Sunday, March 18, 2012

Hintergrund - Signal Blister Physical Release

Album Cover
Over the summer of 2011 friend and fellow musician Brian Sopher and I released a full length album entitled Signal Blister under the name Hintergrund consisting of improvised compositions created utilizing treated guitar, synth, a cheap broken microphone and plenty of digital processing. The music on the release is comprised of seven somewhat long droning compositions interlaced with traces of melody and rhythm all buried beneath layers of tectonic ever shifting walls of distortion and colorful textures.

Previously, I had written several blog posts including information as well as images and samples from the album. The album artwork is derived from a series of edited photographs of an abandoned factory I shot during the production of the album. One of my favorite aspects of purchasing a piece of music in a physical format, whether it be a CD or vinyl copy has been the artwork that accompanies it, something that gave me a reason to buy it as oppose to simply downloading a digital copy or pirating it. The artwork often times provides a deeper look into the music, sometimes exemplifying a more personal aspect of the music that wouldn't be present otherwise. I feel as though the artwork that accompanies the album does well in visually representing the sounds within the recordings, providing images to stimulate the listener; this idea of layers of paint and concrete having been removed, decayed, weathered, and worn away to reveal an underlying surface, much like the sounds on Signal Blister. The physical copies of the album were finished in October of last year and are handmade, therefore limited to only thirteen unnumbered copies, all of which will be given away to close friends and other desirables. Above is a cropped image of the album artwork and below is the physical release displaying the gatefold style packaging as well as the CD and sleeve. There is a link provided below to a free download of the album in 320 kbps which includes the artwork. Enjoy.


Thanks goes to Kyle Plaskon for photographing the album packaging. You can check out more of his photography here.





On Repeat: Orphan School - Secret Admirer, Burial - Kindred EP, Mustapha Mond - Keeping Secrets, Ben Frost - Discography

Choice Cinema: Wim Wenders 'Wings of Desire',  Jim Jarmusch 'Stranger Than Paradise'