The Artist/Album: James Blake, James Blake (February 7, Atlas/A&M)
The Details: While it’s still unclear whether James Blake’s debut album will get a proper major label rollout here or not—Atlas is his A&M-funded imprint in the UK—we’re certainly looking forward to importing the following songs either way…
The Artist/Album: Earth, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (Southern Lord, February 7)
The Details: Earth’s core duo, Dylan Carlson and Adrienne Davies, channel Tinariwen and Fairport Convention alongside a new bassist (Karl Blau) and cellist (Lori Goldston, a session player for such A-list artists as David Byrne and Nirvana). Check out an interview with Carlson here and an untitled new track—captured live at Brooklyn Masonic Temple last year—after the jump…
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“We certainly are using all sorts of electronic instruments, more synthesizers, computers, all of that, but contrasted with more organic sounds, more organic percussion. Since [frontman] Dan [Whitford] came across the image a few months ago, he’s stuck with it, and thought that it summed up what we wanted to get across.” [Cut Copy's Tim Hoey, via Spin]
“So Nirvana can have a naked human being on they cover but I can’t have a PAINTING of a monster with no arms and a polka dot tail and wings” [Kanye West's Twitter]
We’ll have an exclusive mix from Terror Danjah—one of the godfathers of grime music—very soon. Check out more of our favorite sleeves, and some of the stories behind them, here.
Photo: Zen Sekizawa
We’ve been fans of Soundscreen Design’s Artist Music Journal series—limited edition art books featuring everyone from Black Dice’s Bjorn Copeland to Lungfish’s Daniel Higgs—for a while now. In fact, we’re running a longer story on it next week. In the meantime, Brian Roettinger shared some details surrounding his collaboration with No Age, the first Artist Music Journal to include a 10-inch of exclusive material. You can pre-order one of 1,000 hand-numbered copies (available next Tuesday, August 31) here.
The quick back story: Roettinger launched Hand Held Heart as a record label in 1998. It evolved into a multi-medium design studio six years later, with projects for such artists as Pretty Girls Make Graves, Death From Above 1979, Liars, and his longest-running client, No Age. (Roettinger’s design work on their Sub Pop debut, Nouns, was nominated for a Best Album Packaging Grammy.)
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Photos by Ruvan Wijesooriya
By Aaron Richter
I first met Ruvan Wijesooriya just a short while after I’d moved to New York; we were assigned to cover, of all bands, the Bravery recording their second album. At the time, I was familiar with Ruvan’s work—chronicling the city’s nightlife on film (always on film), and steadily emerging as a talented fashion and music photographer as well. We’ve remained friends ever since, always lending a hand to each other’s projects.
So I’ll be the first to admit I was sickly jealous when I got an e-mail from him this past summer saying that he was partying in Laurel Canyon, California, at the Mansion (yes, Rick Rubin’s Mansion) where James Murphy was recording the new LCD Soundsystem album. Ruvan has been a visual presence with DFA for years, and the cover of LCD’s latest, This Is Happening, features one of his images.
Since James & Co. are performing at Webster Hall tonight (two new tracks also just popped up online), I caught up with Ruvan to chat about his summer with LCD…
[Photo by Indra Dunis]
As much as we dug the dirt-encrusted mood music of Zola Jesus‘ breakthrough LP, The Spoils (Sacred Bones, 2009), Nika Roza Danilova’s new EP is something else—a flirtation with full-on pop songs, buoyed by dark ambient samples and skeletal beats that sound like they’re knocking your door down rather than being reduced to dust. (In many ways, Danilova’s early songs mirror the brash but brutal bedroom productions on Cold Cave’s Cremations compilation. And her music is changing for the better just as quickly.)
If you ask Sacred Bones, Stridulum is a “siren song for the apocalypse.” Which sounds about right. It’s also a record that isn’t afraid to address relationships with rather literal lyrics like, “It’s not easy/To fall in love/But if you’re lucky/You just might find someone.” As tired as those lines may look on paper, they sound gorgeous in the context of a Zola Jesus song, mostly because Danilova’s classically-trained voice—she’s just 20 years old, but already sounds ready to clobber concert halls—cuts right through her minimal compositions. Mark our words: this girl will be one of the breakthrough acts of SXSW next week, and one of 2011’s most anticipated albums. Hell, we’re already counting down the days.
Since Stridulum’s record sleeve is just as striking as the music within, we asked Danilova to explain just what’s dripping down her face. Turns out it’s not an oil spill after all…
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Planted in the center of the album cover for Pissed Jeans‘ latest LP, King of Jeans (Sub Pop), is a hairy, pasty arm, cropped at the wrist and bicep, slightly bent. But the arm is more than it appears: Opening the sleeve reveals the entire Smell the Glove-ish scene (shown above). It’s a great cover. Even better after we realized that Shawn Brackbill, one of regular contributing photographers, shot all the album art—and even more nuts when we realized that the record’s innards contained an image that originally appeared on this very dot-com. Yep, it’s our 15 minutes. But we’ll happily share the spotlight with Shawn (guess he’s earned it, after all). Here the photographer—who recently shot a video and the new LP cover for Cale Parks as well as a pair of 7-inch sleeves for Paint It Black—preps to tackle NYC Fashion Week by answering a few of our questions regarding the record sleeve’s caramel-y goodness.
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COVER FLOW: Fucked Up Share the Stories Behind Their Sleeves
Fucked Up have re-posted a feature that focuses on their artwork, from key singles to their last album, 2008’s The Chemistry of Common Life. Here’s a sampling…Continue reading »
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