i saw this and thought of you.

i think the time has come to make a serious start on packaging for the album. what i'm mostly concerned with is the content at the moment, as that is what will take time to get done. the form, i think, is not as essential just yet, though i've got a few ideas which would be good to discuss.

do you have any thoughts on what the content will be at the moment? particularly whether it should relate directly to the title and conceptual frames of the songs?

i have been thinking about the idea of a zine kind of thing we mentioned quickly a long while back. i think i would really like to make a small book as the main feature of the packagaing. this may end up being similar in size to a regular cd booklet. of course, the jewel case will be avoided though - possibly replaced by a solid type of cardboard case or holder or something - i'm researching ways of doing that (i've collected quite a number of packaging and paper manipulation type books over the last year or so).

sooo...content. if it was a book, i can also imagine a whole bunch of different paper formats which we can mix through the book - from regular paper to the kind of old computer paper i used on those just like now posters, to our brown paper, to transparent paper etc. the main thing will be to keep costs relatively low and also to keep the format of each page so that it can fit onto an a4 sheet, just as that will make printing infinitely cheaper. i can image a mix of printed graphic work and actual screenprint/stamping/hand drawn stuff. i would really like to re-establish the actual stuff in the packaging rather than the purely printed out as has happened in the last few 4-4-2 releases. i also am really really in love with your recent batch of photos - as you now know, i absolutley love the psychedelic aesthetic, though i've never really mentioned it too much because i always thought you might find it too retrograde etc. however, those photos seem to use the aesthetic but bring new forms to it - kind in the vein of what you mentioned quite a while back about not imitating old forms but referencing them with new things.

yep, that's probably too much for one post, but i think it's reasonably urgent that we get on with it!

i'ce also officially posted my thoughts on the new underworld album on cyclic defrost if you're interested.

and, lastly, just so it's on our blog: