I saw this is coming out for Record Store Day, the soundtrack to ‘A Field In England’ re-imagined by a band called Teeth of the Sea. No idea what it sounds like but I like the cover.
Design
I’m featuring this again because I just got the special (Record Store Day 2013) edition and it’s one of the nicest packages I’ve seen in a while. A heavyweight slipcase to house the sumptuous book of drum machine photos which really aren’t done justice on a blog here as they are gorgeous up close in richly printed colour – see more of the inside in my previous post.
But this is all about what’s with the book – namely a cassette and 7″ record housed in the front of the slipcase. The 7″ features a version of the Beasties Boys‘ ‘Paul Revere’ remade on the 808 drum machine on side A and the same beat played the original way (ie not reversed) on the flip. In a nice touch, the B side plays from the label outwards towards the edge, backwards rather than forwards. The cassette has samples on it but I can’t listen to then right now as my tape deck broke about a year back. All are done out in the black and white schematic that adorns some of the book, adding to the fitting design aesthetic of the package.
Another nice touch is the inner sleeve for the 45 which opens to reveal a painting of an 808 on one side, and in a nod to the Beasties’ ‘Licensed To Ill’ LP, shows it crunching into a mountainside on the reverse. I’ve placed the two sides together here so you can see how the full image should look as the artist has nicely matched the original style.
You can still pick this version up from Rap & Soul Mail Order in the UK for £50 and it’s worth every penny.
Arts London Music Magazine asked me to name 10 influential tracks to kick off their Rewind series. These are specifically songs that took me through my three year BA degree course at Camberwell College of Art in London during the years 1990-93. I wrote a little piece about each including design inspirations as well as a couple of old pieces of college work that I did in response to music-related briefs whilst on the course, unseen for 21 years pieces. To cap it all off I gave them a mix I made for a college reunion in 2012 that features many of the songs plus plenty more and runs for nearly 2 hours. Full track list and info in the link above.
ALM Mix 01: DJ FOOD – Citrus ’12 by Arts_London_Music_Magazine on Mixcloud
Below are some more detailed shots of the ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ piece I made. It takes the Ricki Lee Jones interview that’s heavily sampled on the track and twists it typographically using hot metal and wood block printing on tissue paper (in itself a very difficult thing to achieve without ripping the paper). That was then mounted on clear acetate and meant to be hung away from the wall so that light could pass through it to reflect the cloud-like nature of the piece (student thinking huh?).
Great sleeves and great music from the Antinote label out of Paris, France. Run by Gwen Jamois – ex of The Sycophants and now excavating old techno tapes he recorded in the 90’s as Iueke. The label is only just 2 years old and their latest release is a total beauty by Nico Motte, a synth-led future music soundtrack with a gorgeous sleeve.
There’s a whole host of new Finders Keepers material hitting their shop at the moment including this limited edition cassette mix from Andy Votel.
I found some time to add some more to my Art of ZTT blog, we’re on to Propaganda‘s ‘Dr Mabuse’ now with interviews with John Stoddart, Paul Morley, David Smart, Lo Cole and Garry Mouat to come this year… I’ve had to start watermarking some of the content as it’s been shared around on certain social networking sites without credit.
Still no idea when this is getting a proper release but I guess at some point this year we’ll see it in regular cinemas or on DVD. There’s a Facebook page for it now and a couple of posters with Chris Foss and Moebius artwork, possibly a book of some sort too maybe?
‘Joe Mansfield’s Beat Box Book’ is a beautiful collection of the best of his nearly 150 item collection of drum machines, published by his newly minted Get On Down book imprint. Joe bought his first drum machine, the Roland TR 808, in 1985 and was hooked, later going into production for rappers like Edo G and Scientifik before founding the Traffic Entertainment label which specialises in high end Hip Hop reissues.
I’m no hardware enthusiast and have only ever owned a handful of pieces of outboard kit in my time, preferring to work ‘in the box’ so to speak, but I can appreciate the visual appeal of a lot of these beat boxes even if I could only identify a few by ear. But being that this is a book and not a record, the aesthetics of these machines is what it’s all about and I doubt that anyone could have taken more care and done as much justice to their visual appeal as this book has. The photography is perfect, lighting the subjects so as to highlight their shape, textures and features beautifully whilst never shying away from the ravages that some of them have suffered at the hands of their owners over time.
But it’s not just a photo gallery, we’re also treated to reproductions of the graphics, manuals, vintage advertising material and even some of the original boxes they would have come in in all their faded, battered and taped-up glory. Whilst the 808, 909, DMX and Linn drums will be the most familiar, some of their close relatives are also featured like the Roland TR-55, TR-330, CR-78 Rhythmatic and Linn 9000.
There are some real curios here too, mostly from the crossover commercial market outside of the pro studio environment. The Rhythmatic Electronic Rhythm Section, with its ‘let’s take it out for a picnic’ carry handle and funky drummer graphic over the speaker for instance. The Casio PT-7 with its dinky, detachable keyboard or the Mattel Bee Gees (yes, those Bee Gees) Rhythm Machine which Kraftwerk famously bastardised to use on tour when they played ‘Pocket Calculator’. My favourite is the Bandmaster Powerhouse Rhythm Unit, a drum machine from 1975 that also played 8-Track tapes and allowed you to mix drum loops with your albums.
There’s some gorgeous typography too in the brand logos and machine identities plus the whole book is set in the OCR-A font – not your regular choice for large blocks of text but befitting the subject matter no end.
There are a few machines that will be nearly as familiar as the Roland‘s and Oberheim‘s on display here too. Many will remember the Casio VL-Tone VL-1, a regular of high street gadget and hi-fi shops as well as toy stores, the Boss Dr. Rhythm units and the Mattel Synsonics Drums with their four pads that could be hit with sticks.
The 808, 909, DMX and Linn drums get the lion’s share of the spotlight plus there are interviews with Roger Linn, Davy DMX, Schoolly D (about the 909) but nothing for the 808, which is a shame as someone like John Robie would have been a nice addition. This is a minor quibble, probably the only one, about a book which has a visual appeal far beyond the audio hardware fetish crowd. I wonder if we’ll see book collections showcasing the interfaces of classic software in another 20 years time? I doubt they’ll have quite the same appeal as this book does.
You can read more about it here and order a copy here including the regular version or a slip cased special edition with extra 7″ and cassette.
DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot and I are touring the ‘3-Way Mix’ this year. That being a 4 deck, 3 DJ reconstruction of the Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique‘ album made from all the original tracks that they, and the Dust Brothers, sampled + more.
Here’s the first round of tour dates (more to come) with a graphic I made featuring all the sources they sampled, can you spot the Beasties? I made several versions + several Facebook timeline headers. Click for large versions.
La Boca have designed this lovely box set for the new Bombay Bicycle Club LP, ‘So Long’, which comes with a CD, a gatefold LP, an exclusive 7″, story & song book and a working Phenakistoscope (similar to a zoetrope). Find one at their site or see the beautiful fly posters of the artwork around town.
I edited this little promo together for Soundsci‘s forthcoming EP, ‘Expo 2014’, from Darrell Krum‘s excellent artwork files last week. It’s a 10″ sampler of 4 tracks + Bonus Beats for 2014’s releases on their World Expo label. For those who don’t know, Soundsci are a UK/US Hip Hop super group consisting of Jonny Cuba (ex-Dynamic Syncopation) and Ollie Teeba (The Herbaliser) who form the production team The Process from the UK.
From the US comes Audessey (ex-Mass Influence), U George and Oxygen (Sputnik Brown, Spox PHD). They have a busy year ahead with Soundsci releases, Ollie Teeba’s solo album and a U George solo LP and the 10″ showcases a track from each. Available on Feb 21st, go here for more info.
Fantastic work here by Alexandre ‘Zedig’ diboine – tons more over on his tumblr too.
I found these international posters for Berberian Sound Studio on the web – some lovely versions, especially these Tane Williams variants below from a film festival in New Zealand.
Now available – a new release by Sculpture on a 7″ picture disc with zoetropic tendancies – BUY HERE NOW – View with strobe 25 flashes per second or video camera 25fps, very high shutter speed, progressive.
Includes immediate download of 2-track album in the high-quality format of your choice (MP3, FLAC, and more), plus unlimited mobile access using the free Bandcamp listening app. It’s their best yet and the video below shows just how detailed and beautiful the disc can be when filmed spinning.
You know me, I love music and I love Lego. Well, a guy called Harry Heaton has started making classic (and not so classic) LP covers out of Lego. He has a tumblr full of them and is taking requests.
They’re made using Lego Digital Designer apparently which is the Lego equivalent of CAD so they’re not actually physically real but that would take a long time, a lot of money and I don’t think Lego actually make that many shades of beige. Anyway, kudos to Harry for marrying music design and Lego.
Also kudos to Harry for making a version of Bonobo’s ‘The North Borders’ LP sleeve! 
EDIT: I think I worked out how to do it 😉
This is a new poster for Transport for London, drawn by Thibaud Herem as part of the 150 years of the London Underground birthday. TFL now have an official Tumblr that they will be filling with images for the anniversary. Talking of posters on the Underground, there is a great series running currently, drawn by French illustrator, McBess. They are general safety warnings with poetry written by members of the public and are all over the place in various sizes. I think we’re in a new golden age of design for the London Underground.
Out on Feb 14th, 2014 – 30 years after the record was banned by the BBC and still sitting at No.1 in the charts – yet another version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s notorious ‘Relax’.
This time it’s ‘The Sex Mix’ (Edition 3) – formerly known as ‘Sex Mix Edit’, a hitherto undiscovered mix that first surfaced on a Japanese compilation called ‘Return To The Pleasuredome’ a few years ago. The original ‘Sex Mix Edit’ (or Edition 2) is a little known 8 minute odd edit of the original 16 minute ‘Sex Mix’ that came and went (pun intended) in late ’83 before being replaced by a 7.20 minute ‘US Remix / New York Night mix’ which many consider as the definitive 12″ of ‘Relax’.
This new mix (Edition 3) had been created by Trevor Horn session man and renown percussionist Luis Jardim in December ’84 – who knows what for? It was then filed away, forgotten, later mislabeled and then extracted over 25 years later to end up on a compilation on the other side of the world. Hardcore fans from The Alternate ZTT Board soon spotted the difference and this sent the reissue curator, Ian Peel, back into the ZTT archives to search for more info and tapes that would lead to this previously unheard remix being given a proper vinyl release nearly 30 years after it was created.
Confused? This isn’t even half the ‘Relax’ mix story but I’ll save that for another time. Here, the original XLZTT artwork and Anne Yvonne Gilbert illustration have been tweaked by Element Series designer Philip Marshall to mirror the colour scheme for the 2012 Frankie rarities compilation, ‘Sex Mix’. The tracklist is: A. Relax ‘Sex Mix’ (Edition 3) B1. Ferry Cross the Mersey B2. Relax ‘The Instrumental’. You can pre-order it from Amazon here
A page from a new book, ‘Brian Eno – Visual Music’, by Christopher Scoates.
My other site – Art of ZTT – is finally getting some updates after I’d let it languish all summer. It’s a design blog showcasing the design work of XL and the work they and assorted photographers did for the Zang Tuum Tumb label which was a huge influence on me in my teens. The label is 30 years old this year and putting out several compilations in early 2014 with rarities and wonders from their archive.
Yesterday I went to see photographer John Stoddart who shot Frankie Goes To Hollywood before and after they were famous and an interview with him will be online soon. Recently put up is an interview with Yvonne Gilbert, the artist responsible for the iconic two bodies image on the sleeve of ‘Relax’. I’m working my way through their releases, semi-chronologically so next year will be a big one.