What does your television do when you’re not watching? Chrome’s 1979 LP Half Machine Lip Moves is a record from a band that tries to harness the hidden waves of buzz and static that could be there when you’re not — because, well, you never know. The cover art is oblique and collage-y pointing directions [...]
Sonic Youth – Goo
5 March 2012 by Leave a Comment
Text on an album cover is a touchy topic. Most designers will shy away from putting too much text on a cover because it detracts attention from the visual message. Label executives don’t need anyone reading — they need people reacting and buying. And musicians might avoid the text because it stands too far apart from [...]
Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
13 February 2012 by Leave a Comment
I’m thinking of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That shack that ol’ Leatherface called home — a house in the middle of a homestead riddled with bones and deteriorating corpses and bodies stuffed in iceboxes. I admit that I haven’t actually seen the film (horror movies are one of my chronic weaknesses), but the sentiment is [...]
The Jesus and Mary Chain…
22 May 2011 by Leave a Comment
1985. Cassettes, vinyl, VHS (or Beta). Analog. Now that almost everything is digital, it’s all too easy to default to analog systems as kitschy, ironic, and intentionally chintzy. But not too long ago, it was a means of pure and unadulterated power. The heavy clicks and thumps of vinyl on a turntable; the noisy hiss [...]
Women – Public Strain
12 October 2010 by Leave a Comment
Sometimes the weirder your influences are, the better off your art is. Take the newest full length from Women, Public Strain – the first time I put it on (a few days ago) it confused me endlessly. The first track, drumless and squawking, sounded like the introduction to a band who wore their influences like [...]
Big Star — #1 Record
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Deerhunter - Microcastle...
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
The Decemberists - Picaresque