Judging a Cover By Its Cover: Chris Walla “Field Manual”

February 20, 2008 by John Foster  Send to a Friend

John Foster takes music packaging very seriously. He has deconstructed the design of the recording industry through his personal work and his books, Maximum Page Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport) and the upcoming For Sale: Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW) as well as a monograph of Sub Pop’s Art Director, Jeff Kleinsmith, slated for publication by the label in 2008.

He will be poking and prodding various albums on a weekly basis so please be sure to keep an eye out!

This week’s victims:

Chris Walla “Field Manual”

Is it worth listening to no matter what it looks like? Walla famously sent these tunes on a hard drive over the border from Canada via courier, only to have the drive confiscated. Luckily he had all the files still on his computer. Now was it lucky for the listener? Well… much like the actual rough mixes the Department of Homeland Security discovered on the drive they took hold of – it is ultimately benign. Walla has been working on the disc for quite some time but you are still left thinking that he saved his best work for his day job in Death Cab for Cutie (and perhaps rightly so.) It isn’t fair to compare this to Ben Gibbard’s other side projects, as this really is a different animal. Clearly a lot of craft went in to constructing these songs from a sonic standpoint. The lush layered vocal that kicks off the disc on “Two-Fifty” alerts you to that immediately. While this approach may make for an interesting listen, it is a hollow one in the end. Call me old-fashioned (you’re old fashioned!) but I would rather hear something rough around the edges where all of the time was spent in crafting the actual song as opposed to layers of clean sound that amount to little. Even the crunch of “The Score” is antiseptic in a “radio emo” sort of way. The junior high lyrics (always a Death Cab weakness) don’t help either.

Let me be clear on this matter. I am not a Death Cab hater by any means. I think they turn out 2-4 really solid songs per album. But when you “read” their songs it does them no favors. Before anyone runs to their defense, let me give you a yarn from “Archer v. Light” courtesy of Mister Walla. “Oh, dear Sir, I’m a librarian, and while I do not know of law, I know the things that make my stomach pitch and yaw.” It actually gets worse from there but I can’t stand the thought of typing it out.

If you think Death Cab would be well served by putting out the less pop portions of their albums with a bland singer this is right up your alley. For the rest of us, we can wait on the new Postal Service record (and I said I wouldn’t do it – oh well.)

Credit: “Design and layout by Tony Secolo for officepdx.com. Photos by Walla”

Any signs of creative interference in the design process by the artist? I am inclined to say this is a collaboration based on the final result. I also couldn’t help noticing Secolo doing a new logo for the band and Walla adding photos to the Office site.

Does the look fit the sound? I really enjoy the work of Office for the most part. I even judged their corporate ID set into the recent HOW International Design Annual. The design for “Field Manual” is nice and inoffensive but little more. Not as daring as their work I have seen before. The typography is well done and refined; the color palette solid; the layout “fine;” Do you see where this is headed? Even Walla’s photos are just sort of plain and nice. Even the UPC is laid out in a simple non-offensive fashion. They incorporate a spot UV varnish on the cover but it isn’t used for anything other than enhancement of the nice shade of red selected for the type and flower. In unspectacular fashion, the packaging actually perfectly suits the music contained within.

Final score (out of 10): 5.0 – right down the middle

 Send to a Friend