Rachel Newton - Here's My Heart Come Take It - Album Cover Design
It is safe to say we have a winter of amazing albums from the Scottish Folk Scene. This album is certainly one of the best! It was an epic album cover design replete with large scale forest crafts, fishing wire, winter storms, murder ballad line dancing, simulated rain and vaseline. If you would like to read about how I took the photos for this please check this post out... http://somhairle.co.uk/rachel-newton-solo-artist-photography/As soon as the photos were edited and chosen I set about destroying them. As is my wont. The fracturing and explosions perhaps help to portray the turmoil and darkness of the songs Rachel has chosen. This is a proper album in that it transports you to another place. A place of dark tales, lost children, murderous gardeners and such. I was privileged whilst constructing the artwork and filming the folkumentary to have been present in Caribou studios whilst Rachel, Mattie Foulds and Lauren MacColl were laying down their tracks and this really helped me in conveying the songs with the art. We went for a minimal, modernist kinda vibe, keeping things stark and other worldly. Supported by clean graphical elements the photos really helped bridge the gap between the traditional songs and the modern production.On the technical side I tried to maximise the fidelity by working everything up at 12" scale and 600dpi. This may be overkill but I am always hopeful that people will start embracing the recent vinyl resurgence, mark my words there will be vinyl represses if people buy the CD's. It also serves to get a better product on the CD, with better fidelity all round. Birnam CD as always did an amazing job of accommodating my technical desires and also got me out of a bind with the back printing, for which I am extremely grateful. The Guys at Birnam do an excellent job and I urge all my clients use them. They are Scottish, Local, Folk Luminaries and have an eye for detail and technical excellence that other companies do not. Although they may be more a touch more expensive than other British based companies they provide a service that in my experience is well worth it. Printers and reprographics companies that don't work with the artist are never going to achieve the same results.I also filmed and edited the making of documentary and did posters, business cards and the bandcamp graphics.I urge you all to please go and buy this album, I believe it will be a seminal record and influence the burgeoning folk scene to be more adventurous, true and experimental. Mattie Foulds did a great job on the production, recording and mix, it is phat, punchy and expansive. As a Bass player I will happily admit that the electric harp has a low end that few things can rival, even synthesisers. It really is quite extraordinary. And I took great delight in being in the studio and listening to it's richness on Matties lovely ATC monitors, a total joy for a Bass Face like myself. And Lauren's Cailleach tone on the fiddle is hard to beat, not to mention the sweet and flowing harmonies and melodies which most of the time she just plucked out form thin air.All in all an unadulterated classic! Please, support great Scottish art & BUY IT!http://www.rachelnewtonmusic.com/shop.htmlvia GIPHY