| Artist | David Toop and Max Eastley |
| Title | Buried Dreams |
| Label | Beyond Records |
| Year | 1994 |
| Design | Images: Max Eastley; stories: David Toop; design: zerodesign |
| Music | Ambient and dark, haunted sci-fi |
| Desktop | Download image |
| Notes | This is the first in a very occasional series of posts focusing on ‘information-rich’ designs (at time of writing I have three further examples in mind, though there are surely many more – suggestions welcome). Graphic design and imagery can of course provide concentrated information, but here I’m referring to sleeve designs that contain texts other than the standard list of credits or the once popular liner notes. David Toop and Max Eastley’s collaboration Buried Dreams is a perfect example of this.
The CD booklet held within a standard jewel-case contains a series of brief stories and textual mise en scènes that serve to reflect, enhance and parallel the musical worlds created by David Toop and Max Eastley. The music represents the gradual accretion, sifting and moulding of sound files and sonic ideas. The fecund result is awash with samples, clanking, scraping, cries and reverberation. The back of the booklet informs the reader:
Such a list, almost Oulipian in extent, is delightfully resonant even in isolation. The titles are even more suggestive – two and three word koans: Decoys & Scarers; Burial Rites; Life Without Movement; Tsuji; City of Night; Ignorance of Distance; Buried Dreams; Cave of Inscription; Telematic Nomads; Rising Up Before Us Like Things. They rival even Brian Eno at his most inspired. David Toop’s fragments of narrative scattered throughout the booklet are deeply occluded, horror-filled micro-dramas:
The booklet is interleaved with Max Eastley’s darkened, semi-transparent images that hint at stone totems, torture(d) spaces, alien skeletons, blurred code patterns. Image, text and music make rich pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the remaining spaces filled by the imagination and experiences of the audience. Buried Dreams in physical format is sadly long out of print, Beyond Records folding sometime in the mid ’90s. It is, however, available as an MP3 download on Amazon. Beside Buried Dreams, the label was also notable for releasing pseudonymous work Paul Schütze and Richard H. Kirk. Only be tempted by the pre-recorded cassette version, as I was on the album’s release, if you have no other choice: it lacks the narratives and most of the graphics. Despite a recent resurgence in the medium, cassettes almost always proved to be the impoverished relative of the CD and vinyl album. The track included below, Burial Rites, is a slight remix that was released on Isolationism, part of Virgin’s brief but impressive run of brilliantly curated compilations. Isolationism along with Jazz Satellites – Electrification was the singular work of Kevin Martin who also provided the brilliant graphic overload under the guise of The Pathological Puppy. They’ll be covered here at some point in the future. Toop and Eastley’s work found sympathetic neighbours in the likes of AMM, Sufi, Techno Animal, Raoul Björkenheim, ‘O’Rang and Thomas Köner. If you’re unfamiliar with Buried Dreams, seek it out. |
| Listen | |
| Also | Review of Toop and Eastley’s 2004 follow-up, Doll Creature |
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