Practical Synthesis: The Past Re-remembered

The concept of my practical project derives directly from the research surrounding my dissertation which is the idea of the past constantly influencing the present, specifically within music and design. My aim for this project is to create a contemporary visual language for new electronic music which has  been influenced by eras before. Much of the nature of electronic music is to sample and re-appropriate old sounds in a new and experimental way which leads to development of the genres and music as a whole.

My intention is to reflect this within my design work and create album covers for underground electronic artists who are using these techniques within their music. For the genres of music I will be working within I will look to past music scenes they are referencing, and use similar elements within my designs (e.g. colours, typography, imagery). As I want to represent the music as contemporary, it will be important to not just directly pastiche these older styles, but to incorporate original design elements and modern day processes into my work.

Visual References  

Collection of typographic and visual material from Uk Jungle, Breakbeat, Hardcore and Rave 1988-94.

Digital advertisements from 1985-1999

Artists to focus on:

I have chosen to use these artists as I feel they encapsulate some of the sounds of the 90s dance music era such as breakbeat, acid, hardcore and house.

Selected a few descriptions from reviews and biographies about the artists to give an idea of the sounds and images I can use as reference when creating the artwork.

I have also added the existing cover art for the tracks I plan on redesigning as they are either standardised for the label releasing them or ones I feel don't capture the sound and style of the artist.

Special Request

- Modern Warfare appropriates specific devices from rave, hardcore and jungle, rather than remaining true to their original blueprints. Most of the tracks motor along at house tempos, offering subtle variations on old-school dance music.

Zomby

'hedonistic retreat to rave's glory days that acts as much as a history lesson plotting trails and picking at strands of the UK's early '90s dance scene as anything else.'

'Old-skool ghosts haunt the record; samples of former glories packing punches like bouts of Stockholm Syndrome on the senses as you glance familiar faces from well over a decade ago.' 

- Resident Advisor 

Lone

- Experimenting with Hip Hop, early 90s Hardcore, Techno and Electronic music.
- Merges an endless range of styles including 80s funk, 90s hip hop and his trademark hazy, sun drenched melodies.
- Early 90's London rave sound aimed at destroying parties while simultaneously staying true to his beautiful, nostalgic melodic style.

Album Cover/s to redesign:

Palms Trax

I want this project to work as a set so will employ similar design techniques across the the hree to link them together. As they are dance records the majority of the focus will be on the circular labels themselves because of there use in a DJing environment. 

Questions for Ghost Box (and responses)

I decided to contact Jim Jupp, one of the co-founders of the Ghost Box record label who use Hauntological themes strongly throughout their music releases and within their artwork. Below is the email I sent to them:

Hi,

I'm a Graphic design student from Leeds currently writing a dissertaion on how the internet has been used as a platform to create new music and design subcultures for the final year of my degree. I stumbled upon your guys work for Ghost Box while researching into Hauntology and am really interested in the work you have produced. I was wondering, if you don't mind, if you can answer some questions (as detailed or briefly as you like) to help with my writing and so I can better understand what your aims are with Ghost Box and the artists involved. Would be very much appreciated!

What would you say were the main inspirations behind starting the label?

How much impact has the internet had on influencing the material for posters, music videos, album art ect? (finding archive footage and design)


Where does your fascination with 60s Britain come from? Why do you incorporate it so strongly into what you are doing?

Thanks in advance,

Jake Simmonds

Response:

Hi Jake,

we get a lot of requests from students and academics and I usually have to turn them down because of the sheer amount time it takes but as you've just asked three straightforward questions I'll try to give some answers.

all the best,
Jim Jupp

What would you say were the main inspirations behind starting the label?


At the time we were inspired by the then thriving scene of DIY burn to order CDr labels, like Oggum and English Heretic in the UK and Jeweled Antler Collective in the USA.


It was originally intended as a home for our (Julian House and I) parallel music experiments. We worked in very different ways with different tools, but we shared influences in half remembered TV, 50s and 60s graphic design, horror stories, early electronics folk music and library music. We were interested in creating a visual world built around our memories and impressions of these things rather than a recreation of a particular moment in history.


How much impact has the internet had on influencing the material for posters, music videos, album art ect? (finding archive footage and design)


When we started this kind of material was still hard to come by and the process of uploading cultural history a was only just beginning. We were always interested in things mis-remembered or naggingly familiar so maybe it was no accident we started when we did. A last opportunity to look at mysterious parts of popular culture and not be able to just google stuff.


That's still part of the Ghost Box aesthetic and why we always say we're interested in past of our own imaginary world rather than genuine history , which is bound to be disenchanted by the internet.


Where does your fascination with 60s Britain come from? Why do you incorporate it so strongly into what you are doing?


Its partly about the time we grew up and our childhood memories but its also a fascination with an era that came before that too. Its really about that notion of pre-digital culture, and the post war utopianism that lead to the grand social and welfare experiments of the 50s and the counterculture of the 60s.


I would add though that we are do not have rose tinted glasses, and we are neither Luddites or about nostalgia. The label isn't an academic exercise, we're just having fun cherry picking and juxtaposing musical and visual references from the past that appeal to us.