Yesterday we posted open-minded aesthete Instant Peterson's favourite black and white record sleeves. Today he sent us his favourite record sleeves with colour on them, as well as some thoughts about them that he wrote down.WHADYA WANT? – SKIPPY KNOWS
I finished the top five last time with a Whadya Want? record, so I thought I'd start off with another. Released on Correct Records in 1985, this one came to me all the way from South Gippsland and like many of the prized records in my collection I bought this without ever having heard it before. Admittedly the credits on the back gave me rested assurance that it was going to be (at the very least) an insightful listening experience, but it was of course the gravitational pull of this sensationally demented cover that first grabbed my attention. Bruce Slorach was responsible for the artwork and layout; Janus Lensinskis took the photo in the background. Bruce along with his partner Sara, were the founders of the highly regarded and now highly collectable local fashion labels Abyss Studio, Galaxy Emporium, Funk Essentials and Konka popular in the 1980's. They are also the parents of homegrown talent Oscar Key Sung, so in case you were wondering where the incredible stage outfits come from? Now you know. The LP is of course incredible from start to finish.THE SYSTEM – LOGIC
Put out by Romantic Records in 1983, you could easily be fooled into believing that this French synth-pop masterpiece was released yesterday. The production value of this record is both musically and aesthetically astonishing. Its outer sleeve has been printed on a high quality gloss card, giving extra dimension to the psychedelic, science fiction inspired imagery you can see in the background. But it gets better with this particular jacket as you begin to unsheathe the inner sleeve; a full page close up, of what appears to be sepia toned photo of a microchip board printed on a nice soft card. This has caused the paper to fully absorb the ink and give the image just the subtlest blur adding more mystery and excitement in preparing the vinyl itself for listening. 'Vampirella' , uploaded on Jamie Tillers cult followed (now defunct) 'weirdcaravan' YouTube account was for a while the only gateway to the hearing the proto sounds of 'The System'. Thankfully a couple more songs have been uploaded since then, as it unfortunately trades hands sometimes as high as $200 these days. Search 'The System – Almost Grown' next time you feel like letting your hair down.SOUNDTRACKS
(pronounced Tsk Tsk Tsk or Tch Tch Tch), were an experimental pop group from Melbourne spearheaded by prolific artist Philip Brophy. Some of you might know Brophy for his cult film Body Melt, an absurd satirical horror narrative set in 'Pebbles Court', a postcard image for suburban banality, which he directed alongside fellow ®®band member Rod Bishop. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it highly enough. The soundtrack is also a good entry point into Brophy's unique approach to pushing the boundaries of electronic music. This LP was released in 1983 as a compilation of soundtracks made by the group for local performance and video art on Present records, founded by Brophy. The record and sleeve was made in Northcote, an inner northern suburb of Melbourne. If there's one sleeve that visually translates the energy of Australia's unique 1980's post-punk, experimental identity in a nutshell, it's this one for me.YUJI TORIYAMA – YUJI TORIYAMA
What more needs to be said about this about this record that can't already be said? Failing that, I'll just try and break it down for you. Yuji Toriyama is a curious musician, most of his releases sit the block of cheese about 1mm from the grater and a few will even leave a small pizza's worth at the end of the listen. But in terms of unknowingly pushing jazz-rock and fusion towards a more contemporary sounding direction in electronic based music production, this one really hits the nail on the head. This record was released on Japanese imprint Canyon records in 1983, Yuji went on to produce another record capturing the same feel as this LP in 1985 'A Taste of Paradise' albeit more electronic and steered towards a more defined proto-house sound. Apart from getting your head around the futuristic surrealist imagery, how could anything go wrong when you're splicing ocean blue with lime green and watermelon pink? This is definitely one for the top-shelf.ESSENDON AIRPORT – PALIMPSEST
After looking in vein for this one at every second hand record store and fair available to me for almost 3 years, my heart skipped a beat when this popped up on eBay for the tender price of $29. That's about roughly what you would pay for a new release vinyl (including shipping) these days. This LP was recorded at La Trobe University in 1981 and released on the prolific Melbourne (also Northcote) based label Innocent Records, which was founded by Philip Brophy who I mentioned earlier. It's always nice to come full circle, so I thought this was an appropriate one to finish on, Essendon Airport began as an offshoot of ®®including in the line up, David Chesworth, whose side project Whadya Want? I ended with in the black and white top 5. To summarize what is so special about this cover (apart from being hand silk screened locally by the band members themselves), I'll give a little information as to what the hell a Palimpsest is. A Palimpsest is basically a recycled manuscript where the text has been washed off so that the page can be used again. From a more academic perspective, this refers to the band's stripping back and rearrangement of musical genre and style specific to that period. The real beauty of this sleeve design though, is that it is essentially a palimpsest in itself, which I have revealed below. For those short of pocket and patience, local label Chapter Music reissued this cultural relic as a double CD in 2011 if you're keen to hear the music hiding between the cardboard.Some of these colourful records can be heard in mixes from Instant Peterson and Andras Fox here
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