City Music and Art

I started on this project maybe two weeks ago. I approached it with the simple idea that I was going to record some music, then create some artwork to go along with it. It sounded pretty simple, like any piece of music and the CD packaging that accompanies it. I thought it would be a bit more exciting though, because I got to create the artwork at the same time that I was making the music. Usually they happen at different times, and most of the time come from different people. As I embarked on it though, I decided I wanted to do it a bit differently.

First I decided I wanted to do the music differently. I’ve always loved albums that flow together. Not even that one song works in transition with another, but that you can listen to all the songs and it’s difficult to find the gap. So that’s how I started making the music. What I ended up with was a 15 minute long song. I decided to keep it that though. Just as a song.

Secondly, I started to rethink the packaging of the music. It’s hard to make an argument for CDs these days, unless you’re arguing for nostalgia. The way I treat CDs now: open the package, put the CD in my computer, rip it, and essentially discard the CD. So I wanted to make something that wasn’t so disposable. I kept calling it the “album art of the future” in my head, but what it should be is the album art of right now. It’s just that mind sets are going to change immediately, and soon enough iTunes-style sales will just take over. But my “album art of the future” concept is packaging for a flash drive, instead of just packaging for a standard CD. My idea was that a flash drive could contain the MP3s that make up an album, along with higher quality files for remixing. So I included both an mp3 and a garagedband file on the flash drive that sits inside the City package. Because flash drives can be reused, it fulfilled the need in my head for something less disposable. You’d plug the drive in, move the files onto your computer, and use the flash drive for whatever you wanted after that.

Here are some photos of what I came up with. I really wanted to play with the idea of “by hand.” I created everything but the cover at first. It was very Sagmeister inspired. Then yesterday morning, I just jumped out of bed with the idea of type by hand. I just took my RC1, Canon Rebel, and a black backdrop and created the cover for City.

More photos exist on my flickr.

And here is the music. You can download it or just listen right here.

If you’d like to download the garageband file, download it and feel free to remix it.