A Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986). John Adams /CD covers/

Asphalteden comments (scroll down) on the artwork of various CDs. I'll add this one of American clarinet music as an example of minimalistic/nationalistic/architectural.

Comments

[M. C-]

as ugly as the cover of that rattle harmonielehre recording might be, it's not totally off the wall. adams always mentions the genesis of the piece was "a dream ... in which i saw myself driving across the sf bay bridge, and looking out saw a huge tanker in the bay. ... it suddenly took off like a rocket ship with an enormous force of levitation. as it rose out of the water, i could see a beautiful brownish-orange oxide on the bottom part of its hull. when i woke up the next morning, the image of those huge chords came to me, and the piece was off like an explosion." and i suppose the fellow on the cover is supposed to be the theologian meister eckhardt, who appears in the title of the 3rd mvt. but all that said, what a mo-fugly cover emi put on that recording! john gives you such an amazing visual image to work from, and your designers come up with that? sheesh.

[Richard Friedman]

I'm impressed by the photo art on Cold Blue CDs. Very minimalist, which is appropriate for this label.
http://coldbluemusic.com/