“The image is a rendering that depicts the connections in a human brain, the wiring diagram, if you will.  These images are made from data collected on a MRI machine and are part of a large project to map the connections in humans. I can only say that the distance between art and science is often very small indeed and that the beauty and wonder of the human brain and its inner workings inspires all of us that work to discover it.”

Arthur W. Toga at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine sheds some light on the captivating images which make up Muse’s ‘2nd Law’ release. See more of their amazing work here.

Self-taught, self-employed art director and designer Henrik Walse has been focusing on design for the music industry since he started in 1998. Henrik has created multiple logos, album covers, and posters for some of Sweden’s hottest exports, including Sahara Hotnights, Danko Jones, The Hellacopters, and most recently, The Hives ‘Lex Hives’ which has been nominated for the Best Art Vinyl 2012 award.

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Want to know the story behind the art? Ali Johnson of Dorothy spoke to Art Vinyl about the making of Saint Etienne’s ‘Words and Music’ sleeve.

“Saint Etienne and Heavenly Recordings approached us in January 2012 after seeing our Original Song Map and asked if we’d like to create a new Map for the cover of the band’s upcoming albumn ‘Words and Music’ which is about how music affects your life. We jumped at the chance. Bob Stanley (a man with impeccable music taste) and the band choose the song titles for the Map (all the songs ‘mean’ something to them) and we loosely based the layout on Croydon which is where the band grew up. The Map reads like the record collection we wish we had!”

Bob Stanley from Saint Etienne explains the thinking behind the map used on the cover of the album: “The Song Map is a musical city. Whenever I walk down a street I have a song in my head. And plenty of songs have a visual counterpart, a snapshot in my mind - this could relate to where I first heard the song, or for no apparent reason. I hear the Monkees’ Headquarters album and I’m looking at the street below from the kitchen window of the flat we rented in Malmo while recording Good Humor. I hear Otis Redding’s Dock Of The Bay and I’m on the corner of Bartlett Street in South Croydon (no idea why). Glen Campbell’s By The Time I Get To Phoenix goes with the A23 in Hooley - probably not the image Jimmy webb had in mind when he wrote it.  These images - street corners, alleyways, bus stops, shop fronts - are all attached to specific songs in my mind, like some odd version of synasthesia. The song map is as close to a visual version as we could get. I like the notion of all the journeys you can take on the map, with a different playlist each time. All the songs are ones we like (yes, even Leo Sayer’s Orchard Road), so it should always be a rewarding journey.”

The Saint Etienne Song Map and the Original Song Map are both available to buy from Dorothy. Vote for your favourite sleeves of 2012 here.

Above, Cave Painting’s ‘Votive Life’ sleeve, designed by The Creative Corporation. Scott Jones, Creative Director, shares his thoughts on the sleeve:

“For Votive Life, Cave Painting approached us with a brief asking for a very simple and striking application of a diamond shape that they had been using as a symbol for  while. It was proposed that we produce packages that had a refined but crafted feel to them, using paper engineering and japanese binding techniques for inspiration.

For the vinyl we continued this theme and produced a sleeve that simulated an animated effect when opened, and when closed uses the die-cut areas as textural elements to add another dimension to the sleeve.”

VOTE for Cave Painting and see the other 2012 nominees here!

“Having worked with Richard Hawley for the last 27 years we have a good understanding and have developed a successful process for the visual representation of his work. I get to listen to the music as it develops from simple recorded ideas to full production and have a copy of the lyrics. From these I make a list of all the imagery that comes to mind and develop ideas from these.

For ‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ this process was even more important as this would be the first Richard Hawley release without an image of Richard on the cover. There were strong references to nature, woodland/trees which ran through the whole album and so I found myself concentrating on woodland imagery. I had also found some amazing natural light phenomena called Brocken Spectre which I really wanted to incorporate within the design.

I spent a number of days walking through the woodlands of Sheffield and the Peak District taking photographs of trees and skies. These became the key elements for the design along with blurred shots of water droplets on glass. I used multiple layers of images and colours. As the Brocken Spectre is a very rare event I recreated this with a simple graphic. I kept the font simple and light using Asenine text font. This method became the theme for the single releases from the album.”

Designer of Richard Hawley’s ‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ has been working in the music industry graphics production since 1985. See more of his work here, or vote for your favourite sleeve of 2012.

A surreal gathering that brings Belgian artist René Magritte together with 80s-inspired gloss is taking place on the cover of French producer Débruit’s new album, From The Horizon. 

It’s the work of The Rainbowmonkey, aka Markus Hofko. His long-term design work with Xavier Thomas – the producer behind Débruit – started after Hofko’s band, okyo, connected with Débruit on MySpace and the two subsequently gigged together in Austria and Germany. “I’ve always felt connected with Xav’s odd style and we found strong similarities in my design,” says Hofko, who now lives in Auckland, New Zealand. His initial idea was to connect the cover with three previous Débruit EPs, where the subjects’ eyes and mouths were substituted with stylised objects. “I thought it would be nice to show the world where these particles come from, the secret treasure place in the ‘desert of funk’,” he says. 

However, inspiration came in the shape of a famous Belgian: “Xavier had just moved to Belgium and pointed out that he really enjoyed René’s work. We looked at how we could imitate his style. I cut out the eye of [his 1928 piece] ‘The False Mirror’ and placed it on my current cover draft. Bang!The eye, a classic motif.” The image was primarily produced in Cinema 4D, with the final artwork being a simple render of the scene. “The software offers an amazing playground to design,” Hofko says. “Having full control of light and shadow in your scene opens up endless possibilities.”

Taken from Computer Arts Magazine, Summer 2012.

Vote for Markus at bestartvinyl.com

And so to Hammersmith on Tuesday night, where Art Vinyl were treated to an audio visual feast courtesy of Band of Horses. At 9pm sharp, the boys took to the stage in a blur of blue denim and beards, as the charming frontman Ben Bridwell and his bandmates attacked the opening numbers with a wild enthusiasm that was infectious to the 3,000 strong crowd before them.

Although initially a little sceptical of the whole southern rock shtick (even songs such as new single ‘Knock Knock’ were peppered with a variety of whoops and ‘yeehaws’) tunes from albums old and new were rendered pitch perfect in trucker-capped Bridwell’s lilting Southern tenor, with bandmates Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds et al providing those Eagles-esque harmonies which place the group firmly in the territory of the soulful Americana for which they earned a Grammy nomination in 2010. 

Against a projected backdrop of trees, deserts, beaches and mountains, Band of Horses took the audience on a journey through the heartlands of North America, creating a raucous party atmosphere and culminating in barn-storming closing number ‘The General Specific’, joined on stage by support act Goldheart Assembly.

After a not-so-quick break, the band returned for their encore: not to the stage but to the Art Deco-styled balcony of the Apollo, with nothing but a single microphone, guitar and goofy grin to accompany unplugged renditions of ‘Evening Kitchen’ and fan favourite ‘No One’s Gonna Love You’ (news of which will surely disappoint the many who left beforehand to catch the early tube home). The crowd sang along as the voices of Bridwell and Ramsey soared up to the rafters, before joining their bandmates on stage once again for an impassioned rendition of ‘Funeral’ and a cover of soul classic ‘Am I A Good Man’ to finally close a fantastic show befitting the final date of their European tour.

Band of Horses latest album, ‘Mirage Rock’ is nominated for the Best Art Vinyl 2012 award. To see who else was nominated and to vote for YOUR favourite, go to www.bestartvinyl.com

Following the nomination of his work for Future of the Left, Art Vinyl spoke to Paul O’Connell about what went into the making of the sleeve for The Plot Against Common Sense (above).

“This is the first and only record sleeve I have ever been asked to produce, based on an idea Andy [Falkous, Future of the Left frontman] came up with. I think the original brief was something like… ‘A man holding the flipper of a penguin walking on scorched earth toward a sun or moon’.”

“I did a couple of versions (see above) and there was a lot of going back and forth with Andy saying ‘Make the sun bigger…bigger…bigger!’ until we eventually got to a final design that Andy was happy with. And that’s about it really.” 

O’Connell is a designer better known for his colourful and carnivalesque comic strips which can be found here. However, record cover art has long been a passion. “The record sleeves I always liked were those that were very busy and had lots and lots of detail in them to pore over,” he explains. 

Showing an awareness of the impact of the digital age on modern music culture, O’Connell is familiar with the idea that record cover designs are often seen by fans at a size “no larger than a postage stamp,” and so it was important to strike the balance for the Future of the Left sleeve. Judging from the quality of this most recent work, we think Paul has the balance just right.

Vote for Future of the Left in the Best Art Vinyl 2012 award, online or in participating galleries.