Heute erscheint mit Hard Times Furious Dancing das vierte Album von SNAPPED ANKLES. Exklusiv für Popmonitor erzählen Band-Mitglied ANKLE AUSTIN und Designer LOUISE MASON hier vom spannenden Artwork, das die Platte außen und innen trägt. Austin macht den Anfang …
We’ve always made sure to put Snapped Ankles’ name in big, bold letters on the front of our albums. Then, we split or cut the letters, or we even ‘SNAP’ the font! Each album has a collection of instruments or relates to the concept behind the music. Also using colour coding helps us sell our merch at gigs on the merch desk in the dark corner – so visibility is key. However this album was a big step up from the previous one. We wanted to work with a new designer and evolve from the template set out in the previous three albums. One concept idea for the music that followed into the artwork on Hard Times Furious Dancing was to use protest iconography in reference to the rights to protest which are being eroded away by successive Western regimes. The visual humour embedded into the left wing style of protest collage from the likes of the great Peter Kennard and Robin Fior lead to the creation of banners and booklets that appear on the cover and within the Dinked edition packages [which includes an “armchair protest banner” and a zine]. Another aim that informed the concept was the group’s intention to make a ‘dance’ album. After a few years of playing festival stages and black box gig venues, the band wanted to make music that got the audience into the deep dancing state you get at techno raves. We set up our own curated nights at VenueMOT in Bermondsey [in South London], one of the current destinations for long nights of hard dancing in the capital, performing literally on the dancefloor shrouded in haze and strobe light, improvising our new material to a dancing audience, before heading back to the studio to capture the energy we had created. In order to meld these two concepts into a cover image, we were inspired by the tribal totem in the main hall of the British Museum.
Die Zusammenarbeit mit Designerin LOUISE MASON führte zu einer Erweiterung des Konzepts:
Initially we were thinking of taking a band photo where the band members were on each other’s shoulders but once we started to work with Louise Mason for the cover shoot, we decided to build a full-scale speaker stack totem with cheap Yamaha organs and a collection of vintage sine wave test oscillators on top. As we constructed it we imagined a bizarre rave sound system, filling the room with lasers and smoke as a thanksgiving ritual to the spirit of ecstatic tribal dancing. It wasn’t until we built the totem that it was noted the cover brought to mind the illustrations of recent CAN artwork and the speaker pyramids of the JAMMs/KLF, both artists have been a continuous inspiration so the band are happy! Louise was amazing at art directing us and capturing the whole build process. Once we had our cover shot she was able to construct the artwork package around the strongest image. We still want the name of the band written on the cover but normal typesetting got in the way of the image. Leaf label boss Tony Morley suggested spot varnishing the logo over the photo so the image remains intact but under the glare of the record store’s lighting the band’s name would be reflected. This gives the artwork a more ‘premium’ quality than without don’t you think? For the inner sleeve and singles artwork, Louise went wild with riso prints and rough photocopied feel that gives echos our DIY punk background. Instead of splitting the logo as we had done before she liquid warped and distorted the text to create the “SNAP” we love.
LOUISE MASON selbst ergänzt:
I was so excited to get to work on this – a band with such a defined and bonkers look and ethos, they are completely unique. I’ve been watching them create this alternate weird world from a distance, one that becomes more relevant across every record they do; getting invited to get involved in it was a huge treat and responsibility. I instantly loved Paddy’s totem idea – industrial and tribal– the perfect symbol and statement to represent the record and the band. We tried briefly to get academic with it but the feeling was to build this massive ridiculous thing the next morning and see where it took us. So the cover was a rapid process – two days in a dark, freezing-cold, dusty industrial factory in the depths of winter, chasing out the pigeons and editing as we went along, cuddled around a storage heater. We tried set ups involving band members and movement, but it was so much stronger with the solo totem. It reflected the dystopian, apocalyptic feeling – an abandoned post-rave warehouse. It’s one shot – nothing was added in post – Mikey painted the album title on a banner, based on the protest signs that influenced the album title and ethos. Shooting a band with no faces was an odd challenge – making it all about shapes / lights / posture/stances to make the expressions, definitely no relying on styling or make-up artists for this one. The inner sleeve carries the industrial structuring of the music…. the rhythm/geometry of the lyrics. Bits of satirical and literal instruction manuals throughout the rest of the sleeve and zines. Oddly as i’m writing this vinyl record just landed on my desk – i can confirm it came out great!
SNAPPED ANKLES
Hard Times Furious Dancing
(The Leaf Label / H’Art)
VÖ: 28.03.2025
