Art Vinyl.

Art Vinyl is the original way to Play & Display your favourite music and vinyl record art. Founded in East London, we are passionate about spreading the vinyl message all over the world and celebrating record cover art. Mix Art & Music.

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Uncovered: Hiatus Kaiyote - 'Love Heart Cheat Code'

The Best Art Vinyl 2024 winning album artwork for 'Love Heart Cheat Code' by Australian Jazz/funk band Hiatus Kaiyote, receives the 'Uncovered' treatment, as we delve into the detail behind the creative process with the album's Creative Director and multi-disciplinary designer Jeremy Koren (aka Grey Ghost).

The front cover artwork is a painting by Rajni Perera discovered by the band's singer/guitarist Nai Palm who had been an admirer of Perera's work for some time and reached out to ask if the image could be used.

Perera’s art explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, migrant and marginalized identities/cultures within the symbolistic style of her painting. Perera says that the work on the album cover is about, “..acknowledging the sacred female energy that drives this universe and restores balance to it. Even by painting it I have been blessed.”

The band’s singer/guitarist Nai Palm explains further, “I found the illustrious work of Rajni Perera years ago and hit her up to ask permission to tattoo some of her work. It was for my mastectomy scar which was super important for me to challenge beauty standards, and I wanted imagery that was both powerful but effeminate. The art for Love Heart Cheat Code was a piece of hers that already existed and was to be the final piece in my tattoo, but ended being right for the album. It was sentimental to close that chapter of my life with this record and imagery. I love that the line work has strong design elements and the blue took many attempts with me working directly with the layout designer finding the right Pantone. I subsequently learnt A LOT about blue and how light affects how we perceive colour. The artwork is simple yet refined, and totally striking.”  

Jeremy Koren gets into the detail and tell us, "The process was a case of Nai Palm bringing the artwork by Rajni Perera to the band - who all fell in love it, as did I."

Jeremy told us that at first there were talks of adding typography to the cover artwork, but eventually it was decided to keep the whole album creative as symbols inspired by Perera's image, so he and the band enlisted the help of another artist Chloé Biocca for the back cover to help create a simple, yet expansive set of symbols representing each of the songs.

Jeremy explains, "The idea arose to create a symbol and discoverable 'artifacts' around each of the songs on the album. 11 songs with 11 symbols giving a physical exclusive associated to each track."

Using symbol references (seen below) Jeremy would sketch concepts based on conversations with the band.

He explains that, "These initial sketches were torn apart, fleshed out, reworked then reassembled to be the clean tattooable images by Chloé Biocca that are found on the back cover."

Looking more closely at the creative process for one of the album track's symbol 'Everything Is Beautiful' Jeremy shared the process with us.

The inspiration for the symbol came from the mood board below to create a Flower + Infinity image.

From this a vector image was created

The creative didn't end there and the team hit on the potential for 'Cult Literature' inspiration, using this symbol and a typeface inspired by cult propaganda literature. As part of the album promotion, the band set up a cult-like stall in front of Melbourne Library and handed out pamphlets created with details for the track, lyrics, photographs and a QR code to unlock a pre-save of the music.

The Love Heart Cheat Code creative took on a life of its own around the band's tour campaign, with the idea of a LHCC MART Convenience Store filled with products named after the song titles, each using their unique symbol to create a brand. Hilarious and decidedly tongue-in-cheek adverts were filmed, using the album's audio and featuring the band members.

Jeremy tells us, "We took all these symbols into a further LHCC (Love Heart Cheat Code) MART which were Pop Up Supermarkets with products using the symbols, plus stupid ads we made in the vein of naff 1980s Supermarket Commercials."

He continues, "We also created a giant fluffy life sized mascot in the shape of the Love Heart Cheat Code Symbol, his name is 'Handsome' and he jumps up on stage and has his own problems now."

  

Australian born Jeremy Koren (Grey Ghost) is the award winning Director of ‘Ghostie’ his Melbourne-based studio. Aside from Creative Directing for Hiatus Kaiyote, Koren is also known for styling Khalid for awards shows, directing music videos for Troye Sivan and breaking the internet with his Kanye/Coachella antics (look it up for a laugh). He has created multiple global campaigns including music videos for acts including Ruel, Tones & I, Cautious Clay, SG Lewis, Troye Sivan and, of course, Hiatus Kaiyote.

Photo by Michelle Grace Hunder

We couldn't be more pleased with our expert judging panel for choosing Haitus Kaiyote's album artwork as the winner of our annual art prize. Not only is the cover art award winning, but the surreal album promo surrounding it with symbols, products, short films and fluffy mascots deserves a prize of its own!

Love Heart Cheat Code by Hiatus Kaiyote is the Best Art Vinyl 2024 winner. Released on Brainfeeder Records and Ninja Tune.

Creative Direction by Hiatus Kaiyote & Grey Ghost Symbol art by Chloe Biocca, in collaboration with Hiatus Kaiyote, Grey Ghost and Lauren YS. Layout by Adam Fitness Product Design by Sean Preston

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: Beggars Arkive - BBC Radio Sessions, Vol. 1 Various Artists

The highly anticipated 2024 BBC Radio Sessions vinyl series from the Beggars Group is released with a brand new cohesive box set re-design consisting of ten separate 12” vinyl records featuring ten performances recorded for John Peel.

All incorporated into a bespoke foil-numbered record box, this super collectable limited edition box set from the Beggars archives, is available exclusively for subscribers and we were lucky enough to speak to Designer, Carter O'Sullivan and Archives Manager, Florence Pick from the Beggars Group, to find out more about the project.

The sessions on each of the records span 30 years, from the 1970s to the 2000s and capture the raw, unfiltered essence of BBC radio performances recorded for John Peel. The famous Peel Sessions were always renowned for featuring both emerging and established artists, providing a platform for exclusive and ground-breaking recordings. And this unique limited-edition boxset brings these rare recordings, from some of the most influential artists in Beggars’ extensive archive, together with a design sense of uniformity and simplicity, whilst ensuring each record had its own unique character.

Florence explained that the inspiration for the design was inspired by BBC branding and artwork from the 70s and 80s, “A lot of early BBC artwork inspired us, very boxy plain artwork and simple bold colours.”

Carter elaborates, “We were under some strict design constraints, as we couldn’t use original artwork as there was none for these specific radio sessions. We also didn’t want to use photographs of the different bands as it could start to look very mismatched with the different visual aesthetics of photography. So we had to start from scratch and find a way to represent all of the radio sessions in a cohesive box set. I started to look at BBC branding and infographics from the 70s and 80s, as a lot of the recordings were made around that time.”

Carter continues, “We then spoke as a team about refining the design down to 3 simple things, block shapes, colour and texture. Each of these visual characteristics create a visual language that can be played with, chopped and changed to represent the music inside. Once we had settled on the shapes and layout of the text for each record, we then had the fun task of selecting a range of 10 pairs of colours that flow cohesively, so when you collect all 10 records they fit together on your shelf.”

The creative was taken back to basics as Carter told us, “With the artwork being very stripped back focusing on three simple principles of colour, shape and texture. The technique of creating a tight grid system was used for each of the blocks on the front and back cover. Along with using the beautiful range of colours Pantone has to offer so when printing the colours were as close to what we had envisioned as possible.” 

Tubeway Army

Bauhaus

Electrelane

The Beggars group has an impressive heritage with origins stemming from the Beggars Banquet record shops in London, whose first branch opened in 1973 in Earls Court. The label was born in 1977 with the 7” release of the ‘Free Admission Single’ by The Lurkers. Success was quick to follow via one of the first signings, Gary Numan. Chaired by founder Martin Mills, Beggars Group now comprises many of the world’s most respected independent labels and is home to 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young, in addition to a growing publishing wing ‘Beggars Music’ and the successful catalogue imprint ‘Beggars Arkive’ from which this release hails.

Florence Pick works in the archive department at Beggars and helps to release their back catalogue in new and interesting ways, working closely with the art department and music artists. She comes from a record shop background and says “vintage vinyl & sleeve art is something I have always cared about and understand the importance of preserving and crafting exclusive products for music fans.”

Carter O'Sullivan joined the art department at Beggars during the midst of 2020 covid and has have worked across projects from new releases such as Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘In Times New Roman…’ to reissues like Death Cult’s ‘Paradise Now’. He says, “Getting to be a part of the creative process for such artists and bands I grew up on has been a life achievement and continuing to push what’s possible where art and music meet will be forever interesting to me.” 

We couldn't put it better ourselves...exploring what's possible where art and music meet is our passion and we can't wait to get all 10 of these beautifully packaged records framed and displayed on the office walls!

BBC Radio Sessions, Vol. 1 Various Artists is released on Beggars Arkive as a subscription service that started in January 2024 with the final record of the series, 'Electrelane' released at the end of October. An Annual Vinyl Subscription for the Collector's Box Set Promo includes:

 The Fall BBC Radio Sessions 1 Vinyl, 12”

 Folk Devils BBC Radio Sessions 2 Vinyl, 12”

 Stereolab BBC Radio Sessions 3 Vinyl, 12”

 Moonshake BBC Radio Sessions 4 Vinyl, 12”

 Bauhaus BBC Radio Sessions 5 Vinyl, 12”

 China Drum BBC Radio Sessions 6 Vinyl, 12”

 Tubeway Army BBC Radio Sessions 7 Vinyl, 12”

 Mouse on Mars BBC Radio Sessions 8 Vinyl, 12”

 BBC Radio Sessions 9 Vinyl, 12”

 BBC Radio Sessions 10 Vinyl, 12”

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: The Ninja Tales

3. Machinedrum - 3FOR82 (2024)

To complete our trilogy of ‘The Ninja Tales’, Part III takes a look at the hidden spot gloss ASCII artwork for Travis Steward's aka Machinedrum’s 11th studio album, 3FOR82 out on Ninja Tune on 24th May 2024. It is reported that Stewart crafted the album during a pilgrimage to Joshua Tree National Park, California, to seek clarity and inspiration, saying, “..I knew that I should, at some point in my life, go out there to work on something creatively.” 

Fascinated by the outwardly simple artwork that, in reality has many hidden depths, we caught up with graphic designer and Machinedrum's Creative Director, Joseph Durnan and Ninja Tune’s Head of Production, Sean Preston to understand more about the process for creating the album’s hidden code artwork using The Demoscene. For us mere mortals unfamiliar with The Demoscene, it is an international computer art subculture made up of a worldwide network of creative minds, focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations.

Joseph told us, “One component we latched onto early was the Demoscene's challenge of keeping file sizes as low as possible while maximising the complexity of the demos. ASCII art, halftoning, and duotone degrading helped express that idea, with legendary demoscener TPOLM's art and Travis' (Machinedrum) personal artefacts from his teenage years acting as source material. The words flooding the sleeve and hidden code are nods to personal messages within Demoscene culture—references to in-jokes, cryptic sayings and messages to other demo makers. I liked how this type of content could either seem conceptual and esoteric to an outsider, or something between total gibberish and a confusing nerdy joke. Blending this with the 3FOR82 process involved using personal numbers related to birth dates, in-studio references among the album collaborators, and redundant information about the WAV files for the album tracks.”

Accompanying the record is a 16-page boutique zine. Joseph explains, “The accompanying zine goes deeper into the archival aspect, including rules from a quest-style video game imagined by Machinedrum as a child and a transcript from his first-ever interview. It also features nostalgic cyber-culture-style artwork contributions from Sensory Works and bitmapped photos from studio shoots with Tinashe and AK the Saviour.”

The limited edition translucent yellow glow vinyl edition, includes an alternative Dinked album art oversleeve and Joseph told us more about this, “For the limited edition Dinked art, TDR's Ian Anderson "3FOR82" font was degraded via an online ASCII art converter, overlaid with the T-26 font "Bias” for the MACHINEDRUM type. The font non-coincidentally looks good with Ian's logotype because a lot of the T26 foundry's typefaces made their way into his designs in the 90s and early 00s - which is widely held up as an era defining body of work within that world. Something definitive of the visual language of electronic music was how much of the artwork developed with technology, mirroring the way the Demoscene visuals have mutated over the past 30 years.” 

Ninja Tune’s Head of Production, Sean Preston worked alongside Durnan on the album artwork and gave us his insight into the creative process.

He told us, “I think if anyone else other than Joe had come to me with the premise for the latest Machinedrum album I would’ve done all I could to put them off, but having suffered under the designer’s collaboration for several years, I was all too aware of his penchant for ASCII art, glitchy graphics, and secret gifts/traps buried deep within pixel data for me to find. Sometimes, where you land with the final packaging on a record, is more pleasing or rewarding because of the pitfalls laid before it, most of which in this instance we couldn’t have known ahead of the course.” 

Sean explains, "Initially pencilled for manufacture in Ireland, we had to pivot to printing some of the sleeves there, stickers, zine booklet and o-card (for the Dinked edition) in three separate locations in the UK, and pressing the vinyl in France. The danger in working that way is that most printers have their own calibration settings for sleeves and o-card sizes. It also presents a risk to hitting colour consistency across the print parts. Getting printers to talk about these things with each other isn’t always a harmonious of fruitful pursuit, but with a good amount of physical proofing, some nervy stress tests, the record comes together really well.”

We asked more about the 16 page zine insert and Sean explained, “The zine booklet, complete with French folds, feels like a real artefact, centring the artwork’s ambition on an uncoated offset paper and card. The outer sleeve is 6-colour, utilising a bright Pantone Green and Pantone Orange against a CMYK composite, overlaid with a blind spot varnish. A blind varnish is a varnish that doesn’t necessarily correspond to the colour artwork it is printed on. Often when you see this, the blind varnish is vibrant, blind only in name, and usually employed as large block text, which requires a certain level of legibility. I visited the printer near Dublin specifically to get the right amount of subtlety to the overlaid varnish. Because of the miniscule, dotted areas occupied by the varnish, the traditional method of varnishing wasn’t going to give us the fine detail desired. The beauty of working with the sort of printer we did (AngloPrinters in Drogheda, around 45 mins north of Dublin) is that they are experienced and agile enough to recognise intention and move to solutions that benefit the artistic purpose. The finished sleeve now holds a finely detailed varnish that is present in light, but subtle enough to maintain the overall clandestine aesthetic that pervades the album’s artwork and music.”

3FOR82 by Machinedrum is released on Ninja Tune on 24th May 2024. Artwork by Joseph Durnan [124 World]. Typography by Ian Anderson (The Designers Republic). Record FlipFrames by Art Vinyl.

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: The Ninja Tales

2. Mr Scruff - Trouser Jazz Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition (2023) AND Ninja Tuna Deluxe Triple LP out today! (29/03/24)

Part II of our ‘Ninja Tales’ series for our ‘Uncovered’ blog explores the creative for two re-releases from Manchester’s own Andy Carthy aka Mr Scruff on Ninja Tune. We speak to Ninja Tune's Head of Production, Sean Preston to get the full story.

Former fine art student at Sheffield University, DJ and Cartoonist, Andy Carthy’s iconic line art cartoon drawings have illustrated gig flyers, record sleeves and merchandise and usually accompany him at gigs as live animated visuals. Mr Scruff's cartoons feature across his body of work are a big part of his identity, instantly recognisable to electronic music fans.

Trouser Jazz, originally released in 2002, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Deluxe anniversary edition on a double LP with blue/red vinyl to match the cover palette of the original iconic artwork by Mr. Scruff & Airside with an “infinity” peelable trouser sticker on the cover to reveal silver and gold foiled 20th anniversary trousers. 

Ninja Tuna, the fourth studio album by Mr Scruff, originally released on CD in 2008 through Carthy's personal Ninja Tune, is the latest Mr Scruff album to get a fancy makeover and is released on 29th March 2024. Now available for the first time on vinyl, the record is presented as a deluxe triple LP housed in a gatefold greyboard sleeve, complete with bonus tracks, pressed on Biovinyl and also with an “infinity” peelable tuna sticker on the cover.

We spoke to Ninja Tune’s Head of Production, Sean Preston to get the story behind the creative.

Sean explains, “These two records first came out decades ago when budget and RRP limited what we could do. Ninja Tuna didn’t even get a vinyl release. The two new versions utilise the same "gecko sticker” design to take a product concept and roll it out across the act's work. When ‘Trouser Jazz’ came up for an anniversary edition, it felt like a really good opportunity to delve into the original artwork, honour it, and bring it to life. It’s a fun, interactive and borderline silly design package, that is apposite to Scruff’s playful and tongue-in-cheek cartoons.”

He continues, “I had become aware of a “gecko” sticker thanks to music product maestros SixtySix Productions, specifically Emily Robbins there. The sticker is in fact more like velcro than a normal sticker adhesive, which is why it’s often called "infinity peel”. In fact, like velcro you prob get a few thousand re-peels of it, so whilst “infinity” is a stretch, it’ll take some debunking in practice.”

Sean continues, “We took the trousers which make up the original front cover’s central feature, and created new 20 year anniversary trousers, foiled in gold with a beautiful silver belt. Then, traditional marketing sensibility troll that I am, I placed the standard blue trousers over the top as a sticker. The trick here is not only covering up the expensive bit to leave as a surprise for buyers, but to create a small deboss into the sleeve where the foil trousers are, and present the record as it originally was, with the old school blue trousers sitting in place, flush against its surroundings. Of course, at home, once those trousers are peeled off, the owner of the record can put them wherever they want. My Trouser Jazz trousers currently sit on my copy of Bob Dylan’s Street Legal.”

With today’s release of Ninja Tuna on vinyl for the first time the new package design was in keeping with Trouser Jazz's concepts.

Sean told us, “Part of the decision to present Trouser Jazz with this peel and reveal gatefold sleeve was made with an eye on future Scruff reissues. This week we release Nina Tuna on vinyl for the first time, and as a 3LP no less! Its cover features a centrally located tuna fish. No free copies to anyone guessing what we’ve done with it! Andy (Mr Scruff) was very up for reinterpreting the original CD artwork, and got to work on new illustrations to exist alongside original illustrations."

"The main tuna dude on the front gets a beautiful new coat (scale even?!) of silver. It really shimmers in the sun. It’s so fun working with artists like Scruff, he’s totally open to ideas and has such vital advice and feedback. I think initially I was steering towards a greyboard to replicate the original CDs, but availability of that type of board wasn’t what it was 15 years ago, and it tends to be difficult to work with when you want to use heavier versions of it that are necessary for a heavy duty gatefold sleeve.”

Sean continues, “It’s a small thing, but I’m dangerously self-satisfied with the inner sleeves. They spell out NINJA TUNA between them, and reveal vinyl discs pressed onto BioVinyl, which is a relatively new thing in the world of vinyl offered by Optimal Media in Germany. There are a few specifics about Biovinyl that make it a better choice for the environment, but the key is using biogenic waste like cooking oil rather than petroleum. It’s something we are trying to encourage more use of, with one eye on truly eco-friendly, carbon neutral vinyl alternatives that are in development.”

Sean Preston is an award winning product designer and artist from London. He is Head of Production at independent record label Ninja Tune, a bastion of ground-breaking music since 1990, working with artists such as Black Country, New Road, Bonobo, Thundercat, Mr Scruff and more. Sean founded Fiction magazine and publisher Open Pen.

We already loved both these records, but Ninja Tuna getting a first release on vinyl is particularly pleasing for us of course. We shall be peeling and un-peeling our copies with glee! We were also extremely chuffed to have got some words from Andy Carthy (Mr Scruff) himself about this project, “I really enjoyed collaborating on the design with Ninja Tune’s Sean Preston. Both albums needed a lot of re-drawing & re-writing hand-written text, so I did the bit that I am good at (potato drawings & writing) & Sean did the professional design bit, which I struggle with beyond basic illustrator fiddling. The daft hype stickers were fun to do as well!”

With Mr Scruff's back catalogue getting this delightful vinyl upgrade, we're hopeful that there’s another one on the way to complete the set.... !!

NINJA TUNA (Vinyl Debut Edition) by Mr Scruff is released on 29th March 2024 on Ninja Tune. Design by Mr Scruff and Sean Preston. Vinyl record FlipFrames by ART VINYL

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: The Ninja Tales

1. Thundercat - Apocalypse Anniversary Edition

Art Vinyl's quest to ‘Uncover’ the stories behind some of the best vinyl record artwork each year never ceases, and so we turn to take a look at a selection of upcoming releases for 2024 from the consistently excellent independent record label Ninja Tune in our new sub-series ‘Uncovered: The Ninja Tales’.

First one off the press is American bassist, singer-songwriter, Stephen 'Thundercat' Bruner and the Apocalypse Anniversary Edition. This 10th Anniversary reissue of Apocalypse arrives on 15th March 2024 on Brainfeeder and Ninja Tune and features two previously unreleased songs. The original sleeve design is taken to the next level for this release, and we caught up with Ninja’s Head of Production and Design, Sean Preston to give us the exclusive creative process low-down.

Thundercat - Apocalypse 10 Year Anniversary Edition (2024)

Sean says, “This one took the remaining few hairs left on my scalp. Six months of getting it to where it is now, but I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. The brief was to create a sleeve of the existing portrait front cover, that somehow showed Thundercat's portrait skull with holography."

The mark of 90s print processes associated with comic book and cartoon collectables has run through the artworks of Thundercat’s back catalogue of releases, married with striking portrait photography that is often dark or dark-humoured.

Sean told us, "Thundercat is really into holography, constantly pushing the boundaries of what is realistically achieved. With the previous Golden Age of Apocalypse reissue we even had to work with the company that makes tiny holograms for VISA’s credit cards!”

He continues, "The issue we have today is that a lot of the old techniques are no longer workable. Print has streamlined and that often means "holographic print” is actually just standard litho printing on top of reflective cards and that wasn’t enough for us here. Brainfeeder’s Adam Stover came up with the idea of working with implementing a holographic aspect to the original front cover portrait that would present a sort of x-ray of Thundercat, in which a skull would be visible in certain lights. The challenge was to print both the standard colour portrait as per the original, and the holographic skull, which should only be visible in certain lights."

Our conversation with Sean reveals that what at first brief appeared to be an unattainable outcome for this Anniversary edition, in fact culminated in a blend of two quite ordinary techniques to get to an extraordinary finish - a deluxe rainbow holographic sleeve with gold foil detail, housed in transparent PVC outer slipcase with “x-ray” holographic skull print.

Thundercat - Apocalypse (2013) and Apocalypse 10 Year Anniversary Edition (2024)

Sean explains, “We needed to create something new, which is so hard to achieve these days. Holographic techniques don’t really provide the ideal for what we wanted to achieve. Light exposure ink isn’t really at the point where it would create something with the effect of depth and transition we were looking for. I find sometimes the desired effect needs to be unpacked and rebuilt, so when the initial tests didn’t get us to where we wanted to be, we married two fairly traditional print methods in a way that I don’t think has been done before.”

Sean elaborates, “Though we wanted the skull to appear beneath the portrait initially, I found a way to achieve the desired overall consequence of a skull appearing from a portrait, was to have two separate sleeves engage with each other, and in a way that created something we could consider be a new, or at least unique to this release.”

We asked Sean about the techniques used on each sleeve to create this final synergy between them.

He told us, “The first sleeve is a standard print onto a rainbow mirriboard (like silver wrapping paper that presents a rainbow effect under light). By printing the first card sleeve with the original front cover portrait of Thundercat on the iridescent mirriboard, we could get much closer to our ideal by printing a second outer sleeve to cover the first, on a clear APET (a more environmentally friendly plastic) sheet with a process called Cast & Cure. This process is nothing new, but is usually employed on its own, or as an alternative to varnish, but usually as the primary feature of the packaging. It leaves a holographic impression on the clear material which isn’t immediately obvious on its own, but it does react well to light.”

The process didn’t stop there however, as Sean tells us, “Of course, in attempting to create something unique, where the two components will actually land in print, takes us to the unknown, and as such requires a fair amount of testing and development. We wanted something that had more depth in certain areas - aiming for that x-ray aesthetic. We eventually applied a small partial white base in areas and took further measures with the portrait printed mirrirboard cover to increase its vibrancy. Something that really ties the room together from my perspective is the fine gold lacquer (like a gold foil) that we applied for Thundercat’s crown. So regal!”

Sean Preston is an award winning product designer and artist from London. He is Head of Production at independent record label Ninja Tune, a bastion of ground-breaking music since 1990, working with artists such as Black Country, New Road, Bonobo, Thundercat and more. Sean founded Fiction magazine and publisher Open Pen.

Sean Preston, Head of Production at Ninja Tune

With creatives like Sean pushing boundaries and reimagining tried and tested processes to achieve the music artists' end vision, we the humble vinyl collectors, are rewarded with a unique album artwork to cherish. He says, "What I love about this is that in a record shop, you’d approach the record sleeve and it would just look like a slightly iridescent version of the original cover - but on closer inspect and interaction, the skull effect comes to life and reveals the x-ray effect." 

APOCALYPSE - TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION BY THUNDERCAT is released on 15th March 2024 on Brainfeeder and Ninja Tune. Album FlipFrames by Art Vinyl

Art direction & design by Stephen Serrato – reworked for the Anniversary edition by Adam Stover. Design by Ninja Tune. Cover photography by B+.

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: 'Far From Saints' by Far From Saints

The Best Art Vinyl 2023 winners have been announced and we send huge congratulations to our top three winners. We however, never stop our interest in ‘Uncovering’ the stories behind the amazing shortlisted album artworks. We were thus delighted to catch up with US artist, Sara Shepherd Edgar to find out more about her painting that was used for the cover of the debut, eponymous album from the collaborative band Far From Saints - made up of Kelly Jones of Stereophonics with Austin’s Patty Lynn and Dwight Baker of The Wind and The Wave.

The Far From Saints album cover artwork came from a series of Sara Shepherd Edgar’s works with narratives around the circus.

Sara told us, “I was using circus imagery to speak about everyday life struggles and experiences. Many people have positive connections and memories with the circus, having visited it as a child or experienced it with family and friends. I like to use those connections with the imagery to draw in the viewer. It’s a way of gaining the viewer's attention, maybe tricking them into looking closer at the subject matter assumed to be one thing. Still, alternatively, the underlying message is layered, including instances of life's bitterness or intensity. I intend to depict occurrences of the human condition in all its beauty and poignancy.”

'Houseboat' 48” x 48”, acrylic on canvas by Sara Shepherd Edgar

A clear example of this creative direction, is in Sara’s many pieces involving a circus elephant as the focus. She explains, “At first glance, the colours, subject and narrative of 'Camouflage #3' are joyful, but ponder for a moment further, look a little deeper, and realize that it is an elephant trying to blend into the circus tent, who doesn't want to be there, who doesn't belong in the circus. I love this piece because it is the essence of my overarching theme.”

'Camouflage' #3”, 36” x 36”, acrylic on canvas by Sara Shepherd Edgar 

Another piece in the artist’s circus series, is a pair of acrobats on a trapeze. Sara tells us, "The painting directs the viewer to recollect the childhood joy of watching such a show, the excitement, the courage of the performers. Upon closer inspection of 'White Flags', the acrobat being held seems to give up in her partner's arms, surrendering to her fate." 

'White Flags' 12” x 16”, acrylic on canvas by Sara Shepherd Edgar

The album cover artwork came from a painting titled 'A Safe Place'. Again, a pair of acrobats fly over an audience in a circus tent. Patty Lynn and the band reached out to Sara to ask about using the piece for their Far From Saints debut album.

Sara says, “I was looking to the viewer to see the wonderment and bravery of the performance, as well as recognize the vulnerability of their predicament and then connect that with personal experiences. I value depicting audiences in my work."

Close-up of the audience imagery on the Far From Saints album cover by Sara Shepherd Edgar

She continues, "I like to use audience imagery, and recently simplified that idea to just eyes in other works, to suggest that we are all being watched, whether it be by family, colleagues, friends, or the anonymous public.”

Reluctant Princess, 12” x 12”, mixed media on panel by Sara Shepherd Edgar

Cozette with Bunny Ears, 12” x 12”, acrylic on panel by Sara Shepherd Edgar

Sara's circus themed work not only features on the Far From Saints album cover, but was also beautifully animated for the band's video for their second track Take It Through the Night off the album.

Sara is a Utah, USA-based mixed media artist. After graduating from the University of Washington in 1994 with a fine arts degree in metalsmithing, she went on to show her small-scale jewellery sculpture in the Seattle, WA area. Transitioning to starting a family, having a metalsmithing studio and raising young children became challenging, so looking for an alternative artistic outlet, Sara experimented with painting and mixed media, which is still her medium of choice today. Sara is currently represented by Gallery Mar in Park City, Utah.

Sara Shepherd Edgar

Sara told us, “My intent with the work is to provoke thought through familiar narratives to create a connection. It was so satisfying for the band to recognize that in the piece and then want it to represent them in their creative endeavour. It fulfils the purpose of the piece and my work and the personal fulfilment of making art I enjoy so much.”

Far From Saints by Far From Saints on Ignition Records was shortlisted for Best Art Vinyl 2023. Cover artwork by Sara Shepherd Edgar. Design by Richard Welland at R-W Studio.

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: Glüme - Main Character

Continuing our insights into the creative behind the shortlisted album covers for Best Art Vinyl 2023. Andrea Riba talks us through her work and this evocative cover shot of the avant-pop star Glüme who flippantly calls herself the 'Walmart Marilyn' for her latest album Main Character.

Andrea Riba is a Mexican-Chilean writer, director, producer, and co-founder of Femina Films. The album cover for Main Character was shot on the film set for 'Child Actor' which is the opening track on the album and inspired the short film and music video of the same title produced by Femina Films and Italians Do It Better.

Andrea tells us “It's a surreal film in which Glüme revisits her child self in the 90s. The image was taken after shooting the climax of the film in a preserved 70s dressing room in the outskirts of Hollywood. In this scene, Glüme confronts her mother (played by Riki Lindhome - whose credits include Knives Out, Wednesday) about the loss of her childhood to the demanding world of child acting in Hollywood."

Riba first met Glüme on set for her debut album cover shoot for 'The Internet', although the shoot initially started as a passion project. Andrea explains, “I had a Blue Velvet inspired photoshoot I had been sitting on, and after discovering Glüme through music label Italians Do It Better, I thought she had the perfect cadence for the concept. At the time, the label had already announced the album cover for her debut album The Internet, but when the label saw the photos from our shoot, the plan changed and they landed on one of the images for the album cover and billboards around LA, which was such an exciting surprise.”

The Internet album cover - Glüme 2012

We asked Andrea how the iconic image for the cover of Main Character came about. She told us, “We purposefully scheduled this scene at the end of our 12 hour set day in order for the exhaustion of the day to aid Glüme's performance. After wrapping the scene, I thought of taking film stills to capture Glüme's raw emotions, which were at an all-time high. There was no intention for the image to be the album cover, but the distraught expression captured on Glüme sparked the attention of her label, so they landed on this image as the album cover. There is an interesting contradiction between the title of the album 'Main Character' - someone at the centre of the plot, with an image of a woman tearing and in pure vulnerability.” 

Vinyl scan image for 'Main Character' 2023 by Andrea Riba

We wanted to delve into how the vintage feel of this image was captured so effectively. Andrea tells us, "I wanted to shoot the image on Cinestill 800T because this film captures a beautiful halation and glow around practical lights, that being the vintage tungsten bulbs around the mirrors around the entire dressing room we shot in. There is also a thick grain to the film which provides a sort of surreal veneer between the audience and the world captured, which was meant to reflect Glüme's life as a child actor in the 90's. We also wanted to keep it same world, since her first album 'The Internet' was shot on Cinestill as well."

Riba and Glüme have a close professional and personal relationship which may account for how Andrea was able to capture such a wonderfully raw and personal image of the star. She explains, "Glüme approached me about joining her team as a creative director and this was the beginning of, not only an organic professional collaboration between her and I, but a long term friendship. She is an inspiring human being and we share the same aesthetic interests and love for film, music, and people."

Glüme Harlow and Andrea Riba

Main Character by Glüme on Italians Do It Better label is shortlisted for Best Art Vinyl 2023

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Uncovered: Metallica - 72 Seasons

Uncovering the detail behind some of the Best Art Vinyl 2023 shortlisted album artworks, we turn next to the eleventh studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on their own record label Blackened Recordings. We were excited to have the the opportunity to discover the story behind the art from Creative Director Jamie McCathie from General LLC.

72 Seasons was Jamie's first project after leaving his position as Executive Creative Director at a "big fancy branding agency" to go it alone and find new interesting projects. David Turner (Turner and Duckworth) had reached out to ask if he wanted to collaborate on the project and the work began.

Jamie told us. "The band were amazing to work with. I have worked on numerous projects with them and probably the best thing is working with people that are truly creative. Beyond musicians, these are artists. They have a strong sense of style, love concepts and ideating with us. James (Hetfield) is a closet graphic designer (he designed the original logo in 1982). We had a mix of zoom calls and unperson meetings with the band that always felt exciting."

Explaining the idea behind the album's title Jamie tells us, "72 Seasons is about the impact of someone’s first 18 years. The term ‘prisoner of Childhood’ came up in our briefing call and this phrase went on to inspire the prisoner theme depicted through the crib and the die-cut ‘bars’. I remember David Turner had a sketch he did for the ‘Lux Æterna’ single that was just a simple bright yellow background and the words typed small in the middle. The theme of dark/light so clearly came across in this song, the name being almost the most uplifting and optimistic."

Metallica - Lux Æterna single cover typeface 2022

Jamie continues, "I loved this modern use of colour for the band and we quickly integrated it into the concept and ideas we had, in particular the crib image that at the time was on white and was kind of missing something. The colour became such a powerful tool to tie the campaign together, it’s eye-catching and so different from the heavy metal genre. I loved seeing it in a record store next to every other album, it zings."

Jamie emphasises that the project overall came to fruition through an immense amount of collaboration between the core creative team and every artist that worked on the campaign. Together with David Turner and designer Ian Conklin, Jamie developed the album's visuals, concepts and ideas and they succeeded in developing a visually rich, and layered album experience.

Metallica 72 Seasons full packaging

The project was an entirely integrated creative vision that complemented the album artwork. Jamie tells us, “The band were adamant EVERYTHING in this campaign had to sing from the same song sheet, so they put extra pressure on us to develop and oversee everything Metallica would be working on leading up to it’s launch."

It was a collection of talented people that were hired to execute their vision. Jamie explains, "Photographer Stan Musilek was hired to shoot the cover. David had worked with him (Stan) before, we knew we wanted the cover to look precise and elegant, and Stan’s fashion background was perfect for the idea. Mark Welsh and his team were the model team burning and fucking up all of the items outside Stan’s studio on the street in SF. The amount of care that went into this process was incredible." 

The inner sleeves were created from honest portraits of the band and Jamie tells us more, "I knew that we had to photograph the band in a new light. Not the overly try hard, leather jacket, sunglass rockstars we are used to seeing. But the real them. This is a band that is getting older, and I wanted to show them in a striped down, authentic way. Discovering photographer Lee Jeffries was serendipity. His portrait work, in particular of homeless people captures the most raw, honest, and beautiful moments in humanity. He was perfect for the shots that became the vinyl sleeves. This approach was so different from a standard band shoot, it made everybody excited to push for this new side of Metallica further."

Photographer Lee Jeffries at work

L to R: Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield, Robert Trujillo, Lars Ulrich

The layered album experience even extended to the the music video, in keeping with the cover art as Jamie explains, "When I put forward Director Tim Saccenti to do the music video for Lux, I wanted to challenge the band and its fans. His work has modern art / digital vibe feels lightyears from your average metal band. It turned out so well, he was hired for the rest of the album videos. I love the way we were able to tie together the videos and the rest of the artwork - the screaming suicide video style and the concept fell out of a conversation me and Tim had about Lee Jefferies' portraits. Everything influenced everything, it was beautiful to witness."

Lux Video by Tim Saccenti

Three months after the album launched, Jamie started his business General LLC with friend and co founder Daniel D’arcy. He says, "It’s a company with the vision of working on any kind of creative project and ideas, beyond those you might expect from a corporate design studio. Our current clients include everything from bands to Bourbon distillery owners and a fruit company. Pretty general right? Nimble, small, mighty, with a network of collaborators that we have had the pleasure of working with for the 20+ years we’ve been in industry. Working with interesting people, companies and brands that want to do or make really cool shit is who we are hoping to attract."

We suspect General LLC will never be without a heaving client list with this epic Metallica project in their portfolio!

72 Seasons by Metallica on Blackened Recordings is shortlisted for Best Art Vinyl 2023

Creative Directors: David Turner & Jamie McCathie. Design & Art Direction: Ian Conklin. Cover and object photography: Stan Musilek. Props/burning: Mark Welsh. Band portraits: Lee Jeffries. Music video director & band group shots: Tim Saccenti

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Uncovered: PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying

We continue to delve into the detail of the creative process for some of The Best Art Vinyl 2023 shortlisted album artworks and today we take a look at this seemingly simple cover design for PJ Harvey’s tenth studio album that, in fact, couldn’t be less so. The final image is actually a result of months of preparation, awaiting perfect weather conditions and a combination of multiple photographs and techniques. We were lucky enough to get the whole story from artist Michelle Henning.

Henning’s background is in fine art, she started as a painter and installation artist. As well as being a Professor in Photography and Media in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, Michelle works for PJ Harvey as art director/creative director, and as such is very much involved in decisions relating to many of the visual assets.

Michelle explained to us how the creative process starts and about her collaboration with PJ Harvey; “The way I approach the work is to listen to the music. Polly and I don’t discuss visual ideas at first, instead, she gives me everything to do with the album: recordings or demos, poems and lyrics, drawings and notes. I then immerse myself in it and try to get a feel for it and start working. I already had a way into it because I was familiar with her poetry book 'Orlam', which is connected to the album, and I had a strong sense of the world of the album. What matters most to me is trying to find a visual equivalent for the music, not to illustrate it or directly reference lyrics, but sense the atmosphere and convey that.”

Michelle elaborates, “In the case of ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’, this album has a strange and interesting feel, on the one hand it’s about a twentieth century rural childhood, with references to Curly-Wurlys and Coca cola but also there are soldiers who appear from a much more ancient past, and there’s a strong presence of nature."

PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying concept gatefold (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023) with photographs by Steve Gullick and drawings by Polly Harvey

"I started by thinking I would try to put wildlife cameras in a forest, not to capture animals but to get infra-red photos of trees. So I did that for a while but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. Then I started to paint forests, but that didn’t feel right either."

Early Forest concept ideas for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

"I had a sudden realisation that I didn’t need a whole forest, I just needed one stick and such a simple single object would give it the feel of the classic album covers I admire. Now I realise an unconscious influence was Polly herself, because she had chosen to use drawings she had made of single twigs (“twiddicks”), to break up the sections in 'Orlam'."

Orlam by PJ Harvey

"I think the idea of giving the stick a shadow emerged from the process of finding twigs on the ground and photographing them — the shadows seemed to bring them to life and make something very ordinary suddenly seem almost animate."

Concept ideas for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

"The back cover is a photograph of Polly by Steve Gullick, onto which I superimposed a scan of a tissue and plastic envelope, so it has a slightly battered, used look. I chose this photo because I loved the way her legs echoed the shape of the twig, and also how it could be cropped so that it seemed as if she was almost kicking the edge of the album away."

Front and back cover artwork for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

Michelle has produced three album covers and a number of singles for PJ Harvey as well as several for other artists, including for John Parish, Mazgani and Dot Allison. She works with a wide variety of techniques; photography, clay models, printmaking, drawing in ink and watercolour and moves between analogue and digital, with a lot of work in Adobe Photoshop, creating very complex layered files.

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, Let England Shake (Island Records, 2011)

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, A Dog Called Money 7" Single

Centre label of Hope Six vinyl | PJ Harvey (Island Records 2016)

Expanding on her techniques for this current album cover artwork, Michelle tells us, “I photographed a lot of sticks in bright sunlight on different coloured and textured backgrounds. At a certain time in the afternoon the sun started to cast really interesting shadows. I remember Polly’s manager Sumit calling me and asking me when I would have something ready to show them, and I said I wouldn’t be ready until we had had more sunny weather. He was very patient with me but he must have wondered what on earth I was doing.”

She continues, “The stick that worked best, that I felt had the most mysterious shadow, I then rephotographed under plastic. The final image is a composite of about three or maybe more photographs of this twig, both under the plastic and not. The orange sticker is based on the sticker stuck on this piece of plastic — which was a large transparent folder in which my film photographs were returned to me. I liked the way it brought a pop of colour to the cover.”  

"In Photoshop, I changed the lighting on the plastic, added more layers of plastic lighting, superimposed Polly’s handwriting onto the sticker, and created the fake embossed text in the centre (which is a mixture of hand-painted ink drawing and a lot of digital editing)."

"The gatefold is a scan of a 1980s sticky photograph album complete with the blue lines of glue and the plastic layer, and the inner sleeve is based on photographs of red kitchen linoleum superimposed over photographs by Polly of a lamb and a forest. I did a rough layout for the body text and type, and then handed that over to Rob Crane of Rob Crane Design, who did a brilliant job of making the typography on the inside and back covers look elegant and balanced, and made all the files print-ready."

Inner gatefold for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023) with typesetting by Rob Crane, and photographs by Steve Gullick gatefold pic

Michelle told us she looked at a lot of great album covers when creating this artwork and there are subtle references to some of them, both in the inner gatefold and the front cover. She says, "I love the idea that there are record cover geeks like myself who like to figure out the echoes of other designs, so I won’t say what they are!" (two iconic late 60s LP covers spring to our record cover geeky minds!)

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying concept (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

I Inside the Old Year Dying by PJ Harvey on Partisan Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award. Art Director, Design and front cover photography by Michelle Henning. Additional design and typesetting by Rob Crane.

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Uncovered: Sub Focus - Evolve

As we continue to explore the artworks for some of this year’s shortlisted albums for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award, next up is English DJ, record producer and musician Nicolaas Douwma aka Sub Focus and his fourth album 'Evolve' which was created by Mat Maitland from the award winning creative consultancy Big Active.

We caught up with Mat who gave us an insight into the creative concepts and processes for the artwork. He told us, "With any new project we like to discuss things thoroughly before starting to present ideas and for this album it was very collaborative in establishing the creative route."

Big Active had a good starting point for the project and a rich history with Sub Focus having worked on three previous albums with him - ‘Portals’, ‘Reworks I’ and ‘Torus’ and Mat explains, "Often with music campaigns, we are honing in on two things primarily - the central concept and the visual aesthetic.”

Sub Focus & Wilkinson - ‘Portals’ EMI (2020) artwork by Big Active

Sub Focus ‘Reworks I’ RAM records (2021) artwork by Big Active

Sub Focus - ’Torus’ RAM Records, Virgin EMI Records (2013) artwork by Big Active

We asked Mat about the inspirations for the current album artwork for 'Evolve', he says, "Conceptually there was something early on that came out of our discussions with Nicolaas, the idea of Nudibranchs - a group of tiny soft-bodied molluscs that live under water, noted for their extraordinary colours and striking forms. Nicolaas is a keen diver and had come across these on his travels. Straight away we felt that this was a really interesting thing to base the campaign on. Firstly, it was an unusual subject matter and secondly it talked to the title ‘Evolve’ perfectly -  having a synergy with human evolution as well as sonic mutations symbolised in the music itself."

Mat explains, "Aesthetically we didn’t want to just use straight documentary images of Nudibranchs, so we had some decisions to make in how to present the concept. I had been working on a personal project the previous year with digital artist Claudia Rafael and felt that she would be a great collaborator in elevating how the forms were depicted. After collating a huge bank of imagery we decided to remove any sense of environment, instead having them live in a void of darkness to elevate their impact but also remove any concept of scale. Working with Claudia, we processed all of this source material through GAN machine learning. This is a process whereby the computer is learning to mimic and re-render the imagery and while doing so, creates less accurate versions of it. It also starts mixing up and combining elements from all the separate images to create new versions."

This re-rendered concept and technique was continued for the accompanying single release artworks and, taking the creative concept to a fully immersive offering, Mat and the team also produced a set of animations for each of the releases for an installation at the album launch where the work was projected on huge immersive LED screens.

Calling For a Sign - Sub Focus 2023

Fine Day - Sub Focus (single cover)

I Found You - Sub Focus (single cover)

Vibrations - Sub Focus (single cover)

Mat continues, "So, this ‘evolutionary’ theme was also inherent in the creation of the final album cover imagery itself which we then took to its full conclusion by producing a ‘lenticular’ LP format where the images animate and evolve in front of your eyes. As GAN renders out thousands of images it was a process of curation with Nicolaas in deciding which frames were chosen for the artwork. Once we had decided on the isolated frames (for the main cover art) we then used the frames either side of this for the lenticular LP…which uses five separate images to create the ‘morph’."

The 'Evolve' lenticular album cover fills Art Vinyl’s album-artwork-archivist hearts with joy. It really is something to be seen in the flesh, morphing before your very eyes and epitomising the joy of owning the physical vinyl release. Another masterpiece of album artwork added to the Best Art Vinyl annals.

Lenticular LP of Sub Focus - Evolve by Big Active Design

Evolve by Sub Focus on EMI Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award. Art Direction by Mat Maitland - Big Active Design & Nicolaas Douwma. Artificial Intelligence by Claudia Rafael. Design by Mat Maitland - Big Active Design.

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Uncovered: 75 Dollar Bill - Power Failures

The shortlisted album artworks have been announced for our annual art prize Best Art Vinyl 2023. We now begin to delve into the creative process behind some of the 50 nominees. First up is 75 Dollar Bill's re-release of Power Failures for the first time on vinyl. We were lucky enough to catch up with the band's guitarist and album cover designer Che Chen.

Che Chen founded 75 Dollar Bill in 2011 with percussionist Rick Brown. He tells us, "I wanted to be a painter before I wanted to be a musician, so the visual aesthetic of the band has always been really important to me. I've done the artwork for all of our physical and digital releases, and many of our posters and fliers too."

Che Chen flyer design work for 75 Dollar Bill

Che Chen explains, "Power Failures first came out as a digital release on Bandcamp in July of 2020. It was our first pandemic summer, Trump was still president (hopefully for the last time!) and George Floyd had been murdered by Minneapolis Police Officers earlier that summer. There were protests everywhere, against police violence, institutional racism, wage inequality for essential workers, etc. The title of the record was very much a response to all of this, the way the pandemic exposed the failures of the state on all these different fronts."

The use of text-based artwork has in fact been a consistent theme for the artist, he told us, "Text has always been central to the visual language of the band, and many of our record covers feature text as the only "image" in the designs. This approach made sense to me for Power Failures, since the title was very evocative of everything that was going on, but also open-ended enough that I didn't want to add an image that might get in the way of whatever associations someone looking at those words might have. I wanted to push the idea of a text only image a bit by using the typography to create a pattern (of W's in this case) which is only broken by the album title. The digital album just had the single square image as its artwork, so when Karl Records in Berlin offered to make a vinyl edition of the album as a gatefold double album, we got to expand the art significantly. I repeated this process on the back cover with the band name and changed the background colour. The  LP centre labels refer back to the font and colour schemes of the front and back cover. I should also mention that the beautiful inside layout was done by Roland Küffner at Karl who did a fantastic job."

We asked Che Chen about the techniques he uses for his artworks, he explained, "The fonts I've used in most of my designs are actually from industrial moveable rubber stamp type. I've scanned physical prints of each set, several versions so that there are multiple versions of each character with slightly different imperfections, etc. I like the physical character of these fonts, how each impression is unique. For our first LP, Wooden Bag, Rick and I actually hand stamped the covers for the entire first edition using this rubber stamp type, but these days I mostly do the type setting on the computer."

Chen Chen got into music as a teenager in the suburbs of Washington DC in the 1990s when the post-hardcore scene around Dischord Records was thriving. The DIY ethos of bands taking control of their own production, from running their own labels and booking their own tours, to playing protests and benefits for local causes and working the door at their own shows, was and is still a big inspiration to him.

He tells us, "I've tried to carry those ideals on in my own work as best I can. Doing the art and the design for music projects I am involved with (and occasionally for friends) feels like an obvious extension of this. I love bands and labels that have a strong visual aesthetic and also really respect when artists are resourceful and can make striking designs using sometimes limited means. Sun Ra's home made jackets covers for his Saturn Records LPs and Harry Partch's Gate 5 Records are both examples of this for me."

Taken from the 'Sun Ra: Art on Saturn' Book - The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label

U.S. Highball |Gate 5 Records, Issue No. 6 (First pressing, inscribed to Amos Vogel in 1960) Hardcover – January 1, 1956

Che continues, "Lisa Alvarado’s screen printed album covers for the Natural Information Society records and her paintings that hang while they play (she plays harmonium in the group too) are another perfect fusion of visual and musical aesthetics to me."

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society. Artwork by Lisa Alvarado

Power Failures by 75 Dollar Bill on Karl Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award. Artwork by Che Chen.

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Best Art Vinyl 2022 Winners

“This year’s winning entry features a hyperreal painting that seeks to portray both stifled desires and “the possibility of soaring liberation” 

Read Design Week’s article and interview with Simon Monk, the winning artist of our annual #BestArtVinyl Award:

Artist Simon Monk’s hyperreal painting for UK rock collective Black Country, New Road’s Ants From Up There album has been announced as the winner of the Best Art Vinyl Award 2022.

For its 18th year, the competition received over 200 entries. A panel of artists, designers and music industry experts selected a shortlist of 50 covers, before the final three were chosen via a public vote.

“An image of frustrated desire”

Monk is a UK-based contemporary artist interested in using painting to breathe new life into a cheap or otherwise unimportant object. His hyperreal style is achieved through layering translucent colours and using high-quality oils and alkyds (a polyester resin modified with fatty acids and other components).

Black Country, New Road was drawn to Monk’s style for its nostalgic quality. The band’s drummer Charlie Wayne explains how, for him, looking at the painting is “as familiar as looking at a childhood photograph”. Wayne notes that Monk’s work is very different to the band’s first album cover.

At first glance, the album cover looks exactly like an old photograph, but a closer look reveals it to be a hyperreal painting. Monk explains how his subjects “exist illusionistically in front of the picture plane”, which helps to put it in “the viewer’s space”, adding to the hyperreality.

“My plastic bag paintings were started as a solution to the problem of how to make a still life oil painting in the 21st century without it being boring and old fashioned”, says Monk.

He says that he sees the painting as “an image of frustrated desire” as the airplane is being stifled inside the bag. The plastic bag is struggling to contain it, which Monk says suggests “the possibility of soaring liberation.” After listening to the album many times, Monk says he noticed “a yearning, searching, frustrated quality to the music” that is “analogous to the content of the painting”.

Aside from the painting, all other aspects of the cover design – from the hand lettering to the choice of card stock – was led by the design team at the band’s record label Ninja Tune. Monk says the team were “extremely self-effacing” in showcasing his imagery at the forefront of the cover, rather than “obscuring it with type or covering it with filters”.

Monk planned to create a companion painting of a golden elephant in a carrier bag. Unfortunately, he came to the studio one morning to find a torn bag and a broken elephant on the floor. Since Monk only paints from real life, not from photographs, the second painting was never completed. Monk also created two additional artworks inside the deluxe vinyl box sets available from Ninja Records.

Black Country, New Road - ‘Ants From Up There’ deluxe box set on display at the Art Vinyl Exhibition at The Collection & Usher Gallery in Lincoln until 22/01/23

Hardcore oil painting..

Coming in second was the artwork for French punk/hardcore trio Birds in Row’s third full length album Gris Klein, created by band member and tattoo artist Bart Balboa.

The cover features a cool-toned oil painting of a person admiring a bunch of pink flowers, produced on linen. Although Balboa used a predominantly dark and neutral colour palette, the person’s lips – which sit at a central point of the canvas – are cherry red, while the budding flowers have been painted in pastel pinks.

Balboa revealed that this was the last painting he had managed to finish before falling into “an artistic void”. He also created an accompanying stone lithograph print for the LP.

Imagining a post-apocalyptic landscape..

West Yorkshire-based illustrator Jake Blanchard’s work for Richard Dawson’s album The Ruby Cord came in third place. The album concludes a trilogy of LPs that began with the pre-medieval world of Peasant, released in 2017. The Ruby Cord aims to transport listeners back to the present day, where they are faced with a somewhat dystopian future.

Though Blanchard’s style is characteristic of psychedelia, he also takes influence from the natural world as well as mythology and ancient cultures. His focus for the cover was to illustrate the albums 41-minute opening track, Hermit, which imagines a character “wandering through a post-apocalyptic landscape burdened with supplies”, says Blanchard.

After producing the final sketches, Blanchard moved on to the line work with pen and ink, so he could scan the illustrations and colour it digitally. “A few elements were changed or added with a graphics tablet and then I made and added textures including the background watercolour”, he says.

According to Blanchard, he worked closely with Dawson throughout the design process, who was very open to his suggestions.

All 50 nominated album covers are featured in an art installation in the window of The Hari in London. The winners will also feature in several exhibitions put on by Art Vinyl over the year in locations across the globe, such as Tipton Eyeworks in Budapest.  The designs can also be viewed online, on the Art Vinyl website.

Written by Abbey Bamford, Design Week

January 6, 2023

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Best Art Vinyl - Album Artwork Through The Ages Exhibition

Our Art Vinyl founder Andrew Heeps takes us on a short tour around some iconic record cover designs at our latest exhibition ‘Best Art Vinyl - Album Artwork Through The Ages’ at The Collection and Usher Gallery in Lincoln UK. The exhibition will run until the end of January 2023, combined with our #BestArtVinyl2022 Award nominations. 

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Uncovered: Doseone - Enter the Gungeon

In its 18th year, Best Art Vinyl 2022 sees the first shortlisted album artwork for a video game with this Anniversary Deluxe Edition, pop-up gatefold sleeve art by Joseph Harmon. We couldn’t miss the opportunity to find out more and were lucky enough to have a quick chat with Joseph.

How did you come to work on this project? I worked on a few projects with the sound designer and composer for the game Enter the Gungeon, Adam Drucker (music artist alias Doseone), and he asked me if I would be interested in taking it on.

What was the initial brief and how did you start to approach the artwork? Everyone really trusted me and gave me the freedom and time to approach it the way I thought would be best. I would send early sketches focusing on the design and placement of things, knowing that the drawing was really bad and that it made more sense in my head. They trusted that it was going to shape up, and that means a lot.

The pop up element was intimidating and exciting because I had no idea how that worked. Once I got more familiar with the game I realized how deep it was. There were so many side quests, bosses, and characters. I felt the best way to approach the artwork was to try and make it really full and deep like the game.

Were there early versions that did not make the final cut? Actually, the initial version was more complex with the pop up. A lot more pieces that would have been a nightmare to produce, and never having taken on a pop up before I didn't know exactly what I was doing. In the end a simpler approach was the way to go.

How did you create the pop-up effect and what medium and tools do you use? I would draw things by hand on posterboard and cut them out and piece them together with scotch tape for the mock up. I had to measure everything and make sure they wouldn't be larger than the vinyl record when folded. I also had to make sure there weren't too many pieces stacked on top of each other so it would stay closed properly. Once that was figured out, I would scan the pieces and work on the finished art digitally. Everything usually starts in my sketchbook with a pencil. Then it gets scanned and cleaned up digitally. Even if it's going to be a painting, I usually have a sketch that I work out the size and colours digitally. Pencil, Photoshop, and acrylic paint are probably the materials I use the most.

What were your creative influences? Growing up I loved the box art for a lot of regular Nintendo games. I would rent them based on how weird the box art was. When you play the game, it would be nothing like that, but the box art would stick with me. It was the same with records. There was a Wings record my parents had, Red Rose Speedway, that would scare me based on the cover. It had a close up of Paul McCartney with a rose in his mouth and he looked freaked out, I think there was a motorcycle behind him. It still makes me uncomfortable to this day. I guess Wings and Nintendo inspired me for this.

Paul McCartney and Wings - Red Rose Speedway. Cover photography by Linda McCartney.

Enter the Gungeon by Doseone on Laced Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2022 Award. Artwork by Joseph Harmon. VOTING OPEN UNTIL 12 DEC 2022

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: Spoon - Lucifer On The Moon

Not long after Texas rock band Spoon finished their 10th studio album Lucifer on the Sofa, they reached out to UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood to reconstruct the entire album into the aptly-titled Lucifer on the Moon. When this companion album was nominated as one of the shortlisted album artworks for Best Art Vinyl 2022, we caught up with Cuban American artist and illustrator, Edel Rodriguez, responsible for both the albums artworks, to get the back story on his outstanding work.

Edel told us, “Britt Daniel, Spoon’s lead singer and guitarist, reached out to me last year. He had seen an image of mine that he felt captured the right mood for the band’s upcoming album, Lucifer on the Sofa.  He asked if I was interested in creating a new image for the album. I’ve been a fan for years and suggested we do a whole set of images. I wanted to create art for the interior of the album, singles and merchandise, and we went from there.”

Lucifer On The Sofa released Feb 2022 on Matador Records 

He continues, “I asked for the lyrics of all the songs and was inspired by them. I created dozens of sketches and we talked back and forth about which ones paired well with the songs. Some of the songs hinted at the idea of a two sided figure (where the main image came from) and with Lucifer as a lurking figure. “

Held - Lucifer On The Sofa

The Hardest Cut - Lucifer On The Sofa

My Babe -  Lucifer On The Sofa

Edel explains, “This fanged red screaming face popped into my head and I did some sketches and ultimately a painting. That image ended up on an inside sleeve on Lucifer on the Sofa and was picked up for the album cover of the companion album, Lucifer on the Moon.”

“The image was duplicated multiple times, like a reverb effect, by designers Jamie-James Medina and Matt de Jong of Undercard Studio.” 

Rodriguez’s bold, figurative works are an examination of identity, cultural displacement and mortality. He has exhibited internationally and his artwork has been commissioned for numerous publications including The New York Times, TIME Magazine and The New Yorker. 

Illustrations by Edel Rodriguez for TIME

Edel shared with us, “Much of my work is influenced by Afro Cuban religious iconography, propaganda art, pop art, and surrealism. I try to bring a bit of my life experiences to all of the assignments I’m commissioned for. This piece for the album was painted with acrylic and oil based ink on bark paper.”

Lucifer On The Moon by Spoon on Matador Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2022 Award. Artwork by Edel Rogriguez. VOTING OPEN UNTIL 12 DEC 2022

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: ‘Malicious Intent’ by Malevolence

Eliran Kantor, the Berlin-based artist and illustrator known mostly for creating album covers for metal bands, spoke to us about his outstanding work for the Brit-Metal band Malevolence's third album, released on Nuclear Blast Records and now shortlisted for The Best Art Vinyl 2022 Award.

Kantor explains, “The cover artwork brief I received from the band was: 

With this new album entitled “Malicious Intent” our initial idea for the artwork is to have a central male figure that is chained underwater, by his legs, to two concrete blocks. The chains are long enough for the man to be able to take a breath if he pushes off the sea floor towards the surface. Bones scattering the floor beneath.  All of this to symbolise that he is so close yet so far away. The look on his face of absolute despair as the realisation that his death is inevitable yet he continues to try to survive. The malicious intent in this sense is to give someone a false sense of hope when there is absolutely none at all. 

“I told the band I loved the direction, but there were a few elements that I would like to avoid:

1. The concrete blocks would automatically make it look mobsters-themed 2. Bones on the floor are also something I'd avoid as we've seen it on many album covers 3. The concept of certain death and false hope is lost because the viewer doesn't know that the person can't reach the surface - for all we know, if he appears to be able to almost reach it, we can assume he IS able to lift the blocks slightly and move up and even forward, so we might assume he will also manage to move forward over and over until he reaches the shore

So my suggestion for a new concept was this:

Instead of bones and chains, I wanted to amplify the scenario with a few more drowning figures adding to the feeling of dread and panic, while our main dark figure is seemingly able to reach the top of the water surface, just to find out their faith was doomed from the start as the top has been sealed shut. As we wanted him to be a darker figure this time, Instead of relying on a facial expression like on most album covers, I wanted the panicked body movement to be the centre focus as his arms are trying to push the edge to no avail, he is clenching his fingers as hard as he can before his imminent defeat.”

“The medium is digital painting, I paint it all in photoshop and approach it as if I was painting on canvas/paper/board: start with blocking in big shapes in black and white, paint over finer details, then when all the values are right I repaint over in colours.”

 The image here shows Kantor’s pre-colourised full bleed version of the album cover artwork.

Eliran’s work for other Nuclear Blast releases is equally brilliant mind you, so we also asked for his overview on a couple of these. Dear Desolation, released by Australian deathcore band Thy Art is Murder in 2017, was based on a concept of ‘cynicism and being used’ from the band. The artwork could be an 18th century masterpiece and depicts this concept to great effect. Kantor describes it as “The she-wolf feeding the lamb but in reality making a bigger meal for herself."

 Another of Eliran’s wonders was the cover of Titans of Creation, the thirteenth studio album by American thrash metal band Testament that was released on Nuclear Blast in 2020. He tells us about the album artwork concept and his active role in the creative process. 

“I was asked if I had an interesting idea for the new album before there were any lyrics or even a title... Humanity was always obsessed with recurring forms in nature, like how some patterns on a leaf or lightning bolts look like the human nerve system, or the connection between celestial movements and how the oceans move. Before science, mankind created mythologies in order to explain even the simplest of natural occurrences, like the weather or sunsets.”

”I came up with our own mythology to symbolize a most fundamental part of nature I wanted to focus on: the fact that the Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen atoms in our bodies were created in previous generations of long gone dead stars. These elements combine to form molecules like Adenine, Guanine, Thymine, and Cytosine—the nucleotides in our DNA. In this way, our DNA is made of stardust.”

He continues, “So, for the cover I came up with a place where ancient deities are forming both men and planets. They pour the atoms and pound them with their hammers, creating a spiral staircase of the human DNA, from which the planetary rings of a new-born planet are also born. The fire in the deities’ chest are the dying stars, as us humans are all made of their ashes.

The album was later on named after the cover art. This shows how much of this album was a collaborative effort with everyone contributing—I even co-named the album. I suggested titles like Garden Of The Titans and Creation Of Gods and Eric Peterson combined the two into Titans Of Creation.”

Eliran exhibits his work internationally and creates hand signed & numbered prints of his paintings.

Eliran Kantor with his artwork for album covers: Loudblast - Live Ceremony, Thy Art is Murder - Dear Desolation, Kreator - Hate Über Alles.  Photo by ArtCineMove.

‘Malicious Intent’ by Malevolence Artwork by Eliran Kantor is nominated for Best Art Vinyl 2022. Voting is open until 12 December 2022.

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: Richard Dawson - The Ruby Cord

As one of the shortlisted album artworks up for Best Art Vinyl 2022, we were lucky enough to catch up with Jake Blanchard, the artist behind the beautifully intricate artwork of The Ruby Cord - the conclusion of a trilogy of LPs that began with the pre-medieval world of Peasant, was brought back to the present day with 2020 and concluded in the somewhat fantastical and sinister future with this, Dawson’s seventh studio album.

Jake told us, “It was really exciting to be asked by Richard to work on the artwork for The Ruby Cord, I’ve known him for a number of years and been a fan for even longer. I’d booked him to come and play in Todmorden a few times and we’d discussed one day working together on a couple of occasions.”

“I worked very closely with Richard throughout the whole design process, he had strong ideas about the kind of imagery he wanted but was very open to my suggestions too. Initially Richard sent me the album to listen to. For the front cover it seemed obvious that the focus should be on the epic 41 minute opening track ‘The Hermit’. The song is full of great imagery and the idea of a character wandering this ‘post-apocalyptic’ landscape burdened by the supplies they’d gathered was initially suggested by Richard.”

 “It quickly spiralled from a person carrying a few tools and supplies to a back-and-forth with us each suggesting more and more items for The Hermit to carry. We added in references to other tracks too, the three-faced hare, a bow and arrows etc etc. We were both really keen for it to be an image you could get lost in, finding something new every time you look at it.”

 “The album itself tackles a kind of future where things have, in part, reverted to an almost medieval lifestyle, at least that’s how I’ve interpreted it. There are aspects of futuristic technology scattered throughout, so it was also important to express that through the cover design. I liked the idea of this character weighing themselves down, burdening themselves with things that would maybe one day be useful or valuable, something I can relate to as I hang on to certain things for years that never find a use. I was also able to add in a few objects that are meaningful and personal to me, if you’ve got a keen eye, you might notice there’s one thing that appears twice, there’s a personal reason behind that but I’m not going to talk about that now. My main goal throughout was to try and capture the characters and world that Richard has created within his lyrics.”

“Once the sketch was finalised, I did the line work with pen and ink and then scanned and coloured digitally. A few elements were changed or added with a graphics tablet and then I made and added textures including the background watercolour. The final thing was to draw the titles and add them in.”

 “I was also lucky enough to also work on the back cover and two inner sleeves. For the back cover we wanted to incorporate more of the sci-fi elements from the album, so we went with a mysterious portal, something slightly surreal and unknowable. I tried to incorporate a sense of something organic but also some jarring angular elements and some crystalline structures infecting the local environment. I wanted it to appear intriguing but also slightly threatening.”

“For the inner sleeves we wanted to capture more of the environment in the world of ‘The Ruby Cord’ a harbour, with some sense of life and community, a small patch of society that survived, remains or was rebuilt. For the second inner sleeve we wanted a contrast, so we went with a city in ruins, a place that would normally be bustling with human life, now desolate, not even plants and animals exist here aside from a few specks of moss. An obelisk floats in the sky, what is it? Where did it come from? The album is full of mystery, with a sense of not really knowing what’s real, what happened and why and that’s what I tried to capture within the artwork.”

Ruby Cord by Richard Dawson on Domino Records is nominated for Best Art Vinyl 2022 Artwork by Jake Blanchard. VOTING OPEN UNTIL 12 DEC 2022