Forward Strategy Group - Labour Division packaging by Adult Art Club

Link: Adult Art Club
Link: Perc Trax

Released by the Perc Trax label is the Labour Division album by Forward Strategy Group. The CD version fits neatly in a metal tin - hinting the recordings' industrial edge - with a full colour, four page booklet designed by Adult Art Club. The cover additionally has a tough aesthetic with its suspended, brutally sliced classical statue perhaps evoking the dream-like work of Giorgio de Chirico.

Wallzo's sleeve for Hot Chip's Ready for the Floor long-player also seemed to touch on the same artist's imagery although this, with it's ominous - maybe apocalyptic - landscape, is somewhat darker whilst all that concrete-like grittiness is offset nicely by Adult Art Club's more minimal detailing.

Rinse Presents: Roska 2 artwork by Give Up Art

Link: Give Up Art 
Link: Rinse

Designed by Give Up Art's Stuart Hammersley, the latest album on Rinse contrasts hugely with the mix series he's packaged for the label/station alongside, photographer, Shaun Bloodworth. While the latter has boasted stark, street tough portraits that are lifted by single bands of colour, the latest Roska album utilises the labelling grid seen on Give Up Art's design for the earlier Brackles CD over an expanse of bright graphics. It magnifies those Lichtenstein-evoking halftone patterns for a fun, maybe summer-y exterior card case that is juxtaposed with the far more minimal monochromatic jewel case that's contained inside.

F.C. Judd - Electronics Without Tears artwork by Optigram

Link: Optigram
Link: Public Information
Link: F.C. Judd 

With CD and download versions available at a special price to mark its composer's 98th birthday, it's worth revisiting Optigram's designs for the release of F.C. Judd's Electronics Without Tears.

First released by the Public Information label in January, externally it continues a series of hard-edged yet hypnotic patterns by Optigram's Manuel Sepulveda. Although, within the CD packaging, there is additionally an eight page booklet with notes on the retrospective album's 35 tracks plus a biography on the radiophonic master by, experimental documentary maker, Ian Halliwell. [The vinyl edition - limited to just 500 copies - appears to be sold out.]

DROKK packaging by Marc Bessant

Link: Marc Bessant 
Link: DROKK

The latest project from designer Marc Bessant sees him, once again, working alongside Portishead's Geoff Barrow. Titled DROKK and in collaboration with composer Ben Salisbury, this takes its musical and visual inspiration from Judge Dredd's Mega-City One. The release additionally finds itself spread across a number of formats.

Limited to an edition of 400 is a deluxe box set version consisting of a PiL-evoking metal film cannister containing an industrial-like grey vinyl pressing, circular print, CD and t-shirt. [More images of the various versions can be found at the above links.] The DROKK branding also makes use of a stencil typeface akin to that which might typify industrial signage associated with the dystopian end of the sci-fi genre.

Bessant's discussion of DROKK's development/creative process:

"Taking on a project that already has 35 years of talent associated with it is always daunting, but some things are hard to pass over, as was the case with ‘DROKK -Music inspired by Mega-City One’.

I first heard the demo’s some time ago and they were sounding the right side of edgy then and beginning to tick all the right boxes; Making music for non-existant movies has become quite fashionable of late, but what was different about this one was its creators were old-skool readers of 2000ad and, taking into account that respect for the writers and artists over the years, had a genuine motivation for making it uncompromisingly just-so. I would approach the design in much the same way, I would not (and largely could not) compete with the artists that have brought mega-city one to life for the past three-and-a-half decades, the sleeve design had to be independent of all that and stand on its own, for better or worse.

I wanted to make a sleeve/formats that wouldn’t look out of place within the Mega-Cities themselves, gritty and monochromatic. Early on we (Geoff, Ben and I) met with 2000ad/Rebellion and our work could not have been more positively received, their approval meant a lot to us and from then on it was full steam ahead.  Several formats were undertaken  – Bunker, Visor, LP and Mega-Edition – all various shapes and sizes but with an overall utilitarian and minimal aesthetic throughout. Cover logotype was painted and tracks/names chassis-stamped, all textures from the surfaces of Civil Waste Disposal vehicles, crude but apposite."

AtomTM - Winterreise

Link: Raster Noton

"Winterreise is the audio soundtrack to a series of photographs with the same name produced by AtomTM. The series was exhibited during 2011 in Tokyo and Frankfurt. Excerpts are included in the packaging of the Winterreise CD edition.

The Winterreise soundtrack may be considered a sequel to the Liedgut (r-n 99) album, in the sense that the resulting photo series was conceived as a consequence of the contextual framework which Liedgut both initiated and provided. Winterreise though, is a far more abstract piece of work, with its accent in soundscapes and textures. With a balance between the romantic and the scientific, this album evokes, not just accompanies the visual aspect of the Winterreise project in a perfect manner, by painting grainy sonic images that visualize the tradition and the future of the romantic subconscious. A limited edition of original art prints of Winterreise photos (45 cm x 60 cm and 70 cm x 110 cm) will be available at Raster Noton's store."

Can - The Lost Tapes artwork by Julian House

Link: Julian House
Link: Mute


Following his sleeve for Clark's Iradelphic on Warp, Ghost Box and Intro creative Julian House builds on his imagery for Can's Sacrilege remix package with artwork for the band's highly anticipated The Lost Tapes.

Due for release by Mute in June, this box set of rarities from the Krautrock pioneers looks like it will boast a visual aesthetic derived from House's 'pulp' influences. In this case, these seem to be based around the music as artefact with details that play with the pseudo-scientific and retro-futuristic graphics associated with recordable analogue media. There is currently just the one image available, but - with finished copies being a three CD set - we might expect to see this pre-aged lo-fi style explored much further.

Mouse On Mars - Parastrophics artwork

Link: Mouse On Mars
Link: Monkeytown

"...We found out about the Shakers — they were similar to the Quakers in the 19^th century. They tried to reconsider religion and use America as new ground to do that... They had a very tolerant idea of the non-material world and the idea of Jesus. They had this practice where they drew all these weird maps of things that happened to them in a day, including the ghost world and mathematical formulas. And this whole map looked like a score or a diagram to create a machine. So we used this as the album sleeve — that’s a Shaker design."
(MTV Hive)

"...And then, we found those Shakers drawings, which basically we stole… or took as inspiration for the album. And the Shakers were a weird religious sect because men and women in the group were equal; they had the same rights, for within the 19th century, it was quite radical. They were great craftsmen, but also liberal in a way, very un-dogmatic. And they even had this idea of a metaphysical world that they would deal with in drawings, in craftwork, in poems. So we used this kind of worldview for the record."
(Exclaim.ca)

Photos: Steve Loya

Boys Noize & Erol Alkan - 'Lemonade' re-release

Coming soon on Phantasy/Because Music is Boys Noize & Erol Alkan’s ‘Lemonade’ - a single that's available in a very special limited edition vinyl format. Yes, that is the vinyl down there. Remixes come from Gesaffelstein and Justin Robertson.

YCN/Warp Records design by Oli Marsh

Link: Oli Marsh

University of Salford MA Communication Design student Oli Marsh provided a winning response to YCN's Warp Records brief.

His concept was based around an ever-evolving album artwork that involved a release's title being die-cut into an outer sleeve before being customised by further complimentary imagery released via the web. Marsh chose to illustrate the idea by using Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma long-player with his inky example of text and image (top) having a nice relationship to his Droplet font (bottom). Other work of particular note by Marsh includes his text based on audio waveforms that he utilised on a poster design for the Sonar festival.

Mute Audio Documents by Adrian Shaughnessy/This Is Real Art

Link: Shaugnessy Works
Link: This Is Real Art

Re-visit of an Adrian Shaughnessy design for a retrospective of the entire output of Mute Records that catalogues distinct periods in the history of the company as documents.

It's posted here as a reminder that Adrian Shaughnessy also has a publishing company, Unit Editions. The latter has a week left on its sale with 50% off selected items including the Supergraphics and Studio Culture books and a number of Wim Crouwel posters.

Link: Unit Editions

Plaid - Scintilli package

Link: Warp
Link: Plaid
Link: Scintilli microsite
Link: Pre-order at Bleep.com


Already being a much-delayed album, the Warp label is hopeful that the Sony/PIAS warehouse fire won't be affecting the release of Plaid's Scintilli too much - meaning that it should be in stores 26th September.

Sadly, some of Warp's back-catalogue will not be physically available again following this week's loss but this offering from the London-based duo is busily being manufactured alongside new albums from Rustie and CANT. There's also a limited edition version currently being offered via pre-order of a ‘Muda na Mono’ puzzle pack: that name taken from a Japanese phrase meaning ‘pointless object’. It contains two die-cut rings and a CD which can be assembled as per the featured diagram. If correctly aligned, the completed sphere allows the track titles to be read.

"The packaging reflects a desire to give the CD an ornamental function, beyond its one use as a basic storage device for music."

The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck by Marc Bessant

Link: Marc Bessant
Link: Merge Records

Moldover CD packaging

Featured at: http://www.bandsanddesign.com

The CD packaging for this Moldover album actually has an inbuilt Theremin.

Motive Sounds releases

Another label that puts considerable effort into its music packaging is Motive Sounds. It even includes a directory of the designers/illustrators it has used over at http://www.motivesounds.com/.

Formats

A parcel arrived today from the very helpful Alan at Tapeline. It contained an assortment of formats, cases and labels which I'll start experimenting with over the next couple of weeks.