Here are the artists who are doing cover art right. This week’s By The Cover brings you the standout album art of the week.
Los Angeles Police Department – Los Angeles Police Department
Disinterested hand-drawn storks? Pelicans? Raiding a crashing plane? Were you expecting lo-fi, wispy, pleasantly content California pop? The album cover certainly translates the speed of music and lo-fi aspect of the album. Plus it’s fun to look at. It shows you can do a lot with the basics: hand drawing and primary colors. Designers, take note.
Ryuichi Sakamoto – async
There’s a right way to use Photoshop, and there’s a wrong way. Async uses it in all the right ways, and I mean all. The muted, gloomy color palette sets the mood and all the visual elements pair together quite nicely. There’s the stagnant, resting pots, the pots suspended and stretched. It adds an element of perpetuity without being explicit and reflects the album’s music visually.
Colin Stetson – All This I Do For Glory
We’ve been referring to this cover in the Jukely office as “The Kinfolk Disaster Tent.” The cover is ambiguous, modern, and animalistic. It’s a journey of, is this silk? Skull? A little bit of both? Purposeful? Organic? Congrats, that’s the album.
Feist – Pleasure
Feist has had previously strong album covers. May I remind you of The Reminder? Really utilized the black and white silhouette. For this album cover, we dig the over-exposure and over-saturation, and the whimsical nature of the Secret Garden reference. This album cover indicates a lot of growth visually, but it’s pretty much the same old Feist.
Mew – Visuals
This album cover is simultaneously intriguing and slightly terrifying. It feels predatory, in a way that snares you in a trap because you look too closely and it zaps you. The electric, bright imagery is an interesting projection onto a human face. It reflects the cinematic nature of the album.
Pieces of Juno – Kalopsia
Cross genre. Dark indie. Hint of millennial pink tones and flower crown dressing up a dark, grotesque traditional profile portrait. It’s a statement in and of itself.
The Big Other – Figure Walking
The Big Other have declared this album theirs to “focus on who they are as artists” and reducing noise. I’d say the color blocking has communicated this purpose pretty distinctly. It’s forceful and elemental and not to mention…. weird.
Wilsen – I go missing in my sleep
Is it an homage to Westworld? We’ll never know. The album cover is pretty current and predictable, but it’s cool, obviously well designed, and uncomplicated in a dreamy sort of way. It matches the female fronted indie band pretty well.
And one bonus:
Because, DAMN.
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