The Herbaliser ‘Blow Your Headphones’

Die cut LP cover
LP labels
inner sleeve image
CD on body
LP back cover
  • RELEASED: Mar 1997
  • FORMAT: 2xLP / CD
  • LABEL: NINJA TUNE
  • CAT No.: ZEN28 / ZENCD28
  • DESIGN: Openmind / Ollie Teeba
  • PHOTOGRAPHY: Nancy Brown (flames) / Suzi Green (band)
  • EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

At a sound check somewhere in Europe in the mid 90’s, Ollie Teeba and I were messing about with a mixer. Ollie went to turn up the gain on the monitoring and I quickly stopped him as I knew the output was very loud – “don’t do that, you’ll blow your headphones”. He liked the play on the classic JB’s ‘Blow Your Head’ and it became the next album title with a skull, fire and headphones cover image. Somewhere along the line we decided to do a die cut front, probably because Mo Wax were upping the stakes with packaging all the time and we were trying to compete.

I’m not sure what the burning film reel on the inner sleeve was for although there are film images throughout and I think Ollie wanted to allude to film titles on some of it, l can’t remember. I do remember pouring lighter fluid on the pile of film and it going up really quick with Nancy having to scrabble around quickly to get some shots whilst I looked for something to put it out. See the cover of ‘The Blend’ for the aftermath of that particular episode.