12″ EP and download, out Nov 7th, available to preview and pre-order at the Ninja shop
Openmind designs
Items created by by design alter-ego, Openmind
CD on body for the Japanese release of ‘The Search Engine’ with two bonus tracks – ‘Beast of Prey’ and a new version of ‘All Covered In Darkness Pt.2’
The new EP – ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’ – is up for pre-order on 12″ vinyl or download at the Ninja shop. The 5-track vinyl comes with a full colour inner sleeve, A2 poster cover and plastic sleeve, all for £5. It’s out in exactly a month but vinyl is limited so this is a heads up way ahead of time.
DJ Food – ‘The Search Engine’, the promo CD, I can’t quite believe it.
‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’, ‘The Shape Of Things That Hum’, ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’.
Variant artwork for Japan, the booklet will have different versions of material too
Both Henry and I are very pleased with this final image, a true collaborative effort in every sense. I came up with the concept of a cosmonaut hanging in space, strapped into an unfeasibly large backpack, the kind you could only wear in zero gravity. He was originally to be suspended from the huge cylinder from the ‘Shape Of Things That Hum’ cover but we needed a bottom to the piece.
I asked Henry to illustrate all sorts of protrusions to attach to the image and additional pipes attaching the cosmonaut. In typical Flint style we went way above and beyond and illustrated a whole circular machine! This changed the whole composition as I felt it would be stronger with the cosmonaut suspended in the centre and then set about colouring both elements.
I bounced a myriad of different versions back and forth to gauge his opinion, some very rough and messy, others clean. We both agreed there was something missing at the end and, upon hearing the ‘Colours Beyond Colours’ track from my album, Henry suggested some sort of light beam or prism. I went away and tried a ton of lens flares and light effects to finish it off.
Release date: Dec 3rd (Japan) / Jan 16th (Rest of the world)
I think this might be one of my favourite designs for my own music, this is the track list for the album believe it or not. I’ve really been into circular designs for the last few years and I had this idea ages ago and had to save it for my own stuff. Such a shame artwork for music is getting smaller and smaller and I keep doing hyper-detailed stuff like this. Would love to see this on a 12″ picture disc one day, colours might change though…
Another one, too light and grainy
This one didn’t make it, too messy, but still nice
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Here we have what I hope to be the first in a series of limited edition signed prints of the work by Henry Flint that’s adorned my record sleeves over the last 2 years. The first one is ‘Life Cycle of a Machine’ that featured on my ‘The Shape of Things That Hum’ EP in late 2009 and was originally a B&W line drawing that Henry did which I have digitally coloured.
The giclee print is 64 x 47cm on 300gsm Somerset Photo paper which is 100% cotton and I can attest that the print is very high quality indeed. All will be signed by Henry and myself and will be available from Scraffer.com, sent rolled in a study cardboard tube. If these sell well there are plans for a further three prints featuring artwork from the album and EPs in the same format.
My third EP will be called ‘Magpies, Maps and Moons’, featuring 5 tracks with a vocal collaboration from JG Thirlwell and a musical one from 2econd Class Citizen. It will be out Oct/Nov, on 12″ and DL, not entirely sure the exact date yet, with the album to follow shortly afterwards.
More Henry Flint art for the album release, not sure how far this is finished yet.
Art by Henry Flint, colours by Strictly Kev, coming this Autumn…