar post-rock number from a group who somehow manage to sound simultaneously like Bill Ryder-Jones and Slint – guaranteed to be the best 15 minutes of your year. Fred Waine
LP – ‘How Long Can You Go’ and ‘The One That You Love’
Anything LP puts out is worth a listen – she’s only released two singles this year but rate them both. Eva Vang-Mathisen
Night Traveler – ‘Carolina’
“I’ve been right here feelin’ everything” – relatable. Lucie de Gentile
Nubya Garcia – ‘Pace’
Dubby, groovy, inspired – a wicked lead single from the London saxophonist who also has a strong case for having released the best jazz album of 2020. Fred Waine
Tame Impala – ‘Lost in Yesterday’
One long smooth wave to ride on. Eva Vang-Mathisen
Shrimp – ‘Fear of Failure / Scared of Success’
The contrast of the alt-rock instrumental and synths brings about an out of body experience while, ironically, Shrimp sings about being trapped. Charlie Croft
Huge thanks to all of our contributors and readers for a great Michaelmas!
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}