- RELEASED: 27 Sept 1999
- FORMAT: 2xLP / CD
- LABEL: NINJA TUNE
- CAT No.: ZEN45 / ZENCD45
- DESIGN: Openmind
- PHOTOGRAPHY: unknown
- EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY
The first album was one of the easier design jobs for TCO, the title was a godsend and I knew straight away what I was going to do for it. The image chopped up and stretched across both front and back cover is actually an outtake from a Mud Family photo session where they were moving about in long exposure shots so that everything was blurred. The problem with this design came with the way I wanted the CD to be packed and racked in the shops.
I designed it so that the front cover showed through the back of the CD case – a completely flat space for the design with no hinged window down one side. This seemed to confuse people as it was such an alien concept that you could turn the case round and even rack it like this in the shops. In the UK I think they refused to rack it the right way round and in the end we just went with the usual conventional way of printing it ie: booklet with front cover on and tracklist on the back. In N. America I think they went with my idea although I have no idea if it was racked correctly.
I’ve included a load of alternate or early designs for covers and labels here too as I went through a lot before J was happy.