Here’s a free Halloween-themed download by Soundsci MC UGeorge as Blacula in a special one-off download release for Hallow’s Eve. Digital only, grab it now and then check his new album, just up for pre-order, ‘The Many Faces of UGeorge‘ on World Expo. Darrell Krum on the artwork as usual.
Absolutely beautiful collection of 55 vintage book graphics animated by Henning M. Lederer – mesmerising, thanks to Markey Funk for hipping me to this one.
Swedish illustrator Kilian Eng celebrates Sun Ra with this awesome “Space is the Place” poster for the Nottingham Contemporary Museum which is currently holding an Alien Encounters exhibition featuring him.
The 100x70cm, 7-colour print is in an edition of only 125, priced at £65 and will go on sale from the Black Dragon Press website this Wednesday 28 October 2015 at 3pm GMT. These will go fast!
A brief history of electronic music mapped out to the circuit board of a theremin, which is widely regarded as one of the first electronic musical instruments, is available at Dorothy.
The Electric Love Blueprint celebrates over 200 inventors, innovators, composers and musicians who have been pivotal to the evolution of electronic music from the invention of the earliest known sound recording device in 1857 to the present day. Key pioneers featured include Léon Theremin, Bob Moog, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, John Cage, New Order and Aphex Twin.
The 60 x 80cm metallic silver screen print includes areas dedicated to specific genres such as the electroacoustic Musique Concrète, Krautrock, Synth Pop, Acid House and Electronica. There are also references to the experimental BBC Radiophonic Workshop and innovating record labels Mute and Warp. Buy here:
“Echo’s Magical Garden is a brand of children’s clothing that aims to excite the imagination of child and parent alike. Taking its inspiration from the dreamlike wonder of folklore, myths and legends, Echo’s Magical Garden is about playfulness, adventure and fantasy.”
A new venture by Simon James (The Simonsound / Black Channels) and his wife, it aims to provide non-gender specific, affordable clothing for kids “imbued with childlike wonder; unusual, magical designs with their own stories to spark the imagination”
Illustrations are the work of Kirsten Ulve and inspiration taken from the incredible array of work collected on the Echo’s Magical Garden Pinterest board. Simon has provided music to two short stories about creatures in the garden, written by Neil Cargill and read by Graham Duff that flesh out the garden’s inhabitants.
Finally – for fans of horror soundtracks, library music, hauntology and dark psychedelia – Markey Funk‘s new album is up for pre-order at Bandcamp. Markey has been flying the freak flag for years in Jerusalem and has a wealth of knowledge and record collection to match where out-there music and film is concerned.
I was honoured to be asked to write the sleeve notes for this album, a classic blend of all the genres mentioned above and more, a soundtrack just waiting for a film to attach itself to. Available on LP or DL with extra mixtape or debut album bundles, here are the first images of the finished vinyl. Anyone who enjoyed the Mordy Laye & The Group Modular album, the Ghost Box catalogue or Italian horror soundtracks will love this record.
The Space Merchants (London) run a monthly film night in East London showing classic Sci-Fi (the more out there and dystopian the better) whilst also operating an online book store and posting related items on their Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
The next date is October 19th where they’ll be showing the early 80s Christopher Walken-starring Brainstorm. They design a new poster for each event and sell prints at the showing or online, below are some of my favourites and give you a flavour for what they’re about.
Georges Simenon book covers found in a Swiss chalet this summer – artist is hard to make out, gouje + amalic ?
I don’t need this
I can’t really afford this
The price of shipping nearly doubles the cost of this
But my god it’s a lovely object. Buy one here and make me jealous.
I saw this recently and, although dated technically, it has some fantastic sets, shots and soundtrack moments. A tale of the world’s first AI supercomputer who decides man is a danger to himself and holds the world to ransom. The film was based on a novel by D.F. Jones from two years previous and there were two sequels although none apparently live up to the original. Highly recommended and sporting some great poster and book cover design from the late 60s.
Great post over on Scarfolk this week…
Last Saturday (Sept 12th) I played an hour long set after a showing of ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune’ documentary at one of the FEAST film nights in West Norwood’s Portico Gallery. During the mix the audience were greeted with a film of the slowly evolving, geometric designs of Ambigraph aka Ameet Hindocha.
Night co-ordinator Pete Williams recorded the mix and Ameet has reworked his visuals to accompany it in an hour long, meditative soundscape where all tracks are sourced from releases connected with Frank Herbert‘s most famous novel. *I recommend viewing in HD, probably late at night with the lights off.
Over the decades many artists have been inspired by this work and there are many concept albums built around themes from his books. As well as Toto‘s score for David Lynch‘s big screen adaptation there’s also music from the forthcoming soundtrack to the documentary I mentioned and tunes from Bernard Szajner‘s ‘Visions of Dune’ release among others.
I was very pleased when one of these popped through the letterbox the other day – a present from one of my consistently favourite labels. Ghost Box records are 10 and what does any self-respecting label do when they reach that anniversary? They compile some of the best bits and that’s exactly what ‘In A Moment’ showcases.
Nestling in the credits as well… that’s very serious company to be keeping. The comp is out on 9th October on double vinyl, CD and DL with sleeve notes by Simon ‘Hauntology’ Reynolds.
Beautiful artwork by Nick Stewart Hoyle aka Signalstarr for the soundtrack release of ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune’. Pre-order is up now via One Way Static for European customers, who have an exclusive variant. For US customers, order via Light In The Attic. It comes as a double LP with coloured swirl vinyl, silver foil embossing, gatefold sleeve and a poster version of this cover.
“Building upon director Frank Pavich’s idea for a score with a “Tangerine Dream-type feel,” Stenzel lays out a cosmic arsenal of analog synthesizers that would make any collector green at the gills: among other gems are a rare Moog Source, CZ-101s, and a Roland Juno 6, as well as unorthodox instruments like a toy Concertmate organ and a Nintendo DS. “I also played guitar and did vocals,” says Stenzel, “some chanting… and some screaming, which comes naturally to me.” The score also features narration by Jodorowsky himself. As Stenzel notes, “Jodo’s voice is actually the soundtrack’s main musical instrument–listening to him was almost like hypnosis, like going to the guru every night.”
My DJ set from Saturday, performed after the showing of the doc. at the FEAST night in West Norwood, is almost ready to post and contains several cuts from this album alongside all manner of other Dune-centric material.
Some lovely designs popping up on Andy Votel‘s twitter feed for festival appearances this summer, hope Jane tours that Belladonna rescore. There are still a load of radio shows I need to catch up with over on their Soundcloud.
Beautiful posters for Expo 67 in Montreal I discovered at various places online – just stunning.
A new record from Ghost Box is always a cause for celebration on this blog but this next one is actually celebrating their 10th anniversary so congratulations are in order. It’s a double album of highlights from the back catalogue on CD and LP with thirty one re-mastered tracks, heavy with The Advisory Circle, The Focus Group and Belbury Poly as you would expect. Graphic design as ever is by Julian House and extensive sleeve notes are by music writer, Simon Reynolds (who coined the term ‘Hauntology’).
Only one track is new – from the forthcoming Hintermass album – and you can hear clips from the compilation here. They promise a double CD with booklet or gatefold LP with DL code. Available on 9th October 2015, (pre-orders in the Ghost Box shop from 19th September). I’m really looking forward to listening to this in one sitting, from one of the most consistent labels out there and a constant inspiration.
A very productive weekend of digging uncovered these sci-fi paperbacks among others including three with covers by Richard M. Powers to add to the collection (I’m not so interested in the content, just the covers). The SF-18 cover artist is uncredited but a quick web search reveals that it’s by Dean Ellis and the original art is actually available to buy from this site if you have $5.5k! I’ve screen-grabbed the original below.
The Harlan Ellison book is an oddity as I noticed it shares a version of the same image on the cover of the Elektriktus album Electronic Mind Waves.
UPDATE: It seems that the image used on both the Ellison and Elecktriktus albums was originally by Rayment Kirby, entitled ‘Watch it’ and was printed as one of the first ever posters from the Big O Poster company. I contacted him and he shared his memory of making the piece,
“It was made by cutting out a B/W print after masking out the model’s hair and hand colouring it . It was laid on black polythene sheeting and the clock parts glued in position and the strands radiating from them were made from Bostick like glue. I think I shot the image in the late 1960s to early 70s so it was a long time ago. I don’t even remember who the model was. Having thought about the picture I think the poster rights may have been sold by an agent I had at the time. This would not have Included the other uses that (have) been made.”
I’m very pleased to announce that the Frankie Goes To Hollywood box set I co-designed last year with Philip Marshall and Ian Peel for Union Square Music has just been nominated for an award in the ‘SPECIAL CATALOGUE RELEASE OF THE YEAR’ category in the AIM (Association of Independent Music) awards. We’re up against Oasis, Bjork, Imogen Heap, The Pretty Things and the Cities of Darkscorch boardgame – fingers crossed. Regardless of whether we win or not it’s also been announced the Ninja Tune HAVE won the ‘Innovator Award’ so well done Matt, Jon, Peter and everyone involved in the label.
OK, so – Gamma Proforma – UK label dealing in music, art, books and apparel (T-shirts to you and me). I’ve mentioned them before, most notably with the recent Divine Styler album that blew my socks off in January but also with the ReWire kickstarter of last year and the Futurism 2.0 exhibition they put on a couple of years back. Their ‘roster’ – if you can call it that as they seem to deal in a project by project way – is full of names familiar to this blog both new and old: She One, Augustine Kofie, Divine Styler, Futura 2000, Will Barras, Remi/Rough, Delta, Rammellzee, Syd Mead and Ian ‘Swifty’ Swift among many more. If that isn’t enough to get your interest then you may as well stop reading now. I just want to highlight some of the currents releases coming out of this great label who seem to have tapped into my mind at times and assembled items that tick multiple boxes to an extent where it’s just getting silly now.
Their current big project is a multi-part release of The Rammellzee‘s final album, ‘Cosmic Flush’, incomplete at the time of his death but now finished by producer Jonah Mociun whom he worked on it with. Each track is being released on a single 12″ backed with a remix + instrumentals with a different artist chosen to provide the cover which is also included as a signed print.
Above and below are the first two singles, ‘Brainstorm’ and ‘How’s My Girlfriends’ with art by Futura 2000 and Ramm acolyte Ian Kuali’i and remixes by Divine Styler and Mr Len (ex-Co. Flow). The third 12″ – released next month – will be ‘Crazay’ with art by Delta and Mike Ladd on remix duties. Each 12″ is a pressing of 500 with half of these adding the print, these versions aren’t cheap and the Futura one is already sold out but the quality is top notch. Eventually all the releases will form the album proper although I’m not sure whether that will be collected into a box of some sort or issued on CD.
As you can see, there’s a heavy emphasis on the more leftfield, abstract side of graffiti on these releases and that’s carried over into the books and T-shirts too. The She One book with 7″ picure disc below is a heavy slab of goodness chock full of James Choules’ flaming brushstroke camouflage styles from close ups to sketch book scraps and a beautiful collection presented without all the usual clichés of the genre.
Similarly Phil Ashcroft‘s angular spikes take on a more ‘futuristic’ tone in his book of dystopian visions and sci-fi seems the be at the heart of what Gamma produce with Syd Mead T-shirts being an early release. There’s also a shirt series underway too with Kofie supplying the first example on a white shirt below and Will Barras depicting a menacing Rammellzee in his signature style for the second.
All the pieces mentioned here are immaculately laid out and design forms the subject of another forthcoming book – a retrospective of Ian ‘Swifty’ Swift‘s career titled ‘Full Circle’, due in the autumn but you can pre-order it now. I daren’t even mention the Will Barras book arriving shortly, the prints, magazines, original art or the digital freebies available if you peruse the Gamma site at length…
PS: in a weird act of synchronicity the Has It Leaked site just put up a look at the label too with quotes from me included – read it here and find out even more…
