March 2013
1 post
20 tags
Purity Ring + Kristina Baumgartner = Shrines'...
Purity Ring: Shrines [July/2012] — Crafting images to complement the stirring mystical ecosystem of Megan James’ lyrics and voice and the heart-jacking, spine-jangling textures of Corin Roddick’s soundscapes can’t be easy. And Kristina Baumgartner admits to sketching out a lot of different ideas for the cover of Purity Ring’s much anticipated full-length debut before she...
November 2012
1 post
16 tags
Hook & Eye + Marc Rimmer = The shortest, silliest...
Hook & Eye: North St. EP [Feb/2013] — Sometimes, impulsiveness is the best medicine. Sometimes even for record covers.
My hyper-brilliant friend Marc Rimmer — whose work I profiled to get this blog off the ground almost two years ago, here — recently looped me in on the fabulously uncluttered guidance that led to his latest piece of kick-ass record packaging. Musician Jeff Macleod had...
September 2012
1 post
26 tags
The Famines + Raymond Biesinger = Pushing the...
The Famines: The Complete Collected Singles, 2008 – 2011 [Nov/2011] — RAYMOND BIESINGER SAYS The Famines are collectors and archivists by nature. Biesinger — who writes, sings/wails and plays/thrashes guitar alongside Garrett Kruger’s flabbergasting drums — is the graphic architect of the five-year-old band’s no-frills, data-stratified aesthetic, not to mention a successful illustrator, designer...
July 2012
1 post
24 tags
Apollo Ghosts + Amanda Curti = Landmark's dark and...
Apollo Ghosts: Landmark (May/2012) — THERE ARE DENSE subtleties tucked into the name of this west coast band’s third full-length record. There’s a cryptic link to their first two LPs and some of their EPs, which are named for specific places — Mount Benson, Hastings Sunrise, Forgotten Triangle, Cedar Street. The reference in this case is to the building where most of the songs where...
February 2012
1 post
14 tags
Grimes + Claire Boucher = Visions' ferociously...
Grimes: Visions [Jan/2012] — CLAIRE BOUCHER SAYS she wanted the cover of her 3rd full-length Grimes recording to be “something very beautiful, and also very assaulting and violent, like the music.” She wanted the image to be zoomable — “like a Bosch painting” — and very movement-oriented. More than anything else, though, both the songs and their packaging had to be absolutely sincere.
...
December 2011
1 post
29 tags
Shoulda, woulda, coulda + 2011 = Cover art I wish...
IN LOVE AND life and (evidently) self-imposed free labour, there will always be the ones that got away. So in lieu of a half-assed year-end content rehash, here are 10 record covers that grabbed me by the eyeballs in 2011, but not with so much force that I just had to stalk their makers for the scoop on how, why, where, when, by whom and with-what-in-mind they were created.
Please don’t...
November 2011
1 post
24 tags
Dog Day + Seth Smith = Deformer's trippy dripping...
Dog Day: Deformer [Aug/2011] — IT ALL STARTS with an honest (and clever) moniker for the third full-length record by this wonderfully, melodically loud and righteously Halifamous band. Previously a fuller, cleaner four-piece, partners Seth Smith and Nancy Urich decamped from Halifax after something of a slow-mo implosion (making the band only marginally Haligonian, actually) and decided to...
September 2011
2 posts
20 tags
Komodo + Howie Tsui = Shadow Dance's sexual...
Komodo: Shadow Dance [May/2011] — TO BLEND WELL is to bend the mind. Oftentimes, the more layers and levels you can slyly mash together, the better.
The intoxicating cocktail of lust, mysticism and deformity that graces multi-instrumentalist and DJ Komodo’s new-ish record only hints at the intricate web of crazy ideas, cultural stewing and synchronicity that led to its creation. Tip of...
20 tags
Handsome Furs + Scott Coffey = Sound Kapital's...
Handsome Furs: Sound Kapital [June/2011] — NOTHING GRABS OUR attention, or holds onto it, like bare skin. The desire to see other humans naked does all sorts of crazy things to our brains. Horniness, obviously. It easily overpowers other chemical reactions, especially melatonin uptake. It can also be the root of more complicated emotional states: shame, trepidation, awkwardness, megalomania,...
August 2011
1 post
22 tags
Nick Diamonds + Nick Thorburn = I Am An Attic's...
Nick Diamonds: I Am An Attic [July/2011] — FOR MORE THAN a decade now, Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) has displayed a huge talent for writing intricate, sometimes epic, always playful and often droll songs about death and the madness that precedes it. He’s also steered his listeners through a long and winding road of music styles and sound arsenals, from the frantic and fantastical...
July 2011
1 post
17 tags
Chad VanGaalen + Amsterdam's Andenken Gallery = A...
Life is Butter Dreamer! Aug 2 to 21/11 — IT’S ABOUT TIME someone made space for a retrospective exhibit of work from the ogre-sized, prolific psychedelic mind of celebrated musician/animator/illustrator/circuit-bending-fetishist/all-around-delightfully-mad-scientist Chad VanGaalen. Next week, the Calgary-based artist will skip the pond to play songs from his latest record, Diaper Island,...
June 2011
1 post
16 tags
Pat Jordache + Sarah Pupo = Future Songs'...
Pat Jordache: Future Songs [Apr/2011] — DIVING IN HEADLONG and figuring out your moves in mid-air seems like a key ingredient in Pat Gregoire’s creative repertoire. So it’s fitting that the cover art for the re-release of his full-length debut as Pat Jordache (yes, after the jeans) pays accidental homage to the improvisational zeal and collaborative tenacity that went into making...
April 2011
1 post
18 tags
Jennifer Castle + Mira Dancy = Castlemusic's...
Jennifer Castle: Castlemusic [Apr/2011] — OFTEN IT’S BEST not to overanalyse things. So goes the prevailing wisdom of bewitching singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle, whose third solo record owes much of its creation to this approach.
Patiently put together between early summer and late fall of 2010, Castle says that while she definitely crafted Castlemusic with specific intentions, “we...
March 2011
1 post
16 tags
Colin Stetson + Tracy Maurice = Judges' celestial...
Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Feb/2011) — TRYING TO DESCRIBE the music on Colin Stetson’s new record with words is like trying to decorate a cake with dirt. It can be done, but this is definitely an album that should introduce itself.
You also need to actually see the American-born, Montréal-based saxophonist perform before your mind will completely blow (or at least...
February 2011
1 post
17 tags
Young Galaxy + Maura Biava = Shapeshifting's...
Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting [Feb/2011] — THE WORKING CONCEPT for this Montréal foursome’s third record was to completely reinvent their process, to become a different band than they were before. A changed lineup and the choice to bring Shapeshifting to life via Skype with a Swedish producer whose music they loved from across an ocean, Studio’s Dan Lissvik, was certainly a leap of...
January 2011
1 post
17 tags
Destroyer + Ted Bois = Kaputt's beautifully bored...
Destroyer: Kaputt [Jan/2011] — THROUGH THE COURSE of eight previous studio full-lengths, Destroyer has stitched together an enigmatic and endlessly compelling trip around the big, bad, hyperactive mind (and hair) of Dan Bejar. The Vancouver band’s ninth record delves deeper, tugged into new dimensions by a tickle trunk full of smooth jazz sounds and layers of dreamy cadence, but rooted as...
December 2010
1 post
17 tags
Braids + Marc Rimmer = Native Speaker's blissful...
Braids: Native Speaker [Jan/2011] — MY FIRST IMPRESSION: Pillowy, psychedelic vinyl seat covers, freshly refurbished for a cosmic party bus. Or maybe an underwater still life, printed on bubble wrap.
What’s actually happening in this vivid cover art by Montréal’s Marc Rimmer is deceptively simple, and much less cheesy. It’s a photograph composed of two unlikely props: A...
