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.
An interesting, if brief, film about the making of the original helmets, gloves and accessories for Daft Punk‘s robot look. I’d imagine this image by Syd Mead provided some inspiration for Guy-Manuel’s helmet as well.
A selection of these, with a mystery mix selection, will literally be floating around the club tomorrow for the first 100 people in the door…
I was one of the people asked to pick some of my favourite record sleeves of the year for the 405 website – regular readers of this site might recognise a few images along the way too. Shouts for The Simonsound, Luke Insect, Trevor Jackson Julian House, Boards Of Canada and MachineDrum. Check out the article here.
We’ve all done it – made cassette tape ‘covers’ for our taped compilations of yesteryear. I first got a tape recorder around the 1980 mark and here are some of my designs from the following decade. Note the attention to detail with the backwards ‘D’ on the ‘Adam’
This Frankie compilation was supposed to reflect the different singles left to right: Relax, Two Tribes, Power of Love, Welcome to the Pleasuredome.
You can see how much I was into the design work of XL back then and, subsequently Accident (the same team under a different name) for 808 State later.
I loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik‘s info-overload graphics, the Hockney-esque polaroids and the futuristic sense of it all, something The Designers Republic took to another level later.
If you didn’t know better you’d swear this was on original old sci-fi B Movie soundtrack that had been long forgotten, a Logan’s Run or Space 1999 cash-in from the late 70’s or early 80’s. But it’s not, although I’m sure that was the intent, and the design by Luke Insect for his new Dark Seed collaborative project with Richard Norris, is spot on in nailing the tone.
I’ve already featured this cover a few months back but the whole package is great from the reverse side to the Ohmega logo to the nice detail of the centre hole for the head on the label. Dark Seed was the name of an old sci-fi / horror computer game which used elements by HR Giger in its design by the way and this sleeve reflects that perfectly with a touch of Beyond The Black Rainbow thrown in for good measure.
To top it all off it comes with an A2 foldout poster (complete with crease lines already printed on) and the minimal electronic ‘score’ ain’t bad either. One of my sleeves of the year for sure. You can get a copy here as well as all good digital distributors (NOT to be confused with Metal band Darkseed)
