Hi all. Just before I share the stories about the artwork to the tracks on "Third Perspective" I thought I should mention the disaster I had this last week! All music, blogs and videos had to stop as my hard drive corrupted and I lost almost all my work. I'm absolutely gutted knowing that I won't be able to get back some of the inner workings to my compositions on "Third Perspective". It's also put me behind schedule with releasing my work so bear with me for the next a couple of weeks. I'll keep everyone updated with things going forward with some new exciting projects coming up.
Onto the artwork. I thought it would probably easier to talk through the thought processes of all the artwork and videos together, otherwise with all the other blog series, it would be hard to keep up. For this post I will look at the 5 artworks I used last year for the singles and album. Actually it's probably going to be 4 artworks as I did a bit of a dive into "Morning Tide" already in a previous blog.
"Surge"
The image that painted in my head when I was writing "Surge" was that of a heart monitor getting a lease of life and getting an electrical surge, hence the name. Originally I was going to use another image instead of a lightning bolt hitting a power station but I remember getting issues with it due to the landscape becoming to squashed when producing the artwork. I went for the static from a TV instead and the font was found online. This one is a bit of the black sheep of the artworks I guess but so was the track. I still love playing it though.
"You'll Never Know"
My sister-in-law, Helen, made this canvas which hangs in her lounge. I really liked it, especially the little heart on the big brown button. It makes me think of a secret love hidden away just for you. For this image, I added a blue tint to make it look slightly less vibrant with more pastel tones. Due to the nature of the tune, I leave it up to the listener to decide whether they think it is a love song or unrequited. This piece is written for my wife, Kate, so I know which one it is to me but I'll save that story for the programme notes!
"And Breathe"
"And Breathe" is inspired by getting outdoors so mental wellbeing. It's probably a bit generic but I do like the effect of looking up at the sky through the trees. This image is just a stock image shot but it worked well as a square image so that's why I chose it.
"Third Perspective" and "From A Third Perspective"
"When I first started using spotify i would listen a lot to piano and strings playlists, and there was one particular curated by Brian Naylor. When I looked Brian up on IG I not only found that he had created a brilliant playlist but was also an amateur photographer and had taken some absolutely stunning shots. I got in contact with Brian and pestered him for a bit as I found this image I wanted to use! It fit my idea for the album artwork perfectly as the split of the sea and land, along with the dark clouds rolling in built these beautiful natural geometric patterns giving the 3 perspectives of water, sky and darkness rolling in together. It's stunning. I'm so pleased he was happy for me to use it. I hope to stay in contact with Brian as I'd like to use some more of his shots in the future.