2011: Year of NEW

It's been a year of new things for hypergallery - NEW website, new editions published, NEW friends at the A&D Gallery and Centre Arts. We also launched our NEW Vimeo channel with videos of Storm Thorgerson and Steve Miller.

In the spirit of the best albums lists that dominate the culture pages at this time each year we'll start a NEW tradition: taking a look at those lists and illuminating some of the noteworthy album cover art from amongst the ordained. This is a gentle foray and by no means a top five list. 

Björk - Biophilia

Artist: M/M Paris and Inez & Vinoodh

Never one to neglect the visual Björk has given us a real feast for the eyes and mind with her latest project. From a photo session with M/M Paris and Inez & Vinoodh that reportedly inspired her video for Moon, this image joins a lineage of extraordinary album cover portraits of Björk, instantly recognisable yet totally unique. Sporting the huge orange wig that she debuted at her Biophilia live shows (in which it provided a canvas for dramatic lighting and an expression of landscape, life forms and the Biophilia themes) she fills the square image with her pose. No little pixie here: she is a diva, an earth mother, a magician and a goddess.

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Artist: PJ Harvey and Michelle Henning

Featuring Harvey's own drawings the simple cover image works with the typography to almost onomatopoeic effect. Like Björk, Harvey is an artistic force that cannot be contained within the boundaries of the musical.

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Artist: Gregor Euclide

Gregory Euclide has been thoughtful enough to document his work on this cover in progress and publish the photos on Flickr HERE and HERE. Such a treat and so rare for an artist to document and moreover share their studio practice so closely.

Euclide's work, etherial landscapes with a nod to east asian pictorial traditions and also perhaps to european childrens' story book illustrations, seems the perfect fit for Bon Iver's delicate, wintry music.

You can read an interview with Euclide all about the album artwork on the excellent My Love For You blog by Meighan O'Toole.

Staying on the path of exemplary singer songwriter whimsy we have a very different cover indeed for Rough Trade's Album of the Year 2011:

Josh T. Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen

Artist: Steve Gullick

Pearson begs forgiveness from the female figure, or woman-kind, striking a humble pose both striking and intimate. It may be an advance apology for the lyrics you are about to hear (depending on your take) or maybe for an unknown wrong. Whichever and whatever, this photograph that appears at first like fashion mag fodder is in fact an enduring and appropriate visual for the music within.

Steve Gullick has photographed portraits and album covers for a broad sweep of musical talent: Will Oldham, The Foals, Foo Fighters, Richard Hawley, Nick Cave, Patty Smith, Kurt Cobain, Beck...I could go on....and some beautiful landscapes to boot. His collection of work for and of Josh T. Pearson is a masterpiece.

Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind Of Fix

Artist: Katie Scott

Making Q's list of the top 50 albums of 2011 and graced by this psycho-anatomical wonderment from recent Brighton graduate Katie Scott. She has also provided art for Bombay Bicycle Club singles and deserves great success in 2012, we think! You can see more of her work, including interior photos of the album, on her Tumblr blog.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

  

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was the first Hipgnosis album cover commission from Genesis / Peter Gabriel, a relationship that lasted for the first three Peter Gabriel solo albums (Car, Scratch and Melt). A while ago Storm Thorgerson told us what he remembered about The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway:

"We conceived of a story board or comic strip, but made of photographs.....A major part of this involved the character stepping outside the comic strip and taking a detached view, looking back at this life, a step considered necessary in the process of self-realisation. Thus the main character is seen literally stepping out of the picture, leaving a man-shaped white hole in his wake."

All the imagery was photographed in black and white negative and the resulting prints were reassembled, adjusted in size, comped together and recopied to provide a single flat artwork.

Fresh from a Peter Gabriel signing session today, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is back at Hypergallery HQ, safely tucked away in the plan chests ready to head off to new homes all around the world.

A nice strong signature from Peter Gabriel gives this print, the Hipgnosis album cover art from his final album with Genesis, a sense of completeness.

Photographs of Peter Gabriel signing the prints will be up on hypergallery.com soon!

Live in Cheltenham

Centre Arts in Cheltenham is a small but perfectly formed, good vibey kind of place with awesome people stoking the fires of creativity.

The art courses, the knit and natter events, the ukelele lessons and more are drawing locals and those from further afield, hypergallery included, through the door....which is just off the high street.

So there's no excuse not to get yourself down there to see The Art of the Album!