Hardformat

Artist: The Smashing Pumpkins
Title: The Aeroplane Flies High
Label: Virgin Records America
Year: 1996
Designer: tbc
Type of music: Alternative Rock
Notes: A personal favourite of mine, both design and music. This is a boxset compiling the five singles from ‘Mellon Collie’. Originally a ‘limited’ run of 200,000 (those were the days) that saw a wider repress due to demand. I remember paying through the nose for my copy from the original run, only to see loads of reprints appear in local record shops weeks later at a lower price.

Intended to mimic a 45 singles record box from the 60’s if I’m not mistaken. The blotches you can see in the photos are patches of mould – it doesn’t appear to be aging too well 12 years on.

Artist: Robag Wruhme
Release: The Lost Archive 1998-2007
Label: Musik Krause
Year: 2007
Designer: Toci & Robag
Type of music: Electronic
Notes: Lovely, simple embossed card cover.

Artist: Deathprod
Album: Deathprod boxset
Label: Rune Grammofon
Year: 2004
Designer: Helge Sten , Kim Hiorthøy
Type of music: Dark ambient, drone
Notes: 4 CDs and a 32 page booklet in a heavy card box. To quote Spinal Tap;

David – “Well, I think it looks like death…it looks like mourning. I mean it looks…”
Nigel – “I think he’s right, there is something about this, that’s that’s so black, it’s like; “How much more black could this be?” and the answer is: None, none… more black.”
The box is black, the booklet is black, the music is black. All four albums each marked with a single icon on the cover and embossed on the CD itself, gloss on matte. As a compilation to mark the end of the Deathprod project, this is perfect.

Artist: The Missing Ensemble
Album: Hidden Doors
Label: Mondes Elliptiques
Year: 2006
Designer: Cover Art: Ray Caesar Design: NosR
Type of music: Drone, ambient, noise
Notes: Hand-numbered edition of 500 in a card sleeve with a booklet of short stories by Brian Evenson and Mathias Delplanque (the first in English, the second in French). The wonderful sleeve art by Ray Caesar reminds me of Trevor Brown (who’s cover work I will no doubt be posting soon). His cleverly textured 3D models make me, a part-time 3D modeller myself, sick with envy.

Artist: Various
Album: Sub001CD
Label: Suburb. The Record Label
Year: 2006
Designer: Build
Type of music: Electronic
Notes: Editon of 1000 copies in a custom-printed plastic sleeve, with the web address on one side and the SRL logo on the other.

Read a review of this release on themilkfactory.co.uk