Design

Death Waltz Record Store Day releases

Death Waltz Recording Company releases for Record Store Day 2014 (only 2 of the 4). Each album has a splattered colour vinyl disc, a huge 36″x36″ poster, a 12″x12″ card print of the poster plus sleeve notes, a housebag that’s both embossed and debossed and a paper wraparound with release details.

These retail at an average of £20 each – incredible when you see the prices of other releases only offering half that. Plus Spencer Hickman, the label owner, is a straight up dude, one of the soundest people I’ve come across in the music industry. DW details x2

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Mo Wax 21 / Urban Archaeology exhibition, London

I visited the MoWax 21 / Urban Archaeology exhibition that opened at the Southbank Centre in London, currently home to the James Lavelle-curated Meltdown season.it was stuffed with everything you could want from a visual label retrospective with memorabilia and artwork from across the label’s history and beyond into post MW UNKLE releases.

For those familiar with the label there us much here to wallow in but plenty of behind the scenes stuff too. A letter from Mike D about a planned MoWax / Grand Royal ‘Battle of the Beats’ record, working drawings and model for Futura Pointmen toys and plenty of original art that graced many a sleeve. There are toys in every kind of colourway, some still at prototype stage, flyers reaching back to the early 90’s to when MoWax was more of a Talking Loud wannabe than the trip hop and electronica powerhouse of its heyday.

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It’s free but only open until June 22nd so you only have this week to catch it before it’s gone. But if you don’t manage to make it down then there is an extensive book now available with even more info and photos. Initially funded via Kickstarter, I received a copy last week and it’s beautiful to behold, a perfect visual encapsulation of the label.

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Live action Akira concepts (Hollywood version)

Here are some concepts and designs from what would have been the Hollywood version of Akira, proposed several years ago (and in various forms years before that too). It would have starred Chris Evans as Kaneda and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tetsuo amongst others. These images are taken from the moviepilot.com site, go there for more concept images and info.

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Clone – Son of Octabred

Beautiful artwork on the new Dead Cert release which is another Clone record taken from a tape of instructions for birthing! Image and text taken from the Boomkat mail out:

“Utilising the ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey, Polymoog, harmonica/synthesiser interface, Eventide Omnipressor, Roland vocoder and genuinely bizarre narration imploring the listener to “push…” over a background of retro-futuristic space-age progressions, these recordings edge the concept of extreme American outsider music to its furthest reaches.

Originally broadcast as a one-off transmission for electronic harmonicist Gary Sloane’s Import Hour show on Anchorage radio station KGOT FM, it’s one of the rarest recordings in the very limited line of Clone breadcrumbs released to date – the audio discovered by Sloan in his own time capsule of C60 compact cassettes used to document the unlikely synthesised wing of an untravelled North American micro industry.”

At 10 and 12 minutes a side it’s debatable whether this should qualify as an ‘album’ but it’s certainly one of their most intriguing releases recently. Listen and buy here.

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Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’ 30 years old today

Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Two Tribes’ – one of the greatest pop singles of the 80’s and certainly one of the greatest 12″ mixes of all time – was released 30 years ago today. June 4th saw a 7″ and 12″ finally burst the bubble of expectation that ‘Relax’ had inflated after its 5 week run at the no.1 spot despite a BBC ban.

Six days later on June 10th ‘Two Tribes’ was also sitting at no.1 and would remain bedded in for another nine weeks with ‘Relax’ returning to the no.2 spot for a couple of those too. The 7″ and 12″ would be joined by three further 12″s, all sporting remixes of the title track or its B side, a cover of Edwin Starr‘s ‘War’, as well as 7″ and 12″ picture discs and a cassette compiling excerpts from all.

Add to that the phenomenon of the ‘Frankie Say’ T-shirts that swept the nation that summer and you had a roller coaster of pop product that no one could have predicted. Over on my ArtofZTT blog I’ve been adding sleeves, posters, adverts and picture discs daily to celebrate along with various quotes and info about the releases.

The ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set I helped design is looking good at 83% funded over on Pledge Music and I’m waiting on the go ahead to post more photos from it. Over on his Failed Muso blog Rob Puricelli has written a great piece about the anniversary of ‘Two Tribes‘ and how it impacted on him as a teen in the 80’s, so much of it rings true to my experience too but he puts it so much better.

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RIP HR Giger 1940-2014

Very sad to hear that the great Swiss surrealist painter and designer HR Giger has passed away. Few people have a unique vision but I think it’s safe to say that he was one of those few and has influenced generations with his mechanic/organic images.

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His work is not easily forgotten once seen and he created one of the great movie monsters of our time in the Alien. The album cover was also a natural canvas for his work with the public exposed to him via Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s ‘Brain Salad Surgery’ LP well before Alien. His work for Debbie Harry and The Dead Kennedys saw much controversy with the latter being banned and famously brought to court with Jello Biafra defending the artist’s vision.

I remember seeing his large format Necronomicon and Biomechanics books in shops in the 80’s and wanting them so badly but they were way out of my price range at the time. I was lucky enough to visit the tiny town of Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland one time though to see many of his originals in the Giger Museum – highly recommended. Sadly missed but never forgotten.

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Kid Acne ‘The Return’ exhibition Galo Art Gallery, Turin

Kid Acne‘s ‘The Return’ solo exhibition just opened last weekend in Turin, Italy. Here are some photos from the opening and a film of him at work. The show runs until July 5th and is held at the Galo Art Gallery.

The entire exhibition focuses on his Stabby Women characters – adding new paintings, illustrations and prints to the ongoing body of work, which continues to explore the travels, rituals and mythology of these enigmatic female warriors.

KID ACNE from Tom Sykes on Vimeo.

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Is this what KLF is about?

I can’t say too much about these because they’re not legit, but they are very good and make for an indepth journey into the back catalogue of the evergreen JAMMs / KLF etc. Collections of remasters and remixes, obscurities and hits mix with reworkings so sensitive to the originals that it’s hard to tell what’s ‘real’ and what’s not.

This is particularly excellent, extending Jimmy Cauty‘s ‘Space’ to over 72 minutes. If you do some research and a bit of digging around you can find out about and hear some of this material but you won’t find it in any shops.

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Scenes from the Easter weekend

Two views of Lisbon; inside my hotel and out on the street by the MusicBox club where I played on Thursday night.

Sun through the clouds in Switzerland, driving towards France on Friday afternoon.

Sound check in La Rodia, Besancon, France with our new banner featuring every artist sampled on the ‘Paul’s Boutique’ LP.


The not-quite-finished hotel in France the next morning – note the 2 stars – it was actually OK inside. Next, a fantastic view on the road back to Geneva.


Saturday night back in London – Adam & The (original) Antz do ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’ at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Beastie fans get ready for the 3-Way Mix at the Moon Club in Cardiff on Sunday night and we premiere our new picture disc controller records from 12InchSkinz during the set.

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Syd Mead’s Lego Blade Runner Spinner in detail

A recent edition of the Brick Journal (issue 28) has a feature on building the Police Spinner car from Blade Runner. It also has some new photos of the one-off version that Lego built for designer Syd Mead.

You can find physical copies of the magazine in Forbidden Planet sometimes or download it from their site here. The rest of the issue is heavy with insights into the Lego Movie and the various character, vehicle and set builds behind it.

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Epic Beard Men 7″ on Blunt Force Trauma

Those lovely people at Factory Road (purveyors of Solid Eggs, 45 adaptors, gallery spaces, Inkymole illustration etc) also run an occasional record label called Blunt Force Trauma.

Their latest release is in conjunction with Sage Francis, an artist they’ve enjoyed a long association with, providing artwork for several of his releases over the years. Co-released with his Strange Famous label this one consists of a mini Hip Hop supergroup, the Epic Beard Men aka Sage, B. Dolan and the UK’s very own Buddy Peace.

It’s a double A-sided 45 with an ode to black plastic on the A (“Viva La Vinyl‘) and a stomping funk party rap on the flip (‘You Can’t Win‘). As usual they’ve gone the extra mile on the packaging and artwork on this one and the 7″ comes in a 12″ fold out ‘sleeve’ with tear off double-sided art print and custom Factory Road 45 dink in the center.

You can also listen to it and buy direct from them right now, ahead of its April 14th release date HERE. Also, check Sarah (Inkymole) Coleman illustrating some of the work in these two shorts.

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Star Wars & Empire early prelim posters & logos

I love these examples of early Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back posters with alternate logos and artwork. Even the finished film poster above has a rare shot of the heroes with Leia in Chewbacca‘s arms and the uneven red ‘crawl’ logo which is quite badly rendered when you look at it.

Below is an even earlier version with Ralph McQuarrie paintings plus an invite to one of the first public screenings.

Below are what look like poster prelims for Empire… with a totally different logo design that I’d never seen before.

Then another, more finished version of the logo with original SW poster art adapted. Love the way Leia is riding side saddle on the version above.

Actually, for all I know, these could be fan art but all the images are sourced from the Star Wars Archives page on Facebook which lends some sort of credibility to them.

Below we get yet another logo with a Luke on Tauntaun image.

Lastly, a preview poster for Empire with a big “BEWARE!” warning across it, this certainly looks real.

Posted in Art, Design, Film, Poster / flyer. | No Comments |