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All The Years Round (7-inch single, 1972). I mentioned earlier that Falk-Ulrich Rogner’s cover art for Amon Düül II was worthy of a post so here you are. Amon Düül II were slightly ahead of the pack in the German music scene of the 1970s, starting earlier and (arguably) finishing their prime period earlier. They […]

The Dreamers (2013) by Kate Baylay, from Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen. • RIP composer and musique-concrète pioneer Tod Dockstader. “I didn’t have the money for electronic sounds…I had to have things like bottles, or anything that would make a noise. It didn’t matter what it was; if it sounded interesting, or I could […]

Plates from a selection of art nouveau-styled prints for the use of artists and craftsmen. There’s more in this incomplete Flickr set; a little searching turns up further examples but the Flickr ones are the highest quality. The Four Seasons were featured here several years ago in a post about illustrator Patten Wilson. The bat-obsessed […]

Revelation of the weekend has been the discovery that there are two sets of (for want of a better term) Krautrock Tarot cards. The first, Walter Wegmüller’s Zigeuner Tarot, is familiar for being included in the Tarot concept album released on the Kosmischen Kuriere label in 1973. The album was credited to Wegmüller but he only […]

Encounter with the Priestess by Robert Buratti. • “We were gothy, we loved the New York thing and people like Suicide, Dave loved Throbbing Gristle, we both loved the Sheffield bands…we loved the darkness to that kind of electro.” Marc Almond talking to Simon Price. Also at The Quietus, Cat’s Eyes choose their favourite soundtracks. […]

Cyborg (1973) by Klaus Schulze. More German music design. Once you start delving into the music produced in Germany between 1969 and 1975 you eventually notice that a) the good albums generally have decent cover designs, and b) there are many justly forgotten albums with astonishingly tasteless artwork. Most of the well-known names were smart […]

Kraftwerk (1970); Kraftwerk 2 (1972). Design by Ralf Hütter. Recent posts about Kraftwerk’s design history had me wondering how the group might present the first three albums if these repudiated works were allowed back into the catalogue. Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2, and Ralf and Florian haven’t been officially reissued for decades now, and I remain sceptical […]

Love Hunter by Victo Ngai. • “The strangeness of the lyric style, the misuse of words and awkward phraseology that have been criticized even by Poe’s fervent admirers, are here taken as virtues, heightening as they do, a given poem’s conscious and calculated formalism.” Marjorie Perloff reviews The Poet Edgar Allan Poe: Alien Angel by […]

Gatefold interior for Doppelalbum (1974), a double-disc compilation album by Kraftwerk. More Kraftwerkiana. “Leitkegel” is the German name for traffic cones, and it’s immediately obvious to anyone browsing Kraftwerk’s pre-Autobahn recordings that Ralf and Florian had a fixation with these objects. The closest thing I’ve found for a rationale is in Tim Barr’s history of […]

I was going to post a few more paintings depicting the month of February but now I’ve circled the calendar with the monthly theme suitable candidates are harder to find. Searching wasn’t a waste of time, however, since I turned up a complete set of the prints by Art Nouveau designer Eugène Grasset (1845—1917) that […]

First English-language edition of Hard to Be a God, 1973. Cover design by Alan Peckolick. A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere […]

1: Autobahn (1974), an album by Kraftwerk. Cover art by Emil Schult. 2: Autobahn (1974), a single by Kraftwerk. 3: Doppelalbum (1974), a double-disc compilation album by Kraftwerk.

Henryk Wieniawski / Alexander Glazunov: Violin Concerto No. 2 In D Minor / Violin Concerto In A Minor (1965); Ida Haendel, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Václav Smetácek. Artwork: Morning Star (1902). Continuing an occasional series about the work of particular artists or designers being used on record sleeves. This is a selection of works by Alphonse Mucha […]

A drawing by Lucille Clerc. • The usual imbalance of heat versus light this week but Kenan Malik and Teju Cole had some worthwhile things to say. Related: Atlantic illustrators respond to the events of Wednesday. And some history: covers of Charlie Hebdo‘s parent magazine, Hara-Kiri, whose legacy of bad taste and confrontation was overlooked […]

Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet of the 1920s is one of the more famous products of the Bauhaus movement, a radical reinvention of the medium which encased the dancers in cumbersome costumes. The outfits and stage designs are familiar from Bauhaus histories but you’re less likely to see an actual performance, something that’s possible with this […]

I wrote something about French designer and architect René Binet (1866–1911) a few years ago while exploring the creation of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Binet designed the remarkable monumental gate that formed the entrance to the exhibition, a structure that demonstrated his proposal that natural forms might replace historical pastiche as a basis […]

The Crystal Gazer (or The Magic Crystal, 1904) by Gertrude Käsebier. Once again the annual review of artists/designers/photographers featured in the weekend posts arrives at the beginning of the new year rather than the end of the old. Scroll down to see what caught my attention over the past twelve months. We Are The Water […]

The Crystal Gazer (or The Magic Crystal, 1904) by Gertrude Käsebier. • “I had to resort to extreme violence”: how Hipgnosis revolutionised the album sleeve. Aubrey Powell, last surviving member of the design team, talks to Joe Muggs. • Mixes of the week: Radio Belbury: Programme 14; The Conjurer’s Hexmas by SeraphicManta; Secret Mix 139 […]

Photo of the author by Linda Moorcock. I mentioned a few days ago that I had another new piece of work to reveal, and this is it, a poster/promotional piece for Russell Wall’s forthcoming documentary about Michael Moorcock. The main challenge with one was to create something that would give a sense of Moorcock’s extensive […]

The Road To Ruin (1970) by John & Beverley Martyn. Art: Un Semaine de Bonté (1934). Having already looked at cover art featuring the work of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, a similar post for Max Ernst seemed inevitable. I did search for Ernst cover art after the Dalí post but at the time there […]