| Artist | Various |
| Title | Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume Four |
| Label | Revenant |
| Year | 2000 |
| Designer | Susan Archie |
| Music | Blues, folk, gospel |
| Notes | Beautiful booklet format that completes Harry Smith’s project. See also: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings – Anthology of American Folk Music |
Good interview on the Creative Review blog with David Storey, co-designer of Two Tone.
| Artist | Various |
| Title | People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 |
| Label | Tompkins Square Records |
| Year | 2007 |
| Designer | Cover art: Matthew Greenaway, art direction and design: Susan Archie with illustration help from Potsy Duncan and Carrie Hawks |
| Music | Bleak, tabloid, wonderful Americana |
| Notes | This is a sumptuous 3 CD set presented in a highly unusual narrow letterbox format. CD1 comprises 25 songs on the subject of Man vs Machine, CD2 Man vs Nature, CD3 is Man vs Man (And Woman Too). The music itself is a treasure trove of remastered 78s featuring the likes of Charley Patton, Son Host and a host of names rescued from the obliteration of history. Each corner embellishment bears one of four words: Death, Fate, Wreck, Murder.
People take warning indeed. |
It’s a beautiful monster of a thing:
Warp20 (Box Set) comes beautifully packaged in a 10″ slipcase wrapped in charcoal Buckram embossed paper with tipped-on gloss-laminated cover photograph, designed by YES, photographed by Dan Holdsworth.
We hope to be featuring it here on Hard Format in August.
Full details on the Warp website.
| Artist | Richard Skelton |
| Title | Box of Birch |
| Label | Tompkins Square Records |
| Year | 2009 |
| Designer | Richard Skelton |
| Music | Intense pastoral timelessness |
| Notes | Beautiful vinyl edition of an album first released on Skelton’s own Private Press. Interview with Richard Skelton on Mapsadaisical’s blog.
See also: Richard Skelton, Sustain Release |
Greg Kowalsky, Tape Chants (Kranky)
Harmonic 313, Battlestar (Warp), artwork by Manuel Sepulveda.
Harmonic 313, Dirtbox (Warp)