Tag: album cover

Impala Eardrums

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As Impala Murder, 2008
Salt water and hydrogen peroxide on car door
39.5″ x 37″

As Impala Murder is the cover art for Impala Eardrums: A Radium Sampler, a 2008 compilation from Table of the Elements’ Radium label. Both titles are anagrams of “A Radium Sampler.” Brown was also the art director, graphic designer and photographer for the release.

Brown found a Chevy Impala door in a Long Island junkyard and sanded it down to bare metal. He attached a stencil of a photograph to the door and sprayed it with a mix of salt water and hydrogen peroxide to cause it to rust. Once it dried, he removed the stencil, and the image was left behind formed in rust. Brown talks about the piece in this interview with KERA.

It was one of several projects Brown created through his graphic design work for the label, where several albums came with their own creative project. See also Donkey Punch and Side A.

Rusted Chevy Impala car door as found, before sanding. As Impala Murder by Bradly Brown
Chevy Impala car door sanded down to bare metal, before rusting. As Impala Murder by Bradly Brown
Rust image of a dead impala on a bare-metal Chevy Impala car door. As Impala Murder by Bradly Brown
Car door with a rusted impala image, used as the cover of Impala Eardrums: A Radium Sampler. As Impala Murder by Bradly Brown
Close-up of orange rust patterns on bare steel. As Impala Murder by Bradly Brown
Impala Eardrums: A Radium Sampler CD and white vinyl LP packaging, with the rusted car door artwork, designed by Bradly Brown

Side A, 2016

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Side A, 2016
Silicone mold, and unique resin cast LP. Each color of silicone signifies a different vinyl record used to create the mold. 
14” x 14” each

Side A is a single silicone mold cast from five different vinyl LPs. Silicone was poured over one record, peeled away, and laid onto the next, building up layer by layer, with each color of silicone marking a different record.

Resin records cast from the mold carry that layered information and can be played. The five LPs melt into one another, an abstraction of both image and sound, so the record sounds different depending on where the needle drops.

The piece grew out of Brown’s graphic design work for the experimental music label Table of the Elements, where every release came with its own creative project: silkscreens made from rust on car doors (see Impala Eardrums), record titles carved into guitars for Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio Is My Life!, and an album cover drawn on a chalkboard and photographed for Megafaun’s Bury the Square (see Donkey Punch). The work never stopped at the music. In the video Rowdy Rubber Records, Brown walks through the process.

Side A by Bradly Brown
Side A by Bradly Brown
Side A by Bradly Brown
Side A by Bradly Brown
Side A by Bradly Brown
Side A by Bradly Brown

Donkey Punch, 2008

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Donkey Punch, 2008
Mixed media on chalkboard
48″ x 72″

Donkey Punch is the album cover for Megafaun’s Bury the Square, released in 2008 on the experimental label Table of the Elements. Brown drew the image in mixed media on a chalkboard and then photographed it for the cover. He was also the art director and graphic designer for the release. Read the album’s review on Pitchfork.

The drawing is an illustrated picture of the music industry and works as a cautionary tale about the life of a touring musician. The donkey stands in for the nomadic life of the road: a tour bus loaded with everything you own. Snakes, bats and con men surround it, figures that show one face but turn out to have two. The traveler keeps moving forward anyway and finds a way through them. The music itself is the real weapon, but sometimes it needs backup: help from those who build the path. That’s the shotgun, marked “This Machine Kills Fascists,” the slogan Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar.

Donkey Punch was one of several projects Brown made through his design work for the label, where several albums came with their own creative project. See also Impala Eardrums and Side A.

Donkey Punch by Bradly Brown
Donkey Punch by Bradly Brown
Donkey Punch by Bradly Brown