Taking a River Explorer Cruise aboard Snowdrop the Dazzle Ferry is the best way to appreciate it in all its glory whilst learning more about dazzle history through the on board exhibition panels. Supported by Arts Council England, National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Department for Culture Media and Sport. By the end of the war, more than four thousand ships had been painted with these mesmerizing designs. These stunning patterns and colors were meant to confuse the enemy about a ship's speed and direction.
The Dazzle Ferry, called ‘Everybody Razzle Dazzle’, is the only operating dazzle ship in the UK and the design has been commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, 14–18 NOW the First World War Centenary Art Commissions, and Tate Liverpool in partnership with Merseytravel and National Museums Liverpool. Desperate to protect ships from German torpedo attacks, British lieutenant-commander Norman Wilkinson proposed what became known as dazzle. Each ship’s pattern used unique colour and monochrome designs – to avoid making classes of vessels recognisable to enemy U-boats and aircraft. They worked by ‘baffling the eye’ and making the ships difficult to target. Overall, initially they were an inventive, unpredictable, surprising group who crafted some very unique moods, feelings and emotions through their music, and didn't really pander or conform to any fashions or fads.The eye-catching dazzle design is in honour of the patterns that were first used on vessels in World War One. OMD I suppose were never seen as 'cool', even by their own admission (there's a youtube video interview with them which they say as much, and that they made mistakes by trying to be too 'pop' later on, which is when they really took a dive creatively after this record. They suffered from having the piss taken out of them initially, and later on by other musicians like Julian Cope. The first 4 OMD LP's are great albums, and sadly under rated. I was the founding Editor-In-Chief of RWD magazine, which I grew from a niche title printing 5,000 copies a month, into. It's almost a continuation of their previous 'Architecture.' LP which I love as I think that one is the pinnacle of their career. I find this kind of experimentation is lacking in today's pop/indie bands, which is a real shame. I like it because it's pretty far out experimental for a chart pop band. Now however I can listen to it all the way through without skipping any tracks. I have grown to really like this LP, bought it on release played it a few times and filed it away. "This is Helena", "Telegraph", "Silent Running" & "Of all the things we've made". But the patterns of dazzle camouflage as it became known (in America, baffle painting or razzle dazzle) could distort a ship’s bow and stern, giving a false heading. If you like electronic music with a dash of Czech radio signals. but there is a homemade quality to OMD's process.
That led me forward to Stockhausen, Cage, Crumb, Sobotnik and many others. Give it a chance and don't go into it with preconceptions about pop When they followed up with the almost mainstream Junk Culture.
They hated OMD for being experimental and then bemoaned them for being commercial Not surprised that so many artists were influenced by this avant-garde collectiveĭazzle Ships certainly dazed the critics and confused them to no end. However, it is an album I go to again and again discovering new parts and I am My first introduction to the concept of Musique Concrete.Īn arresting and mind boggling venture that would prove not to be lucrative. This led to Dazzle Ships (and the subsequent singles) being issued on a made-up subsidiary label called Telegraph. This featured a yellow triangle against a pink background with a pink triangle against a yellow background on the reverse.Īlthough OMD had now switched to parent company Virgin following the collapse of the DinDisc subsidary, there was a feeling that OMD would benefit from appearing to maintain an independent position.
Dazzle ships series#
The initial sleeve was a gatefold which opened to show a map of the world with a series of holes that revealed the inner sleeve. After suggesting the idea and title to Andy, Saville carried the theme over to the sleeve design. Wadsworth himself supervised the dazzle painting of many ships. Peter Saville had seen the painting Dazzle Ships In Drydock At Liverpool (1919) by the painter Edward Wadsworth and was struck by the image.ĭazzle Ships were World War 1 warships that had been painted in fractured and disjointed lines to confuse the enemy as to their exact size and distance.
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