The Week in Winter

Winter has arrived. While this officially starts during the months of December, the recent snowfall (York pictured to the right, photo taken earlier today) had signalled a de facto initiation. Spare a thought to all the traders in stalls today participating in the St. Nicolas Fayre, whose stock was in places blanketed by snow and were constantly frozen themselves! Having volunteered at Holy Trinity Goodramgate Church on Friday morning I can empathise; stone floors eat through the thickest boots to make your feet cold, and unless you have gloves your hands are going to be frozen. That said, it looks nice outside for once, and I haven't had any major difficulties getting anywhere by foot.

This week has been fairly busy, with dissertation ideas being floated (I have a crazy idea about social dynamics that I want to expand on, but I'm awaiting a literature review on that one, so watch this space) work hours increasing, and module work to be done. In addition, my Post Hole article (see SoT passim) has triggered a welcome response from a certain Mr. Roberts in the latest issue of the Department's student-run electronic journal, and can be viewed here. I found his paper to be an interesting constructive critique, but not serious enough to warrant a head-on riposte. In my future planned articles I may have to address certain points, however.

Astute readers will have also noticed the creation of a standalone page, accessable via the link to the right. This is a home for my most representative essays, and currently houses one on postprocessualism and fieldwork. I may have to abridge it, however, since no one wants to read something 3000 words long recreationally!

Following complaints about the lack of a Sunday Song in last week's special blogpost, I am now proud to present this week's edition: Joy Division's Disorder.



Following the acquisition of a set of speakers, my musical sensibilities this week have been turned towards good stereo songs. Top of the experiment list has been Joy Division's (1979) debut album opener, Disorder, which was produced by Martin Hannett. Interviews by former band members later on revealed that the spacious, echoing sound that characterises Unknown Pleasures-era Joy Division was inspired by Hannett's own state-of-the-art soundsystem -thus leading him to tailor music to that rather than to the standard LP players that everyone had at the time.

I like Disorder because of its strange, empty soundscape -in many ways it puts me in mind of 70's academic books about computing or geometry. I can't listen to such dehumanised music for long, though, and it's very easy to over-listen to Joy Division, but this song, along with its lyrics vocalised by a heavily sedated-sounding Ian Curtis, is perhaps one of the most coherent, streamlined and listenable songs that band ever did.

Note: next week's SoT blogpost will be a -very exciting!- Sunday Song special.