Excellent album covers

[Ambient Sheep]

I've always been very fond of this:



Not only is it a very striking image, but it raises so many questions in my mind:

o WTF is that building and how did it get like that?

o Why is it perched on the edge of a housing estate?

o Where is it?

o Who is the girl(?) and why is she wearing a red cloak?

o Why is she holding up a five-pointed star?

o Why does the star have four broken points?

o What on earth does it all MEAN?!

Plus, it's just a very lovely picture.

Sadly they ruined it a bit for the CD (presumably to get the title legible):



but seem to have restored it for the remastered version.  They also seem to have remastered the picture as well to make it sharper, not sure whether I prefer it or not:

[Ambient Sheep]

I sold off a lot of experimental/industrial vinyl when I was hopelessly skint a few years ago. My brother, knowing how much I love ["20 Jazz Funk Greats"], bought it from me for £25 and then gave it back to me for Xmas that year!

What a lovely guy!

It's a fine line, but I'd say this just about belongs in here rather than in that other thread...

Definitely this thread.  Love it.

(that guy with the gun [Dave McRae] co-wrote Funky Gibbon for The Goodies)

For a moment I got my McRae's muddled up and got VERY confused as to how the guy who sang "Rock Me Baby" could look like that and write the Funky Gibbon...

Pendulum man is one of my favourite tracks - stunning ambience. Shoot me for posting this here, but its worth bringing to people's attention.

[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM2ZyJu3_is[/noembed]

I won't shoot you, and yes, it was worth it.  Stunningly beautiful, and I now have a new band to check out.  Thank you SO much!

[dredd]

This caught my eye the other day:

[VegaLA]

DCD's Spleen and Ideal, great cover for a great album. I got the original LP back in 1988 and would stare at that cover while listening to the whole album. I think the first tarck was used for the film Demons 2. Very atmospheric.
I the girl from the group (Sorry, forget her name) moved onto film soundtracks which I suspect must have been an easy transition.

They were based in Ireland so that may narrow down your search for that building.

[Ambient Sheep]

DCD's Spleen and Ideal, great cover for a great album. I got the original LP back in 1988 and would stare at that cover while listening to the whole album.

Me too!

I think the first tarck was used for the film Demons 2. Very atmospheric.

I didn't know that, but apparently it was!  Good spot.

I the girl from the group (Sorry, forget her name) moved onto film soundtracks which I suspect must have been an easy transition.

Lisa Gerrard.  She did indeed, winning a Golden Globe award for co-writing the soundtrack to Gladiator with Hans Zimmer.

They were based in Ireland so that may narrow down your search for that building.

Although at that stage in their career, I think they were still in their Hackney high-rise council flat (I remember one interview with them commenting on the incongruity of the location with the music they made).  They didn't move out to the castle in Ireland until later.

To be completely honest, I seem to remember I *did* find out where it was some years back, after a bout of intensive googling.  I can no longer remember what the answer was, but I do remember I was a bit disappointed by it, so maybe I won't go looking again...


EDIT: OK, OK, I couldn't resist.  This is not what I originally read, this is a much newer thread, but all is revealed here.  Interesting story behind it as well, if true:

I seem to recall it was in the Manchester area. The demolition job had failed (some explosives had failed to detonate) and the photographer just happened to be passing by with a friend in his car.  He just happened to have a red robe and broken star in the boot apparently and got his friend to pose for the photograph before they could finish the demolition job.......

and

I was talking to Colin Grey just now who took the original photo for the cover. He said the white star was lying on the ground with the rubbish that surrounded the site and his girlfriend picked it up and posed for the photo. He doesn't have the star or the robes anymore:( really a nice guy, had a wee chat with him. Sadly he couldn't recall the exact title of the photo. It was taken in 1983.

and

The photo shows a old dock warehouse located in Salford on what used to be a very busy part of the Manchester Ship Canal. Most buildings were levelled in the 70/80's this photo is about 1982. You might know this area as Salford Quays now. My friend and I used to enter the disused building to shoot vermin, we also entered the build when it was in the state it was in the photo - a very weird experience. Most Salfordians took photos of that building, including me. My orginal photo sits in the CD case for Spleen & Ideal.

and here it is:

[Johnny Yesno]

Excellent! The mundanity of it is stranger than any meaning I imagined it had.

[Ambient Sheep]

It must have been a bloody strange-looking building to start with though, mustn't it?  Looks like it might have been some offices perched on top of a series of silos, or something.  I wonder if there are any photos of it BEFORE the demolition attempt?

It's intriguing that it wasn't even taken specifically for the cover, but was just a random photo from a photographer's collection.  It does relate to the music, and especially the lyrical concepts within, really rather well.  Here's some more of his in a similar vein, although they're more contemporary and light-hearted than S&I.  This one in particular is quite interesting, and brings to mind Philip K. Dick's novel A Maze of Death.

Anyway, I now seem to have had all of my questions answered, except the first half of the first one: "WTF is that building?". :-)  "An old dock warehouse" doesn't seem to quite cover the strangeness of the bottom two-thirds of it...

[Eis Nein]

IIRC the Dance lived in a block in Deptford. I think it was a Melody Maker journo who remarked on the incongruity of the ethereal chanteuse lighting a candle in such an environment.

Other goodies, the latter doing nothing to dispel their goth image.





And Gazza will never be held to account for many art crimes. But this almost redeems him:

[Subtle Mocking]

Similar to the Soulwax ones a few pages back, here's a good'un for fucking with your eyes:

[Ambient Sheep]

IIRC the Dance lived in a block in Deptford.

Could well have been.

I think it was a Melody Maker journo who remarked on the incongruity of the ethereal chanteuse lighting a candle in such an environment.

Almost certainly; it was in one of the "inkies" that I read it, and MM were far more 4AD-friendly than NME.  Might even have been Sounds; for all their heavy-metal leanings they were sometimes capable of covering some quite eclectic stuff.  But yeah, almost certainly MM.


I should still have it, although given that it's in a storage unit 220 miles away I'm afraid I won't be able to check any time soon. :-)


Fake EDIT: turns out it was neither (although Deptford was closer!): they were on the thirteenth floor of a tower-block on The Isle of Dogs, where they apparently recorded half of The Serpent's Egg.  They were still in it in late 1987.

I've learnt a couple of things over the last few days: firstly that they split up as romantic partners a lot earlier than I'd thought, and secondly where the title Spleen & Ideal comes from: from the works of the poet Baudelaire whom I've now been reading up on a bit as a result.


Real EDIT: Hehe, just found (in my search results for "dead can dance" tower block) a blog entry called "Green Spaces, Humanist Architecture and Your Aesthetic Environment: A US/Canadian/European comparison." which mentions the DCD cover:

I'm reminded of the wonderful Dead Can Dance album cover where I presume Lisa is holding up a broken star (idealism in a fallen world) to an einsturzende neubauten (an imploding modern building) – as a symbolic triumph of idealism over brutalist architecture.

That's quite a good reading of it (and the sort of thing I'd always felt that it meant), but now we know a bit more about it, I'm not sure whether I should point him to this discussion or not!

[Doomy Dwyer]

Blood, death and mariachi music -



Good album, fine cover.

[Johnny Yesno]

It must have been a bloody strange-looking building to start with though, mustn't it?  Looks like it might have been some offices perched on top of a series of silos, or something.

To me it looks like a building on top of some land that for miles around has undergone serious erosion. Or perhaps due to some bizarre tectonic movement the bit of land the offices stand on has been squeezed upwards.

[HAYRDRYAH]

I thought there was an album lookalikes thread, but these are nice enough for this one I think

[holyzombiejesus]

This caught my eye the other day:

[Retinend]

Blood, death and mariachi music -



Good album, fine cover.

Tenuously reminded me of this fine, understated piece of cover art:

[Ambient Sheep]

To me it looks like a building on top of some land that for miles around has undergone serious erosion. Or perhaps due to some bizarre tectonic movement the bit of land the offices stand on has been squeezed upwards.

Yeah, I agree, that's exactly what it looks like, although one wonders if its foundations would have been quite that deep.

But since it's on the edge of an otherwise-untouched housing estate, the first theory can't apply, and the second would have to be so precisely directed, so as to leave the surrounding houses untouched, that it too is pretty unlikely.  Which is why it was (and is) such a fascinating image.

Now we know it was a controlled demolition of some warehouses, it almost raises more questions than it answers, given that the bottom of it appears to be a solid chunk of concrete (but possibly with some vertical grooves in it, hence me thinking perhaps it was a bunch of silos, topped with some offices).

The only other theory I can think of is that the bottom two-thirds IS the foundations of it, and that somehow, in some kind of mad way, the controlled explosions thrust it upwards out of the ground like extracting a tooth.

[NattyDread]

Tenuously reminded me of this fine, understated piece of cover art:

Which always reminds me of this:

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe

[Doomy Dwyer]

Oi...Bluenote! Have a word with yourself...


Undercurrant by Bill Evans and Jim Hall


The Incredible Jimmy Smith

Wayne being a bit mysterious

The Funky Mr McGriff

Nice.

[Johnny Yesno]

Yeah, I agree, that's exactly what it looks like, although one wonders if its foundations would have been quite that deep.

But since it's on the edge of an otherwise-untouched housing estate, the first theory can't apply, and the second would have to be so precisely directed, so as to leave the surrounding houses untouched, that it too is pretty unlikely.  Which is why it was (and is) such a fascinating image.

Perhaps the housing estate was built long after the erosion occurred. That could make the building hundreds of thousands of years old... 8-o

*Cue Spleen and Ideal*

[holyzombiejesus]

Human Empire do some lovely sleeves for Morr Music.

[Subtle Mocking]

I was about to start a separate thread for misleading album art, but I'd rather not clog up Oscillations with that type of thread. So here's one of my favourite misleading album covers:

[Johnny Townmouse]

I was about to start a separate thread for misleading album art, but I'd rather not clog up Oscillations with that type of thread. So here's one of my favourite misleading album covers:

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=27213.msg1423880#msg1423880

[Subtle Mocking]

Oh bugger. Well, it deserves a double mention, it's great.

[lipsink]

[small_world]

That's a fucking excellent photo. The building would have been huge.
It's sometimes difficult to imagine the scale of our recent industrial heritage. I once went to see a showing of The Matrix in an old ship building factory. The size was incomprehensible. You could look down into the dock and see forklift trucks that were like pin pricks, miles away.

Spillers on the Tyne is probably something similar. It's still there now, the fact that it's painted white and stands away from anything else makes it all the more impressive.

The reason the offices would have been at the top would be down to the kind of work they did. Access would be needed on the ground floor. And if it was placed at the side of a river there's only so much space for all of the industry.
That and a heavy dose of symbolism. I'd doubt the management would be happy working at the same 'level' as the labourers.

That's also the reason I liked the Gateshead Multi storey car-park. (Get Carter Car Park) Not only is it a staggering sight, it looks like a monolith in the middle of nowhere. But it also replicates a lot of that local industrial architecture.

This is probably the modern day equivalent.

[Johnny Townmouse]

Oh bugger. Well, it deserves a double mention, it's great.

Fo sho. When I was a teenager I was reading an article about suicides at Beachy Head, so I decided to play the song, and then held up the cover. I actually started to get properly freaked out - mainly by Chris' grinning face which almost invites you to gayly top yourself.

[NoSleep]

I was about to start a separate thread for misleading album art, but I'd rather not clog up Oscillations with that type of thread. So here's one of my favourite misleading album covers:

Misleading, you say?

I bought this in Dartford's Challenger & Hicks record shop purely because I was tickled that they had filed it under Jazz-Funk.

[danyulx]

[danyulx]

And one for the Worst Album Covers EVER Thread..but I can't be arsed changing Threads -

[REVEEN!]