Hardformat

Artist:Scorch Trio
Title: Luggumt
Label: Rune Grammofon
Year: 2004
Designer: Kim Hiorthoy
Type of music: Scorching
Notes:

Artist: Atom TM
Title: Liedgut
Label: Raster Noton
Year: 2009
Designer: “Moderne Typographie, Satz und Gestaltung wurde durchgefürht von Linger Decoree und Michaela Kessler, mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung durch Olaf Bender.
Type of music: Electronica, hymnal
Notes:

Artist:Shackleton, Appleblim, Gatekeeper plus remixers
Title: Pics 1-4: Soundboy Punishments, pics 5-8: Soundboy’s Gravestone Gets Desecrated By Vandals
Label: Skull Disco
Year: 2007, 2008
Designer: Art/lettering: Zeke S. Clough, CrippaXXXalmquist
Type of music: Dubstep and all sorts
Notes: The big Dubstep labels, Tempa, Hyperdub and Skull Disco all have some kind of design ethos. We’ve already featured Tempa’s The Roots of Dubstep. I’m not a huge fan of Hyperdub or Apple Pip’s functional design approach, but these Skull Disco covers are unmistakable. It’s difficult to imagine not liking Zeke Clough’s humorous mashup of monsters rising up South America/Egypt/his own id. Now that the Skull Disco operation has been shuttered, I wonder what the next look will be for Shackleton.

You may have noticed – at least we hope you have! – that the quality of the photography on Hard Format has improved in recent months. That can be attributed to a fair amount of experimentation paired with investment in a macro lens, tripod and some decent card for backgrounds. All of which put a lot of the older posts to shame. Soooo, I’ve begun re-photographing the worst of the early posts. If you’re interested to see the new pictures, they’re here:

Chain Reaction
Spekk
Dock Boggs
Scott Walker
Autechre
Kruder and Dorfmeister

More to follow, time and energy permitting…

Artist:Various including Joe Bussard, Tennessee Mess Arounders, Jolly Joe’s Jug Band and Blind Thomas
Title: Fonotone Records, Frederick, Maryland
Label: Dust to Digital
Year: 2005
Designer: Art, direction and design: Henry H. Owings, Chunklet Graphic Control, hue, tint and brightness: Susan Archie, World of Archie
Type of music: Bluegrass, backwoods country
Notes: I was very happy to receive this as a review copy a few years back – quite apart from the music, it comes with a bottle opener! Fonotone Records was the last label to release 78s (not sure whether that’s worldwide or just in the States). The label was run by the inimitable Joe Bussard, avid/infamous record collector. This is a classic reissue, the cigar box containing treasures like a whole wad of postcards, record labels, a big book overflowing with details, pics, etc and of course the aforesaid bottle opener. Not forgetting the five CDs.

Oh and anyone who knows who the star was behind Blind Thomas gets a gold star. I’ll give you a hint in case you’ve no idea – he’s been featured before here in the early days of Hard Format. Answer’s at the bottom of this post…

The tone of the notes is playful and affectionate throughout:

I climbed the brick steps of a visitor centre and made my initial enquiries. Behind the counter stood two elderly matrons of the town, Luella and Darlene. At first they serenaded me with well practiced “Welcome to Frederick” greetings, but upon my mentioning the name Fonotone, their singsong chatter stopped, and their faces underwent a transformation into twin visages of what William Burroughs once described as “the mean, pinched, bitter evil faces of decent church goin’ women.”

Fonotone Records: for the best in old time playing and singing…

Blind Thomas was the one and only John Fahey and Fonotone released his first recordings.

Last and probably least, here’s my review, written for Signal to Noise magazine.

Okay, Hard Format is mostly about images, but on stumbling across Wordle I couldn’t help but wonder what words on the site would stand out and here they are. I guess it doesn’t pick up on individual pages as words like CD and Vinyl would be biggest otherwise.

Dear Reader,

We mentioned we were planning a few small changes to the site. The first and possibly biggest is that we want to make Hard Format more of a reference website that acknowledges some of the masters/interesting figures. Here’s our provisional list:

Susan Archie (Revenant, Dust to Digital)
Barney Bubbles (Stiff, etc)
Olaf Bender (Raster Noton)
Stanley Donwood (Radiohead, 666 Records)
ECM (Barbara Wojirsch, Dieter Rehm and Sascha Kleis)
Brian Eno
Tina Frank
Kim Hiorthoy (Rune Grammofon, Smalltown Supersound)
Julian House (Ghost Box, Intro)
Hypgnosis (Led Zep, Pink Floyd, etc)
Non Format
Malcolm Garrett
Reid Miles (Blue Note)
Russell Mills
Vaughan Oliver (4AD)
Jamie Reid (Sex Pistols)
Peter Saville (Factory)
Alex Steinweiss (first record designer)
The Designers Republic (Warp)
Noel Waggener (Revenant, Ghost Box)
Andy Warhol
Jon Wozencroft (Touch)

So far, the honourable John Coulthart has kindly agreed to let us republish his excellent post about Barney Bubbles. I’m hopeful that Vaughan Oliver will contribute text and images. Jim Jupp (Ghost Box) and Rune Kristoffersen (Rune Grammofon) kindly agreed to pass on my request to Julian House and Kim Hiorthoy respectively. So far, perhaps unsurprisingly, we’ve heard nothing from them or from Raster Noton to our two enquiries so far.

It’s going to be a challenge to source images and text so if you’re interested in contributing, please let us know. Likewise please get in touch if you think we’ve missed anyone significant. I think to get going, we’ll try to accumulate small images and basic details of as much of each designer’s work as possible.

Any help, suggestions, advice or just plain goodwill much appreciated!

Welcome again to guest poster, Simon Cummings

Artist: Colin Andrew Sheffield
Title: Signatures (Special Edition)
Label: Invisible Birds
Year: 2008
Designer: Diane Granahan
Type of music: Electroacoustic, ambient, drone
Notes: Limited to just 60 copies, this is the second release from Invisible Birds, “a small label releasing hand packaged limited edition CDs and DVDs evocative of birds and the landscapes they inhabit”. Colin Andrew Sheffield’s album, Signatures, was released—appropriately enough—on the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen’s birth, 10 December 2008. The special edition of the album is contained within a small box, wrapped in a piece of horse-hair fabric, together with a small booklet of poetic texts, a bonus CDR and a small photographic print. Sheffield’s work is always very engaging; he states that the five tracks “were composed without the use of a computer, only a turntable, old sampler and a portable 64-track digital workstation”, but this is far from obvious; the music is organic, subtle and very beautiful.

The special edition is sold out, but a standard edition (with just the CD and no additional items) is still available; details here.