Adele and I have something in common. I may not have Brit Awards coming out of my ears, I’ve never been a Vogue cover girl, and I definitely don’t have any albums that have gone platinum 14 times, but we do have one single thing that ties us together: we both backed Rebecca Ferguson all the way to the end in the The X Factor.

It’s easy to see what made Adele pick up the phone more than 80 times for the Liverpudlian songstress over nice but dull Matt Cardle in 2010’s final. Her performances on the show wowed judges and audience alike with their understated soul, and have more than a bit of the Adele style.It seems the admiration is mutual. ‘She’s someone that I think is just amazing,’ Ferguson says of the ‘Someone Like You’ singer. ‘I think she’s real. I like Adele because she’s a real person and she’s so honest, and we all connect to her because she’s so honest about what she’s going through and she doesn’t hide it.

‘Not only is she a performer but you feel like you know her. I think that’s why so many people have bought her album because she’s talked about things that we’ve all been through and not lied about it. She’s not tried to play the “I’m dead strong” and “I’m fine” thing that some songs have – she’s just raw and honest and I like that about Adele.’

That sort of openness is something Ferguson recognises in her own record. ‘I think I’ve been honest in my album,’ she tells me. ‘I think I’ve tried to be as honest as possible, I haven’t held back anything really.’It’s certainly clear that for all her dulcet tones and sweet manner, Ferguson knew what she wanted her new album Heaven to sound like and would not allow her own identity to be obscured by the vision her record company had for her.

When she first entered the studio, she found pre-written songs waiting for her and had to fight to persuade her bosses that she could write as well as sing.‘At first they weren’t sure, they didn’t know whether I could write. So I went into a lot of sessions and a lot of it was just feeling it out really and sometimes I’d turn up and the songs had already been mostly written, but then in the end, you know, I started getting properly involved in the writing and it was getting back to everyone that I could write and then everyone just pretty much let me write which was brilliant.’

The result is an album which Ferguson describes as ‘at least 90%’ about her own life. ‘The other 10% is probably friends around me, family members and just things that you see, you know, growing up and going through life. I was thinking about a few people when I wrote certain songs.’ Unlike other X Factor alumni, Ferguson has the distinction of a critically-lauded album. Heaven was described by reviewers as ‘mature’ and ‘fresh’, hardly adjectives that could rightly be applied to her fellow finalists, One Direction. But her response to such praise is typically humble: she will only concede that the critical reception her tracks have received was ‘quite good’.

Ferguson also distinguishes herself from her fellow former contestants by refusing to slate the show that gave her her big break. While Matt Cardle claimed that The X Factor ‘battered’ his musical integrity, Ferguson remains positive about the viability of the talent show format.‘I just think that all of those shows just give people an opportunity and it’s what you do with it really. It’s a great platform and it’s not easy, you know, it’s a hard thing to go through because there is a lot of pressure. But I think it just gives you such a platform and I feel really lucky.’

And although she tells me she would like to think she could have gone on to achieve similar success without the SyCo brand, she does not shy away from acknowledging the head start The X Factor gave her. ‘It helped me so much in every way – character-building, as a performer, in my confidence. I think that was the best route for me.’Looking at recent patterns of success, with runners up like Olly Murs and Cher Lloyd all achieving greater things than winners like Joe McElderry and Matt Cardle, it’s certainly possible to argue that Ferguson was in the best possible position coming second, allowing her time to develop her album rather than being launched straight into the race for Christmas number one. She admits that not winning the show might have been a blessing in disguise for her, but emphasises that the same is not true of all former competitors.

‘I think Leona’s an example of someone who won and I think that was the best thing for her, I think it was amazing. But I think for me it was best [not to win], it just gave me more time and I think I needed that, I definitely needed that after the show. So for me it was the best thing but I don’t think it’s the best thing for everyone.’The time out also gave Ferguson a chance to gain confidence in her own style and lose some of the anxiety that was initially her defining feature. Nonetheless, she admits that she will ‘always’ be a nervous performer.‘I feel very vulnerable and exposed when I’m performing and that’s just the type of person I am,’ she explains. ‘I’ve learnt to deal with it and accept it. And I’ve learnt to accept that it’s not a hindrance and sometimes it’s an advantage and that’s just the way I am.’

That’s not the only thing that’s changed. Life has done an about-turn for the former legal secretary in the past 18 months and her gratitude for the new start is palpable. ‘I feel really blessed,’ she gushes. ‘I can’t believe where I was just over a year ago and where I am now. I think I’ve been really, really lucky.’Looking forward, it’s clear Ferguson has high hopes for future successes.  She talks of conquering America, albeit claiming she’s ‘quite relaxed about it. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, but I would love to. I think that’s everyone’s dream who sings really – you want to do well at home but you also want to do well in other places – and I’d love it to travel to other places and for them to enjoy it.’

And it doesn’t stop at music. She tells me she would ‘love to get involved in fashion’ and reveals a lesser known predilection for writing. ‘I write books as well, I write children’s books, so I’d like to get into that. But at the minute I’m just focusing on music.’Of course, music’s not the only love in her life. The fact that Ferguson was a mum twice before she hit 20 makes her success all the more admirable. And for all her aspirations, one thing is for sure: she’ll always put family first.

By the end of our conversation it seems perfectly logical that the first thing she said to me was about her mum (apparently we share the same surname).  She speaks about the importance she attaches to seeing her kids as much as she possibly can and confides that she talks to her mum almost every day. Although her base is now London, she’s ‘always up and down’ to her hometown Liverpool to see her family. Whether writing books, singing or designing her own fashion range, you get the feeling she’ll always be, as she puts it, ‘a proper home girl’.

Supermarket

Supermarket’s been running for four years now and is constantly changing hands, so we’re effectively the Sugababes of clubnights. Technically speaking that would put us in the Amelle/Heidi/Jade stage, only minus the history of brutal catfights.

Our whole outlook is governed by an overwhelming desire to re-live the days when Destiny’s Child were a foursome and Now 50 was the best thing you’d ever heard; it’s all about not taking yourself too seriously, downing far too many Woo Woos and forcing your way onto the pole when Salt n’ Pepa tell you to ‘push it’. It’s hard to capture the essence of what we do in a single paragraph – try to imagine the love-child of Snoop Dogg and Madonna, or perhaps a three-way brawl between Lil’ Kim, Artful Dodger and Gwen Stefani. Either way, you’ll find yourself singing along to something you memorised a decade ago, throwing shapes you didn’t know you could and yearning for the time when music videos were full of crappy CGI. Predicting where we’ll end up in the future is tricky, because who knows what the next team will do. Whatever they come up with, though, one thing’s for sure: it’ll still beat queueing for Bridge.

– D.U.

Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist.

PinDrop

PinDrop formed as a gig promotions collective in winter 2002. We started out as a monthly night at the Port Mahon. The first Sunday afternoon of every month we’d put on folk, indie, electronica and anything else we liked and felt deserved an audience undistracted by chit chat and mobile phone prattle. I can pinpoint the weekend when I had the idea – I was at the Port Mahon on a Saturday night to see Oxford-based Arabic jazz fusion ensemble Brickwork Lizards and it was ruined by people chatting and being lairy. The next morning I went to a chamber concert at the Holywell Music Rooms and, on leaving the concert, I had the idea for PinDrop.

Since running the night at the Port for two years we’ve developed and expanded on the original idea. Aside from more formal, sit down events we also put on heavier bands in more traditional pub venues as well as gigs somewhere between the two at Modern Art Oxford.

Over the years we have run events with Silver Mt Zion, CocoRosie, Patti Smith, Chad Valley, The Epstein, A Hawk and A Hacksaw, Hauschka, Stornoway and many more. We have also programmed concerts featuring performances of the works of Stockhausen, Ligeti, Pärt, Messiaen, Reich and Glass. Having worked with Brasenose and Christ Church colleges we are keen to continue to work with Oxford University colleges to programme eclectic, artistically engaging concerts all over town.

Our favourite new bands in Oxford are literate acoustic pop band The Yarns, dreamy droney ambient collective Grudle Bay and Morricone influenced Americana/folk band ToLiesel. We have loads of great gigs coming up in 2012, including a couple of spectacular shows at Modern Art Oxford featuring the legendary Oxfordian dub band Dubwiser and many more. Tune in to our PinDrop Music show on This Is Fake DIY internet radio, every Wednesday at 9pm.

– Sebastian Reynolds

Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist.

Eclectric

Eclectric isn’t scary: we just play music we like dancing to until we have to go home. Its history is long – we’re seven this term – and surprisingly complicated, but in its current incarnation it dates back to about 2008, when TJ Hertz (now better known to many as Objekt, but who was once an Engineering student at New College) started putting on the likes of Claro Intelecto, Appleblim and Shackleton.

Since then the reins have changed hands with the passing of time and finals, but the mission statement remains the same, and will do for the foreseeable future: to keep bringing Oxford the best and most challenging dance music being produced in the UK, with the odd foreign import chucked in for good measure.

Here’s a measure of our pedigree, for quality and eclecticism: in the past two years we’ve had the likes of Blawan, Kyle Hall, Pangaea, Girl Unit and Pearson Sound to name but a few; coming up in the next few weeks we have the wonkily euphoric Lone, and Objekt himself, returning from Berlin to do his tuff broken techno thing.

These names might not mean that much to you, but that shouldn’t put you off. My favourite part of running Eclectric is discovering things I haven’t heard before, and it happens dozens of times every night. If you think you’re even slightly interested in techno, or house, or dubstep, or grime, it’ll be worth your while checking Eclectric out, promise.

– Chris Edwards

Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist.

Broken Hearts Club

There’s nothing else in Oxford like Broken Hearts Club, which hits Baby Love once a month on Friday with a storm of red lights, synths, beats and (if the machine’s working) artificial smoke. The music’s old – eighties, seventies, an occasional dip into the nineties – but this isn’t nostalgia, because we’re too young for that.

This isn’t even about guilty pleasures, although I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘guilty’. Instead, this is an irreverent salute to a misunderstood era when pop and art were still compatible. You’ll hear New Order rubbing shoulders with INXS, The Smiths fraternizing with Jermaine Stewart, and The Cure having a slap-fight with Madonna, plus a shimmering array of androgynous glam thrills from Bowie, Prince, and Duran Duran.

Alright, so there are other places in Oxford you can hear some of the stuff we play – the Park End cheese floor springs to mind – but it’s usually stuck in an uncomfortable three-way with The Vengaboys and Steps. It’s a stark contrast to our unashamedly elitist music policy: we will only play a song if a) we actually think it’s good, and b) it’ll get your feet moving in ways you never thought possible. (So no requests for ‘Eye of the Tiger’, please).

The Oxford Mail call us ‘quite unlike any other night in this city’, and frankly they’re right. We’ll happily deliver dancing, drinking and a crowd who are into both, but we want every night to feel special. Broken Hearts has gone from strength to strength since our beginnings, and now you’ll find the Friday night crowd getting down with what this esteemed newspaper has delicately termed ‘Oxford’s hipster elite’ – and everyone shouting along together to ‘Don’t You Want Me’.

We’re not planning on stopping any time soon, so come down to BHC XVI on Friday of sixth week and show us what you’re made of. We want to have a good time and we’re willing to make you dance for it.

– James Manning, Sophie Salamon & Amy Blakemore

Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist.

Age? Mid-late 1980s. 

Shoe what? The name comes from the characteristically apathetic performance style: staring at one’s feet. 

Sounds pretty miserable. Not really. If anything, it’s typified by lots of guitar effects, with a heavy use of feedback.

Who likes it? Err. Other shoegazers, mostly – hence the name ‘the scene that celebrates itself.’ And, increasingly, clubs of cool kids captivated by M83’s French take on the genre.

Check out our selection of five bona fide bangers:

‘Just Like Honey’ – Jesus and Mary Chain

‘You Don’t Know Her Name’ – Maps

‘Cherry-coloured Funk’ – Cocteau Twins

‘Only Shallow’ – My Bloody Valentine

‘Dead Sound’ – The Raveonettes

Hear all these tracks, and more, on the accompanying Spotify playlist.

Ital is certainly versatile. The chameleon producer has played guitar in a high energy post-hardcore band, provided vocals for a weirdly funked up punk group, and is now a solo producer under various monikers. But a word of caution before we continue; this is without a doubt a house album, and as such it’s full merit is somewhat difficult to appreciate on a bright weekday afternoon sitting in my bedroom.

Right from the off, Ital (or Daniel Martin-McCormick) showcases his funky heritage with a syncopated number that features a chopped up vocal sample and sci-fi synth lines. To its detriment however, it lasts almost eight minutes, and once the initial curiosity fades, it just drags. Indeed the weakness of this five track EP is its length; three tracks, each over ten minutes long is not only excessive, but also difficult to pull off. McCormick only vaguely manages it, and it’s telling that my favourite track ‘Floridian Void’ is the shortest.

Now on to one of those ten minute tunes. ‘Privacy Settings’ lifts the mood with a classic house approach reminiscent of MJ Cole’s funkier moments. Its midsection even executes a dubstep-ish bass drop briefly. And to be honest, the closer is just too similar to the previous tracks to justify another ten minutes of listening time. Ultimately, the cons outweigh the pros here. Diverse, slick, and conceptually sound versus long, repetitive, lacklustre … and repetitive again. 

The sound of Kilsyth trio The Twilight Sad has always been strikingly distinctive from their contemporaries. Acclaimed debut Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters and follow-up Forget the Night Ahead matched the desperate cries of frontman James Graham with the swirling, enveloping guitars of shoegaze pedigree. But the swooping, cathartic crescendos of the Twilight Sad’s early releases and the heart-on-sleeve directness of Graham’s lyricism set their work apart.

Despite this obstinate idiosyncrasy, however, long-time listeners were understandably shocked when the group announced their intention to retire their distinctive haze altogether with the recording of third studio album No One Can Ever Know. It is the aesthetic and instrumentation, rather, which has undergone complete reinvention. ‘I don’t see it as a big direction change,’ Graham told me in an interview this December. Still, the shift is impressive.

No One surges along with mechanistic, sinister momentum. The sound is harsh and often outright malevolent, but remains true to The Twilight Sad’s roots, often burying Graham amidst competing vintage Russian-bought synths and industrial guitars. There is a perceptible shift in Graham’s lyrics: the pain is inflicted here, just as it was received in albums past. This is mirrored starkly in the instrumentation, and consequently No One is at its most impressive in its discordant pinnacles, particularly opener ‘Alphabet’ or closer ‘Kill it in the Morning’. But the more subdued ‘Nil’ and single ‘Sick’ are also striking in their brooding, melodic beauty. No One is decidedly a lurch forward for The Twilight Sad, but without a single misstep.

4 STARS

Late one night in January 1975, the pianist Keith Jarrett sat down at the Cologne Opera House’s Bösendorfer piano and improvised an unbroken thread of music that absorbed everything from country to gospel, smeared through with French impressionism. The recording, The Köln Concert, marked a classic milestone in 1970s jazz and the vinyl carried three significant letters, ‘ECM’. Editions of Contemporary Music had been founded in Munich five years previously by Manfred Eicher, initially to record exiled American musicians in Europe. Through its sophisticated sleeve art, exquisite resonance and pioneering artists, ECM would become an enduring influence on contemporary music.

Few record companies have achieved such an aesthetic reputation. Of course Eicher is guarded about pinning down an ECM aesthetic, ‘that’s a job for the critic, but whether it’s useful is an open question.’ He dislikes the idea that ECM has ever pushed a minimalist aesthetic. ‘We aim to focus upon essentials but that rather translates into clarity.’ Eicher is instead keen to stress the freedom that his label maintains, within a congested industry. ‘We are freer because we don’t speculate on trends and possible reception while documenting the music. It’s a purely artistic process.’ Yet there has always been an incredible sense of vision. The label’s early slogan was famously ‘the most beautiful sound next to silence’: ‘That was our leitmotif for a while, intended playfully, since John Cage had already proven that silence cannot really exist. It was a challenging guideline at the beginning.’

ECM’s luminous ambience, a texture in itself, changed the face of jazz. How has ECM managed, then and now, to produce such a sound? Eicher’s absolute immersion in the production process is key. ‘The approach has always been to capture the music as faithfully as possible. But the needs of the music change constantly,’ Eicher observes. ‘You cannot step into the same production twice; the resonance will always be different. As producer, I am attempting to illuminate the potential of a musical performance.’ The idea of location is also an integral part of the process. ‘A room has to inspire the musician either by its resonance, its architecture or at best by a certain spirit.’

The label’s legacy lies in its geographical expansion of jazz — the haunting sound of Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, the extended virtuosity of American guitarist Pat Metheny and the colour shifts of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stánko have all become ECM trademarks as much as Jarrett’s solo concerts. ‘One way or another we’re interested in the places where the rivers meet. Usually the most interesting things happen at the edges of the traditions, idioms and geographical regions.’ One obsession of ECM, in its exploration of the margins, has been in documenting free improvisation, from the fierce intensity of The Art Ensemble of Chicago through to the more cerebral projects of the British saxophonist Evan Parker. Since so much of the beauty is in the moment, how does Eicher hope to capture this on record? ‘The more you listen, the more clearly the music’s freely created structure will become,’ Eicher explains. ‘For the most part the free improvisers we have recorded consider improvisation to be a ‘compositional’ work method.’

ECM’s forays into composed music are particularly interesting. In 1984 Eicher founded ECM New Series for composers. The first release on the new imprint, Tabula Rasa, embraced the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a proponent of the ‘New Simplicity’, the late 20th century spiritual Minimalism that emerged from the former Soviet bloc. Eicher disagrees over this term. ‘I heard Pärt as a completely independent composer, not as a representative of any movement.’ But the ways in which Pärt crafts the timbres of organs, bells and voices into a concentrated resonance, sit very comfortably with the label’s underlying melancholy.

Critics of Eicher’s label often highlight the way ECM crafted a sophisticated, even cultish identity for itself amidst the confusion of 70s jazz. And in many ways ECM is a considerable marketing success. Eicher remains insistent that the label’s catalogue itself defies ideology. Despite criticisms of ECM’s Northern European ethos, this is certainly a truly remarkable aspect of ECM’s output. Perhaps the beauty of Eicher’s project lies in its ability to marry adventurous art with commercial performance. What is important, Eicher stresses, is his devotion to production values that defy mass consumption. ‘We carry on, one album at a time.’

Milja Fenger never intended to come to Oxford. Born in a small town in Holland, she came to England for the first time when she was eighteen to take part in a two week directing course at East 15 drama school, famous for its unusual rehearsal methods, many of which Fenger has adapted for her own rehearsals.

I ask about a technique she uses called laughter runs.  ‘Laughing is actually really hard – we need to laugh more. I thought that if people had giggle fits together, then they wouldn’t be ashamed of opening up in front of each other. English people are often quite guarded – they’re scared of doing something wrong so I make them do something crazy.

‘I don’t think good acting is about being slick or witty, it’s about emotion and freeing your own imagination.’

To date Fenger has written over fifteen plays, and with her second full-length play, I Am Green, she was accepted onto the Royal Court’s Young Writers Program. Her first screenplay – The Road Home, about an Indian boy brought up in England who is forced to return to India – has toured over 50 festivals world-wide as well as winning the Jury Award at the Palm Springs Festival and shortlisted for the Best Short Film Oscar for 2012.

I ask a little more about Mephisto, the play she is directing at the Oxford Playhouse in 6th week. Based on the autobiographical novel by Klaus Mann, Mephisto tells the true story of the rise and fall of a radical cabaret troupe during Hitler’s rise to power. Fenger is hesitant to give too much away; ‘Mephisto is an incredible story: it’s about sexuality and race and politics and moral compromise. And it’s about the power and responsibility of theatre – most of the play takes place in various dingy theatres with the actors playing actors and performing to another audience: its very ‘meta’.’

Moving on, I mention something about student drama ultimately being about having fun. She chuckles, ‘I didn’t do it for fun. I did it for a challenge and because I think it’s an incredible story and a brilliant cast. At the moment I don’t have a life, I just have rehearsals – about 40 hours a week. I don’t even see my own boyfriend!’

Why, then, does Fenger do it? ‘It’s important to think about how other people live. Living is hard and it’s not easy to make decisions. This is where theatre can help us – at its best theatre can be extraordinarily powerful – and I love that. If there is anything that I do well it’s just because I am curious about the world and about human nature.’

Finally, I couldn’t help but ask what was coming up next for such an accomplished and up-and-coming director. Again she is hesitant to give too much away, ‘I have been commissioned to write a feature film. I can’t say for whom because you will know what the film is about. All I can say is that it’s set in Columbia…’

I try my luck to find out some details. ‘I’m sorry – confidentiality contract! As for theatre, I’ve said in the past that Mephisto would be my last play in Oxford as I should really get back to studying – I love my course- but actually I might do just one more…’

Despite his best efforts, Chekhov’s works are often more tragic than funny.  Director Jessie Norman, in this production of seven of his short plays, intends to offer an antithesis to this common perception. From the pun-inspired posters to the physical comedy and absurdist humour, these plays promise to be light, finely-tuned and about as far from The Seagull as it is possible to get.

The excerpt I was shown consisted of two ten minute plays, The Alien Corn and The Sneeze. The first was an exchange between a brash Russian landowner, Kamyshev, and  a timid French tutor, Champugne, who has stayed on the Russian man’s estate despite the fact that all the children have grown up and left home. Chekhov, being Chekhov, uses the mild xenophobia of the landowner to reveal something of his loneliness, and the interplay between the narrator’s introduction and the sketch itself is what brings the piece out of the realm of pure comedy.

The Sneeze, while also very light on the surface, equally drew out the terror of a junior official at the prospect of offending his superior. The actors will all take on several roles across the seven plays, and even in the two shorts I saw showed an admirable versatility – special mention should go to Ed Barr-Sim for his leap from morose servitude as a footman to panicky fervour as the minor official in the second play.

Although I did not see set or costumes, the plans sound interesting and innovative. The scene changes, Norman tells me, will be effected by the actors themselves without the use of blackouts, to give a parlour or music-hall air to proceedings.

The most exciting aspect of the set promises to be a live string quartet, with music composed specifically for the production. The Sneeze used the string music to add to the physical comedy, and the music will also be used to choreograph the scene changes.

If all goes to plan, this promises to be both a fun and polished production. The short pieces I saw were well rehearsed and, for the most part, trod the line between comedy and farce well. The Sneeze veered a little into over-hammed comedy, as much must be communicated by face and gesture, but this will probably be tempered by the first night.

Overall, I was impressed by the strong cast of versatile actors and some excellent and innovative direction. 

4 stars