There was a point in the production phase of this edition where we tinkered with the idea of interviewing Portishead for our music section. The band were just about to curate ATP’s I’ll Be Your Mirror festival in London and, as is the case with most summer revival projects (Pavement and Faith No More anyone?), the band kept popping up on our radar for all the good reasons.

For starters, memories poured in the minute the Bristol threesome’s debut album Dummy was loaded into the player. Olivia’s house parties in Tervueren / Tervuren, teenage benders in Julie’s flat in Schaerbeek and mix tapes that, at the time, went from Portishead and Mudhoney to Rancid and The Fugees. The album was lodged in my collective conscience of the blue, next to Massive Attack’s Blue Lines, Kool Keith’s Sex Styles, Del’s I Wish My Brother George Was Here and St Germain’s Boulevard (yes, really). Indeed, Dummy’s cover art was also predominantly blue – both its front and back covers were exercises in colour-coded restraint, giving you just the information you needed whilst still leaving lots to the imagination. Above all, going through Dummy’s tracklist all over again was heart-warming and bizarrely reassuring. Like seeing that childhood friend of yours for the first time in ages and staying up all night reminiscing about your first fag, your first flunk and your first fight. Memories. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are easy, others painful. Some you’d rather erase, some you’d prefer engraving on your arm.

And so it is with our blue album. It’ll wrap you in a blanket of nostalgic warmth, cosy up to you and bring a smile (sometimes a tear) to your face. It’ll remind you of your teenage bedroom. Of that passion you used to entertain for aquariums. Of that time you actually knew the name of your neighbourhood cop. It’ll make you want to dig out those old VHS tapes of yours. It might even make you rollout the Rizzlas (blue, of course) and spark one up – just for old times sakes.

Add to that our design special, and its round-up on vintage design online galleries, and you could say we’ve been living in the past for the last few months. We promise our next edition, the white album, will see us return to our old selves though. But, just this once, it’s all about yesteryear.

The blue album. A mirror vision of our past.

Nicholas Lewis