Retro

I was at a meeting in Accrington, this morning. Normally I'd leave via the M65 if I was going to the office or maybe through the Trough of Bowland if I was heading back home. Today, though, I went into Accrington town centre, chasing rumours of that most elusive of beasts; a physical branch of Lloyds Bank.

I didn't see much of the town on the way to pay my cheque in, to be honest, as I had my eyes down on my satnav but, business done, I felt an uncharacteristic confidence in my ability to find my way back to the car without any satellite-based assistance, so I was able to lift my head and have a look 'round.

Like most towns, by which I mean places spared the traumas of the second world war, Accrington's buildings are a mixture of the old and the new. And while that works in some places, I must admit that in Accrington - or at least the part I walked through - the cocktail of brick and concrete, woodwork and stone seemed forced and uncomfortable.

Is architecture unique in this respect? If I think about other cultural artefacts, like cars, for example, what's new, the latest tweak of the sweep of bodywork or the clumsily futuristic headlights, soon becomes the new normal, and, within years, dated. Those cars that stay in service long enough can be come vintage or at least ironic. But with buildings, they hang around long after architectural fashions and construction methods have moved on. They cannot leave and return as retro a few years later.

Its funny but I don't remember 'retro' being such a thing when I was young in the seventies in eighties. It seems to me we were pushing relentlessly forwards, with even the twanging guitars of the early Smiths records seeming curiously old fashioned. What does it say about our culture that we are so backward-facing now? 

This week I bought an album of electronica that was being sold to raise funds for the Labour party. Normally, I prefer to buy a CD rather than simply download tracks but on this occasion my options were MP3s or cassette. Now I am exactly old enough to have lived through the perils and frustrations of cassette tape and whilst I will admit to such retro activities as using a safety razor, I draw the line at using something crap just because it's not modern. 

That said, Dan took a trip today to the music shop where he works and bought himself an analogue delay pedal (the 'Carbon copy', fact fans). Again, I'm old enough to remember when we were all super excited about everything - synthesisers, drum machines, and, indeed, effects - all going digital. But it's like Eno says*, once a technology has been improved or superseded, the irritations and limitations of that technology become a matter of choice, and part of our cultural and artistic palette.

So perhaps it is more that as a consequence of the fast moving decades of the post-war years, we have simply found ourselves with more choice. The novelty of change has worn thin and, enabled by our hipster curators, we're now looking back at an embarrassment of riches, which maybe we discarded all too hastily.

*Something like that, anyway. I'm quoting from memory.

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-7.8kgs
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