Week #46 ('20) Art Appreciation

Welcome to my weekly Art Appreciation post, where I provide a list of some amazing album covers, single art, and random art that have come out within the past week. I’ll give you the artist/photographer/painter/magician’s name, as well as any social media or websites where you can go and check out more of their work. Click here to go back and see some other Art Appreciation posts.

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I want to talk about the importance of establishing a setting here. You can get an album cover like the first one we have here from Huey P., giving you some of the ideological basis behind a project from the jump. But you can also get a piece like the one down below that FlySiifu put out for their debut LP: it gives you a solid sense of place, a location where you can be “listening” to the album so to speak. You get covers like Elcamino’s self-titled and billy woods’ Hiding Places where you can sort of imagine the place an album is taking place narratively. It sets things up like a scene in a play, where this story is being performed in front of you, and you can use the album cover to sort of build in your mind the setting. Things like this are so valuable in the genre, senses of place, things that can be told through words but can be reinforced through image. Powerful shit.

Remember, use this post to follow and subscribe to these artists; they deserve as much recognition as the musicians they are attached to.

Artist(s): Huey P.

Dirty Spirits, by Aaqil Ali

I didn’t even think this was an arguable position until recently, but in case we aren’t on the same page on all of this: fuck Andrew Jackson, and I hope, if there is a hell, he is there getting his for all of eternity. But, since we live in the time we live in, it seems like Jackson as an idea is making a little bit of a comeback. In that sense, the Dirty Spirits we seem to be contending with right now are dead scumbags with terrible ideas haunting the world again; Jackson, Reagan, Bush, Nixon, it’s all just a bunch of shit these guys pioneered. ANYWAY, this Huey P.-created image shows where Andrew Jackson should be at the moment, skeleton’d and burning, holding his scepter that represents the king of everything depraved. I love how it’s taking the same portrait on the twenty-dollar bill and splicing it with a textured skull, sort of speaking on the American system as a whole. I’m not sure how all of this plays into the album to be honest with you, but as a starting point the expectations are raised with the evocative imagery and bold color choices (red is a safe bet to get the brain juices flowing). Leave it to Huey to splice crazy shit together with stellar results.

Huey's Instagram/Huey's Website

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Artist(s): Jacob Rochester & Jack McKain

FlySiifu’s, by Fly Anakin & Pink Siifu

So we have two different mediums that come together to give us this amazing piece right here. First is the photography by Jack McKlain, which if you look at the imagery found on the vinyl and whatnot you can see a lot more of the straight picture elements of this project; everything is based off an actual record store that Anakin and Siifu used to created the aesthetic of this album. They used the space to create a whole narrative behind this project, a run-down and poorly managed record store where Siifu and Anakin sit and smoke weed, listen to their favorite records, and shit on customers who actually dare to ask for anything. The pictures capture the endeavor perfectly, but this album cover takes it further with work from the painter Jacob Rochester. It’s an illustrated version of a picture, one that stands on it’s own perfectly well, but given that extra layer of poeticism and depth in painted form. You get the influences laid out on the walls behind you, from DOOM on down to Outkast, among a whole host of extra-hip-hop material that sit even closer to the hearts of the artists. Obviously record stores were places where these two found a lot of their identities, and that all comes through clear in this piece and the entire album’s creative direction. I’m loving the muted colors, the washed out greens and grays really convey that lived-in storefront feel, a place where these two have been working forever that will probably never get a new paint job. A very comfortable setting, and that makes me want to visit to the store to peruse the collection for myself and interact with the stores’ hilarious owners.

Jacob's Instagram/Jack's Instagram/Jack’s Website

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