When it came to creating an image for the front cover of the new Margaret Explosion cd my temptation was to select one of my photos. Maybe one that was in some way connected to the title, “Field Recordings,” so named because the seventeen songs were selected from recent recordings at the Little Theatre Café where the live mics capture the chatter and grind of the espresso machine. I showed Peggi a few of my selections and she felt it was too much like “Civilization.” She reminded me that “Skyhigh” was still the most graphic. Nothing leaves the Earring Records office without Peggi’s approval.
I went back to the well and found some jpegs of artwork I had downloaded over the years. One was a poster Jean Arp had designed. I borrowed his color palette and drew my own organic shapes. Creating the simple vector drawings in the new Photoshop was a nightmare but I already ranted. I’m done ranting about that. I used a photo of a farm tractor in a field, taken in Spain on the inside and a photo of a man sleeping on a train (also taken in Spain) for the back cover. The song titles float above his head like he is dreaming. The cd should be available by the second week in November. Here’s a pre-release sample of the first of seventeen new songs.
