Ryan from Unearthly Trance got in touch with me late last year and asked about the possibility of me providing the artwork for their next album. Having worked with the band previously on a couple of screenprinted posters, and talking with / seeing them near the end of their 2009 tour, I was more than happy to oblige. Personally I find UT to be one of the better bands out there right now, drawing musically in equal parts from traditional metal, doom and hardcore whilst refusing to adhere to any of the genre "rules" that accompany these styles.
"V" is the bands fifth album, which was also pretty much the only initial brief, being entrusted to develop imagery revolving around the number 5. When I got the lyrics, they provided vindication for ideas which had arrived right at the outset, which I always feel to be a good sign. I always do a lot of research at the outset of a project, though this often involves reading and note-taking more than sketching - but in this case I had a clear idea of what I thought was needed straight away.
"V" is the bands fifth album, which was also pretty much the only initial brief, being entrusted to develop imagery revolving around the number 5. When I got the lyrics, they provided vindication for ideas which had arrived right at the outset, which I always feel to be a good sign. I always do a lot of research at the outset of a project, though this often involves reading and note-taking more than sketching - but in this case I had a clear idea of what I thought was needed straight away.
(i) Research, reference books and initial sketches. I tend to take extensive notes at the outset of a project with very rough sketches usually put into cheap notebooks with a Pentel brush pen, which I find good for filling space quickly and intuitively. I've started to draw up an early composition here on layout paper - my idea is quite rigid and ritualistic and the artwork is arguably more akin to a diagram than a "sketch" at this point. The book lying open below my brush doodle is "An Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Traditional Symbols" by J.C. Cooper. I have many reference books of symbols and the like, but this is like a thesaurus for visual research and is the one most commonly taken from the bookshelves - highly recommended!
Regardless, I researched concepts connected to this album extensively, and the resulting imagery is largely inspired by established Thelemic thought (notably The Book Of Thoth), ancient Egyptian and Sumerian mythology, gematria and alchemic documents. Whilst I was often overwhelmed with symbols and correspondences, the task was to constantly condense and filter these down into the relatively simple compositions I had envisaged at the outset. I was pretty much allowed complete creative freedom on the project, both by band and label making this one of the more pleasurable projects to work on with only one small change being required (the conversion of a 6 pointed star to a unicursal hexagram).
(ii) 2nd generation sketches which have been fleshed out and adapted from the originals by inking on new layout paper using the lightbox in the drawing table. Both these compositions were changed again before I embarked on "final" inks which I tend to do digitally using a Wacom tablet. Note the earlier, more stylised version of the "Mendes Ram" design which I later revised in favour of a slightly more "realistic" feel, using various photo references as a guide.
(iii) My final composition for the rear of the vinyl format. For both designs I kept backgrounds separate from foreground until late in development in case of problems. I adopted a looser, crosshatching style for these to avoid visual clutter and detracting from the main foreground illustrations.
(iv) The horsemen arrive in the night...
For the gatefold spread, I chose to employ the crosshatching technique to portray the entire scene, which was a nice change stylistically and I like the way detail is implied and left to the imagination in contrast to the bolder outer covers. One of the few pieces I've done that doesn't employ heavy keylines and is an approach I'm keen to explore in the future.
Being able to handle layout duties for both formats also helped me ensure continuity between both vinyl and CD formats and manipulate type accordingly to avoid an overtly digital look which felt would be at odds with the slightly archaic feel needed.
"V" is a starkly immersive work and is in many ways reminiscent of earlier UT outings without retracing the same steps. Though I do not necessarily speak for the band, Unearthly Trance's music seems to be less about dwelling in darkness than traversing it, using inner light as a guide, and it is this concept that lies at the heart of the final design. "V" will be released on September 28 in North America and October 4 internationally by Relapse Records, on both CD and 2xLP format. A cassette tape release via Humanless is also planned.
www.unearthlytrance.com
www.relapse.com
www.humanless.blogspot.com
"V" is a starkly immersive work and is in many ways reminiscent of earlier UT outings without retracing the same steps. Though I do not necessarily speak for the band, Unearthly Trance's music seems to be less about dwelling in darkness than traversing it, using inner light as a guide, and it is this concept that lies at the heart of the final design. "V" will be released on September 28 in North America and October 4 internationally by Relapse Records, on both CD and 2xLP format. A cassette tape release via Humanless is also planned.
www.unearthlytrance.com
www.relapse.com
www.humanless.blogspot.com
