Judging A Cover By It’s Cover: Tunng “Good Arrows”

June 18, 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:

Tunng “Good Arrows”

Is it worth listening to no matter what it looks like? I am having an awkward moment as I peruse for something to read, as I need to grab a quick meal in a city far from home. I hate eating alone and on the rare occurrence that it happens, I make sure to cover my loneliness up with three dollars worth of mass produced printed material. In this instance, I see an article on obscure folk music and coupled with another on the dirty divorce lawyers of Europe, I know I can kill 45 minutes over some so so chicken dish. It turns out to be an issue of British GQ (well designed, if a little more tabloidesque in comparison to the American version.)

I dive right into the folk write-up (despite the salacious material I have to flip by to get there) and am rewarded with a detailed analysis of re-visiting a maligned segment of British music. The writer has been introduced through the work of Nick Drake, like so many others, and gives a fresh outlook on the work of artists from the 60s, both well known and obscure. What really interests me is when he discusses his obsession taking him into the modern era and the folktronica movement bubbling in and out of the British charts. He is particularly taken with the band Tunng and his enthusiasm is such that I finish my meal and find a local record store, luckily it’s a college town, and pick up a copy of their most recent disc.

It ends up being a bit of a shock that I hadn’t heard of them previously, as they supported Doves on tour and became known for their covers of other contemporary songs, including placing a version of Bloc Party’s “The Pioneers” on The O.C. The more I read about their inclusion of unusual instrumentation, the more excited I became about finally busting open the wrapping and actually hearing the music.

Perhaps it was all the build up, but the actual experience ended up being a disappointment. The music was tasteful and mixed some baroque compositions with more contemporary sounds, but it was bland and seemed to displace writing songs with making sounds. So many of the one word named tracks (all eleven naturally) were based on a strummed guitar that was devoid of melody or riff and was just a consistently timed strum. When “Bricks” brings in some chimes and a tiny keyboard line it is like an oasis in the desert.

With most of the tunes sung in a sleepy monotone with a slight accent and bare, pretentious lyrics such as “she crawls like a rat into his spine” it can be tiresome listening. “Bullets” pulls out all the stops and is clearly meant to be a standout track with its awkward Sgt. Peppers instrumentation, but it comes across as forced and pairs a few couplets of interest with stumbling verses and rhythms and vocals that just miss being on beat. The remainder of the disc is more of the same (except the horrific DJ Shadow rip off “Soup”). Not obviously terrible, but far from reaching the possibilities available with these resources. Listening to an amazing band like Grizzly Bear, that is mining similar territory; you have to wonder why Tunng even tries and what the GQ author was thinking. Next time I’ll pick up a Maxim and offend all the women eating around me…

Credit: “Artwork by Vanessa Da Silva”

Any signs of creative interference in the design process by the artist? No. Mike Lindsay of the band seemed to be a fan of her fashion designs.

Does the look fit the sound? Not really, unless you consider being confusingly directionless and poorly executed tied to the product inside. Maybe it does fit after all. Da Silva is a Brazilian born fashion designer making a name for herself in London. Her use of illustrations adorning her clothing, along with her detailed embroidery, has drawn the attention of certain segments of the industry. Wrapped around clothing, her weak, notebook doodle style of drawing can become endearing and her use of color is often washed out and dampened by the fabric it adorns. In print (she has done several releases for the band) these faults are laid bare. On the previous releases she kept a sense of simplicity, but here she unleashes her full range of colors to claustrophobic effect.

The childish nature of the line work and her habit of coloring in every nook and cranny, with what seems to be magic markers, gives off the impression of a sketch for a painting – not the final artwork itself. Compounding the frustration with this package is the astonishing ability to bury the hand drawn typography - as opposed to integrating it or setting it off, to the point that you have no idea what the title of the record is (and no good reason for not knowing.) Da Silva has stated that her drawings are often just collections of objects she buys in her neighborhood and keeps in drawers and cabinets. Perhaps a pair of pliers or an alarm clock might be interesting on their own, but piled on top of one another they look just like what they are – discarded junk. She has managed to do the unthinkable – designing a record cover by illustrating the common kitchen junk drawer at your parent’s house.

If I were to say this makes for an uninteresting piece I think it would be an affront to the use of the term “uninteresting.”

The true crime here is not the poor execution or lack of skill in the artwork, but rather that it is wrapping an expensive little package. The album comes housed in what is essentially a small hardbound book with a pocket on the interior to hold the disc. A spot UV varnish on the outside only adds to the expense with little payoff or impact. The resources that were available to the designer are enough to make you tear up. The interior booklet has more of her illustrations to varying degrees of success and shows that the simpler Da Silva keeps it, the better off we all are. One spread made up entirely of hands and limited to four colors is almost bearable, but then she ruins it by following with convoluted images, seemingly based on bicycle pedal collages. In the end, it is much like the tracks within in that it is busy in the wrong way and lacks the essential part of image and music making – talent.

Final score (out of 10): 2.5 design 4.0 for the music

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