A great piece by the BBC yesterday alerted us to the presence of Islington's Classic Album Sundays. At these events, held at Linton Street's Hanbury Arms, music fans gather to listen to classic albums in full without interruptions. The idea was inspired by a blog post from DJ Greg Wilson who felt as though listening to music had become a passive activity. Rather than it being something we set out to do, music had become merely a background to working, sitting on the internet, or tweeting from your phone. Indeed, we find that we consume albums the best these days when we are out of the house, probably traveling, with nothing else to do but listen to the sounds coming in through our probably not very good mp3 player headphones.
Colleen Murphy, aka Cosmodelica, loved Greg's idea and started Classic Album Sundays: A Communal and Audiophile Listening Experience last year. Everyone's welcome and so far the group have listened through to The Beatles 'Abbey Road', Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' and De La Soul's '3 Feet and Rising'. Each event costs £5 and starts with pizza at 5pm, with the album on at 7pm. Mobile phones should be turned off, no entry will be allowed once the album has started, and the album will be played in full including any silences. Most importantly you're asked to save the chat for after the album has finished.
It sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon and the next classic album to receive the Cosmodelica treatment will be Stevie Wonder's 'Innervisions' on Sunday, February 13. Full details can be found on the event's facebook page.
Photo by Peyri
