Visual Cover #06: Album Art in a Modern World

Grace Jones is a force of nature. I’m not sure if any of you caught her recent performances in Brooklyn or Los Angeles, or have picked up her new memoir aptly titled I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, or have seen any of her furious reads on contemporary pop—serving attitude on Kanye, Lady Gaga, and several lesser lights—but Ms. Jones brings it with fury. An iconoclast in the truest sense of the word, she also, at age 67, closes out her show topless, in body paint, hula hooping, while singing the entire five+ minutes of her song “Slave to the Rhythm.” We say more of this, please!

This month, we examine one of her most iconic covers, Island Life, shot by her then-lover Jean Paul Goude (an icon in his own right). The image has been burned into most memories and imitated numerous times, most notably by Italian singer Hard Ton. Against a sky-blue wall, standing on a wood floor, her taut, ebony body oiled, wearing just a few swaths of knitted fabric, she holds a pose that is vibrantly yogic and that translates perfectly her athleticism, power, exuberance and eroticism. “Heeeere’s Grace…” as the song says, except it isn’t—well, not exactly.

The image we see, pre-Photoshop, is a tremendous cut composite put together by Mr. Goude. Grace held five to six distinct aspects of the pose on various takes, and with x-acto knife skills and some subtle retouching, the emblematic image was created. In this digital age where many people’s Instagram shots are auto-tuned as much as the bad pop music Grace reviles, it is nice to see a mockup of a cover that doesn’t construct its subject, but simply uses skillful artistry to present her essence more vividly.

To this month’s covers:

Velvet Season and the Hearts of Gold “Witchdoctor Love” (Love Circle)

Gerry Rooney of Blackcock edit fame (with DJ Harvey) and Joel Martin of Quiet Village fame (with Matt Edwards) have been releasing stunning music as Velvet Season and the Hearts of Gold for the past few years. Sample-based disco, house and Balearic vibes are being offered with an eroticized sophistication. For this cover, which Gerry Rooney designed, black-furred, blue-eyed pussycat narcissism is embroidered with daggered-heart delicacy.

Luke Abbott & Jack Wyllie Luke Abbott & Jack Wyllie (Buffalo Temple)

Modular synths and some delicate sax work distinguish this three-track 12-inch from most ambient/drone releases. That, plus its beautifully cinematic mood, and what feels like great improvisational playing throughout. The cover art is a stunning graphic that resonates because of subtle tonal and chromatic shifts.

BNJMN Skur EP (Jericho One)

From industrial, to the late-night house-addled, to the moody sci-fi-sounding, many shades of techno are represented here. The cover is a striking image of two young girls chatting in an Italian portico with dense shadows created by light streaming through the vaulted arches. In the distance, a dark silhouette of a man strolls casually toward us, giving the cover a rich Giorgio DiChirico mood. On the back is an image of two isolated stone medieval towers. Front to back, this is a beautifully designed and very haunting cover.

Steve Rachmad “Parallel Shopping” (Life and Death)

This Dutch techno mainstay delivers some strong, soaring tech house spanning a spectrum of moods from uplifting to oppressive, and back again with an almost architectural largess to them. The cover features a collage of a woman that suggests a fragmented dystopian frozen memory—her head a ‘40s realist sculptural rendering, her arm a stocking-clad leg, her leg rendered with airbrushed red touches… like an index of some unresolved ennui.

Operation Midnight Climax Operation Midnight Climax LP (Peak Oil)

L.A. label Peak Oil have been doing some really nice covers and thoughtful packaging as of late. This LP of techno from Florin Buchel, which takes its title from a CIA project that involved giving subjects LSD, features an insert “tab” assembled graphic—a rather nice touch. Take a hit of Silver Surfer and ride the cosmic wave, my friend, as this graphic is an appropriately comic book-ish rendering of some deep space hero with the interior of his form a rendered galaxy.

Tropic of Cancer “Stop Suffering” (Blackest ever Black)

Camilla Lobo’s sparse minimal sound achieves some sublime heights here. Lynch-like and luxurious, the title track haunts as it entrances. The cover, in a tonal range of greens, is a stunning shot by Jasmine Deporta, featuring a seemingly banal shot of a woman between matching “cozy” end chairs. The woman has vibrancy to her, her legs and body modestly attired, her head hidden as she bends forward; but in relation to the mundane context, her low ebb pulses with sensuality and eroticism.

Simple Symmetry “Near East Confusion” (Low Budget Family)

Brothers Sasha and Sergy Lipski bring the disco-flavored house, with some Turkish and Iranian flavors added for good measure. The cover features a “naïve” painting of the two that calls to mind the gouaches of Francesco Clemente—and like Clemente’s work, it has both a childlike simplicity and a complexity that goes beyond its basic rendering.

Jori Hulkkonen “Something Left to Learn” (Fly by Night)

This 12″ is a great package all around: green vinyl, a dope T-shirt, and most importantly, two fresh tracks from this Finnish house heavyweight, with a remix by Daniel Wang & Jules Etienne. Produced using a very rare Italian-made Solton programmer, the tracks ooze Italo cool. The cover shot is a black-and-white photo of a woman with a hand brace walking down a midtown street in NYC in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s.The back cover has a shot from the same moment of cars in Eastside traffic. The photos are imbued with tremendous mood and have the random richness and mystery of a beautiful found object.

The Green Door (Various Artists) Youth Stand Up LP (Autonomous Africa)

Written about elsewhere on this site, this project, which is a collaboration of young players from Scotland, Belize and Ghana, was put together by Green Door Studios and JD Twitch of Optimo fame. The proceeds are going toward building a recording studio in rural Ghana. The cover is as striking as a good campaign poster. Cutouts of the various musicians are placed against a patterned geometric background. The title is in a bold font, joyful and in your face. It recalls some of Fela’s covers, specifically Open and Close, and like Fela’s graphics it has the great mix of celebration and revolution.

Pearson Sound “Thaw Cycle” (Pearson Sound)

Playful and minimal techno from David Kennedy, some nice synth work and bouncing drum programming are featured in these tracks. The cover is a photo of a slanted piece of glass. Water runs down the plane, and the liquid veil distorts whatever image is behind it. The water, glass, and graphic behind it collapse together, forming a rich, amorphic, painterly surface. Pale blues, greys, whites and a few blacks slide and engage in such a way that the totality seems to be in motion.

Make the jump to listen to the music…

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