The very overdue return of Reverie Sound Revue

Have been listening a lot to Reverie Sound Review, the Calgary-based offshoot of Broken Social Scene. They remind me of the Cardigans, around the release of Life, for all their bittersweet melodies and delightful wistfulness. The five-piece have left it nearly seven years since the release of their début EP and the recorded the entire album without once being in the studio together. You can’t tell.

Thanks to Chromewaves for the following links:

MP3: Reverie Sound Revue – “An Anniversary Away”
MP3: Reverie Sound Revue – “Rip The Universe”
MP3: Reverie Sound Revue – “Arrows”
Video: Reverie Sound Revue – “An Anniversary Away”
MySpace: Reverie Sound Revue

Why revenge is a wild justice

of empire by francis bacon

Originally uploaded by daniel arnold!

Quick word on the release of Munir Hussain, the rich businessman who was jailed for severely beating an intruder who had kidnapped his family at knife-point, but has now been freed on appeal. I stumbled across this quote from Francis Bacon, the Elizabethan philosopher, which questions the popular perception that Hussain might have suffered rough justice the first time around. Although I have sympathy with any man who tries to defend his family, I though thought the wisdom of Bacon to be apt.

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior …”

The Guardian’s technology supplement finally goes to the great online archive in the sky

Another break from blogging (this time to make way for the birth of our lovely daughter) which meant that I missed commenting on the passing of the Guardian’s Technology supplement in the week before Christmas. It was a sad day, for me, to see the paper section finally go offline, not least because it had been given my first big break in journalism. Without the section (pictured, right) I might never have enjoyed many of the opportunities to develop my journalistic career; might never have seen quite so much of the world; and, by extension, never have met my darling Anna one fateful day in Helsinki without the network of contacts the section gave me access to. It’s not the end of an era, but it is the passing of a part of my life that proved pivotal. It was, however, really sweet, or more accurately bittersweet, to be remembered in the final issue, mind. This following comment by the section’s last editor, Charles Arthur, unexpected as it was, made me giggle when I stumbled across it one morning in the university library:

“Of the thousands of words that I’ve edited in Guardian Technology since November 2005, none has delighted me quite so much as the opening of Sean Dodson’s article in May 2006: “In 1824 an English bricklayer named Joseph Aspdin rediscovered one of the great secrets of the ancient world.” It has it all: mystery, storytelling, and most of all it’s about the sort of technology that you can drop on your foot. (Don’t quite recall what he rediscovered? Find out online).”

The section will continue online and in different parts of the paper. But it will be missed. Thanks to Vic, Jack, Neil and Charles for all the help you gave me.

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The Severn subsides

worcester 040

Originally uploaded by seandodson

The river returned to the river this morning. For a week it has been camped out, swollen and brooding, on the riverside walk, spilling ominously over the barriers and threatening to flood the whole city. I am ashamed to admit that I was rather fascinated by the prospect a real life flood in Worcester, being recently moved to the city and the resident of a hill.

But by this morning the Severn had subsided. Fresh on the south parade, which yesterday had been under water, was a thin layer of river sand, red and muddy, like a beach after the rain. The swans were back reclaiming their rightful place on the river after a week of hiding on the higher banks or mooching around the flooded racecourse ground. But this morning they were back centre stage, so to speak, taking excitedly to the river like children skating on newly frozen ice. They stretched their wings, now flapping, now gliding, and searched hungry for food until a nice lady pulled up in her car and sprinkled a bag full of crumbs for them.

I looked back on to the foreshore. Everything was coated in dust, in the fine silt, rusty and smooth, as if autumn itself had been pummelled into powder and spread, like the breadcrumbs, right across the scene.

Exhibition: Birmingham Seen

Just returned from a fascinating exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG). Apart from a few nights out to Snobs (when it was a house club in the early 90s) and one visit when I was at University, for which I can no longer recall the reason, I’ve never really known what to make of Birmingham. I’ve recently moved to the West Midlands, however, and been dragged, like some unsuspecting meteorite, into its gravitational orbit. Birmingham Seen is a really excellent exhibition, a perfect primer to the city for an outsider like me. It’s full of urban landscape paintings, some very detailed old photographs, Balladian photos of the abandoned Longbridge car plant and (above) Barbara Walker’s lovely paintings. I saw the city as a native might, at least for an afternoon

* Birmingham Seen: Birmingham City Museum and Gallery Until 3rd January 2010. Admission Free.

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Ben Kelly: Hacienda silk prints recall the clubs halcyon days

Ben Kelly, the architect of the Hacienda, has released this stunning pair of limited edition prints (above) of the legendary Mancunian club. They are not photos, nor paintings but digital renderings from a full-scale digital model being produced to celebrate its 25th anniversary. £600 each, £1000 the pair (via the excellent Cerysmatic Factory)

Why I love the recordings of the Middle East

There was a time in my life when I could blog more frequently and thoroughly than this. So I need to be brief. The Middle East, from Queensland Australia are the best new band I’ve heard all year. They’ve just released their debut EP. The Recordings of the Middle East. You can download it from their offical site. What do they sound like? Like shoegazers with better melodies. Like the Arcade Fire’s over-sensitive younger sibling. Like Surjan Stevens without the religion or naivite. Take my word for it or listen for yourself.

The Middle East: The Darkest Side
The Middle East: Blood

A goodbye to the Berlin wall

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. So far nothing has beaten the New York Times’s excellent interactive feature on the route of the Berliner Mauer (thanks Chris). The way you can slide between the images of then and now is one of the most inspired uses of interactivity I think I’ve ever seen on a newspaper website. It is distinctive because it has an almost Victorian slowness to it, like the kind of end-of-the-pier attraction you only ever come across in museums, these days.

Other coverage of note (I’ll hopefully add more later): Jana Scholze, writing in Icon Magazine, on the final demolition of another symbol of post-war Berlin. The Palast Der Republik (above) doubled as the DDR’s parliament building and, I kid you not, a discotheque.

“The “Palace of the Republic” was somehow the anti-symbol of the socialist reality while at the same time representing the ideals and visions of its people. The modernist glass and steel box by architect Heinz Graffunder seemed to represent a young country confidently looking into its future. True to its name, it was a house for the people. Its open doors and easy accessibility signified the intended audience: everyone, the whole republic. It was a place to go, to meet, to spend time. Not surprisingly, many visitors to the Palast seemed unaware of its main function: it was the seat of the DDR’s parliament.”

Also worth looking at is Timothy Garton Ash, writing in the Guardian, on the precise moment the cold war ended:

The first frontier crossing to be opened was at Bornholmerstrasse, on a bridge that goes over the S-Bahn, the overground city railway. My friend Werner Krätschell, a pastor of the East German protestant church which did much to shelter the East German opposition, was among the early ones to come across. It was soon after 11pm. The frontier guards put a stamp in his ID card, across his photograph. He checked with them that he could come back.

No, they replied, that stamp means you are emigrating permanently. He had left two young children at home, so he tried to turn round his car, to go back. But just as he was trying to turn round, in the narrow frontier crossing leading on to the bridge, a frontier soldier came running up and shouted to his colleague: “Comrade, a new order! They can come back.” So Werner drove on into the west.

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The best cup of hot chocolate in Worcester

The best cup of hot chocolate
in Worcester

Originally uploaded by
seandodson

Anna and I are beginning to settle into our new life in Worcester. The city might be a little less roomy than Brighton, but it’s perfectly charming and, surprisingly, far more cosmopolitan than its provincial reputation led us to expect. Our latest discovery is Bolero, a lovely, little Italian-flavoured cafe tucked away on St Nicolaus Street. It’s all leather sofas, free Sunday papers and shelves full of hardback art and design books for you to peruse. It’s got Blue Note and Liberty record sleeves on virtually every wall, a delightful bedecked back-yard where the smokers hang out, and table service. Not to mention this very lovely cup of caramel-flavoured hot chocolate that I devoured this afternoon.

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Classic album cover designs as postage stamps

Just love these classic album covers set out as a set of postage stamps. Particularly delighted at the inclusion of New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies which was designed by the great Peter Saville. Inevitably there’s some great covers missing. At least two odd choices too: the inclusion of both Pink Floyd’s the Division Bell and Led Zeppelin IV (top left and bottom centre respectively). To my mind, neither sleeve is a classic while Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin would seem much better choices. It’s still a nice set, mind. Sure to be as successful as last year’s British Design Classics when it’s released in early January.

According to the Royal Mail:

This issue celebrates the work of the album sleeve designer, not the music. Royal Mail began with very extensive research of existing lists and polls of ‘Greatest Album Covers’ in books, music press and the web. This trawl of literally thousands of albums uncovered many that were common to most lists.

The editors of three of the UK’s most influential music publications together with a number of graphic designers and design writers were asked to independently list the most significant album sleeve artwork used on records by British artists.

Royal Mail reviewed all the research to assemble a shortlist of albums that spanned the decades from the 1960s. Some albums could not be included for operational reasons (for instance, designs that were too dark), after final deliberation the ten albums were arrived at.

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