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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Water Spirit (1904). Theodor Kittelsen is, we’re told, one of Norway’s most popular artists and illustrators. This would explain why so much of his work has appeared on the covers of albums by Norwegian metal bands although it also helps that one of the books he illustrated is entitled Svartedauen (The Black Death). The […]

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 […]

Another album cover, and this time the artwork is my own, being my third cover for metal band Melechesh. The album won’t be released until February but the record label, Nuclear Blast, revealed the cover earlier this week so I thought I may as well post it myself. See a larger copy here. Note that […]

The Atomic Mr Basie (1957) by the Count Basie Orchestra. A few more examples and this would have been part of the ongoing Design as virus thread. A recent post at MetaFilter led to this piece about the use and misuse of photos of nuclear tests. The Count Basie album above appears there, a cover […]

This weekend I was at the Louder Than Words music conference in Manchester to meet Peter Bebergal, author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, and Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor. By coincidence the event was hosting a discussion about goth music and culture based around The Art of Gothic, […]

Work-related research this week had me wondering who it was that first thought of turning Battersea Power Station into a table. For the past few days I’ve been looking at a lot of the illustration work that George Hardie produced for the Hipgnosis album covers in the 70s and 80s; I’ll explain why in due […]

Your Generation (1977) by Generation X. Design by Barney Bubbles. Continuing an occasional series about the work of particular artists or designers being used on record sleeves. El Lissitzky (1890–1941) is an interesting candidate in this area since his pioneering abstractions have greatly influenced subsequent generations of graphic designers. As a result of this you’re […]

Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (1983) by The Rain Parade. Another minor piece of album-cover detective work. A couple of years ago I was looking for dirigible pictures for a steampunk book I was working on, and in the searching came across the original of the photo used on the cover of the Rain Parade’s […]

Beck-Ola (1969) by The Jeff Beck Group. Painting: The Listening Room (second version, 1958). An inevitable post considering the shape of the week, and also a continuation of an occasional series about paintings used as album cover art. Given Magritte’s continuing popularity I’m sure these can’t be the only examples, especially when his work had […]

Until the end of his life, [Magritte] preferred to take the tram. Now there’s an attitude I approve of. George Melly in his BBC film about Surrealism mentions visiting Magritte at his home in Brussels, and we see Magritte’s house at the beginning of Adrian Maben’s 50-minute film about the artist’s life and work. Maben’s […]

Scream With A View 12″ EP (1979) by Tuxedomoon. Design credited to Belfer/Roques. I’m pursuing a Tuxedomoon obsession at the moment so this gives me the opportunity to examine some of the group’s early record sleeves, all of which are designed by Patrick Roques. Tuxedomoon are an American group, and their early releases were on […]

Signals (2014): vinyl front cover. Photo by Nico Hogg. Seeing as my design for the recent Signals album by Wen has been deemed one of the best covers of the year so far I thought I ought to mention some of the other albums I’ve worked on over the past few months. I tend to […]

Terretektorh / Nomos Gamma (no date; late 60s) by Iannis Xenakis. Xenakis and Victor Vasarely are paired again on this album cover from the late 1960s. Given how often record companies have used abstract artwork on the sleeves of classical recordings, especially those by 20th-century composers, you’d expect there to be more examples. There may […]

Wolf City (1972) by Amon Düül II. Behold another favourite album cover by a favourite band, one of several superb designs for Amon Düül II by Falk-U Rogner who was also the group’s keyboard player. Rogner’s suitably hallucinogenic cover images are worth a post of their own but this one requires attention today since I […]