MusicInOxford's 10th anniversary - Dive Dive, Kogumaza, Richard Walters & Seabuckthorn

Event information

Believe it or not, MusicinOxford.co.uk is ten years old this summer - predecessor OxfordBands.com kicked off in 2001 and has been covering the best in Oxford's music since then.
To celebrate, we're relaunching our monthly live music shows, bringing you the best Oxfordshire has to offer, alongside some great bands from across the UK and beyond.
DIVE DIVE

We're delighted to have Dive Dive, a band who've supported us since the very early days of the site, headlining our first show.

Dive Dive are a British rock band formed in 2000 and composed of Jamie Stuart (guitar & vocals), Ben Lloyd (guitar & vocals), Nigel Powell (drums & vocals) and Tarrant Anderson (bass guitar). Our debut LP, "Tilting At Windmills", came out in 2005 and included two singles that got into the top ten of the UK Independent Singles Chart ("555 For Filmstars" and "The Sorry Suitor"). We were also championed by John Peel, for whom we recorded a number of sessions at the BBC Maida Vale studios and performed live on his Radio One show. We spent most of our time touring the UK non-stop in the back of a clapped out Ford Transit borrowed from a friend of ours. Towards the end of this period we released our second album, "Revenge of the Mechanical Dog" (2007).

In 2006 Ben, Nigel and Tarrant started playing as full time members of Frank Turner's live band, which they continue to do. Dive Dive's third full length release, "Potential", was released on Xtra Mile on January 17th 2011.


A bewilderingly underrated gem of British Rock Music (9/10)
- ROCKSOUND

Sharp, crafted and thrillingly melodious punk (4Ks)
- KERRANG!


Pure aggressive pop-rock (Single of the Week)
- THE INDEPENDENT

The best British rock band of the last two years
- DROWNED IN SOUND

KOGUMAZA

Beautiful percussion patterns support cyclic riffs of thick, shimmering fuzz as primitive melodies and harmonies are layered on top of each other. Hypnotic loops emerge from the murk and reveal themselves, spiralling into your brain to remain lodged there, sound-tracking your most mundane actions with a peaceful pulse forever more.

By using just two electric guitars tuned in unison and a stripped down drum kit, Kogumaza make music designed to create the space and potential for personal epiphanies (big and small) on the part of the listener. In this way, they are closer to the reflective qualities of rhythm-less ambient music than they are to the bluster of rock or metal and their infinite sub-genres.

Kogumaza's desire to manipulate and mask their output both live, (courtesy of fourth member Mark Spivey who operates from behind the sound desk) and on record brings a dub-like sensibility and sensuousness to the band's sound, maximising the potential for third-mind lift-off at all times.

RICHARD WALTERS

The Guardian say this about Richard, and who are we to argue?

Richard Walters is good. Really good. He's a 26-year-old musician from Oxford, currently living in Paris, who sings mostly in a restrained falsetto over a quiet backing of guitar, piano and subtly lush strings, but the effect of what little he does, of his less-is-more approach, is considerable. His debut album The Animal is full of lovely music that sets out to prove the old adage that the hardest thing in the world, especially in the rock milieu, is to be soft. There isn't a single song, out of the 10 on the album, that even remotely succumbs to the temptation to "rock out"; every track is as hushed and haunting as the last. By the end you feel like applauding his determination not to give in to the rock-out impulse and his ability to sustain a mood of near-silent terror, anxiety and dread.

The songs may seem gentle and tender but some of the subject matter would fit a death metal LP: We Have Your Head is about Walters's brief period taking hallucinogenics, Red Brick is about epileptic seizures he had while in the States caused by the demands of playing his music in front of teams of record company executives, while the title track concerns domestic abuse, written from the point of view of the abuser. One of the tracks, All At Sea, has featured on hit forensic crime drama CSI Miami, so they obviously heard beyond the surface sweetness.

SEABUCKTHORN

As we said in a recent review of Seabuckthorn's latest album: "You simply must listen to Seabuckthorn, a most transcendental artist."