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THE TUNNEL AND THE CLEARING DREAM TEAM… MEXICAN CONNECTION NUMBER 1: ANDRÉS GÓMEZ SERVÍN

I had been meaning to write these two posts for so long! I may make music on my own, but I certainly don’t release albums on my own, and for this record at one point I actually sat down to make a list of where my collaborators were working from, because I was so struck by the geographical expansiveness of it, and for sure the pandemic made this even more moving: I work from Barcelona, and Luis Torroja who made the press photos and the forthcoming mini documentary is just north of the city in Montgat, but Antony Ryan of Isan and Redredpaw Mastering who mastered the record (and always ends up giving me tons of super useful advice) is in Fredericia, Denmark; Thrill Jockey Records is based in Chicago, but the European head of operations Matt Fidler with whom I coordinate a lot is based in Berlin; and last but not least, for the first time in my music, Mexico added itself to this list, with the artwork and design being created in CDMX by Andrés Gómez Servín, and the animation video for “Hidden in the Current” created in Guadalajara by Daniel Barreto.

Working with Mexican artists was a huge discovery for me: I had no idea that the country harboured so much creative talent, and feel so lucky that I was able to ease into new artwork for my music with Andrés, whose output is very varied, but so coherent and subtle: among other things I am a fan of his amazing cyanotypes, as well as the books he publishes with his own publishing company Mixed Media Press!

Here are a few pictures of the original artwork (1, 3, 4), made with acrylic paint sprayed on Fabriano paper, which to me now represents the album so closely that I can’t imagine any other cover art for it, as well as the super limited screenprint edition (2), available from Chiquita Room (international shipping available): the texture of the paper is so amazing and I hate reflections from glass frames so much that for my own print I decided to go for a kakemono/kakejiku style by just hanging it in this way, and I love the resulting elegance.

THE TUNNEL AND THE CLEARING DREAM TEAM… MEXICAN CONNECTION NUMBER 2: DANIEL BARRETO

Few things are as inspiring as other people doing their own thing really well and with passion, even outside the field of art: there just is something incredibly attractive about visible passion, and when I encountered Daniel’s work, it immediately had that uplifting effect on me.

Daniel was kind enough to send me this timelapse showing a tiny bit of his work process for the animation he made for “Hidden in the Current”, using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. This is only one of the many ways in which he animates, and his work encompasses different styles and media, so I strongly encourage you to take some time and enjoy his Instagram feed as if it were a permanent online exhibition.

Here is what I wrote for the video’s press release back in April:

I discovered Daniel’s work last year through Instagram when he started to follow my account: I immediately fell in love with the vitality of his art and his multidisciplinary approach, but it was his animation work (both the short animations that he generates for himself, often using his own excellent music, and a video he’d done for Y la bamba, which really moved me) that particularly struck me as unique, incredibly inventive, powerful and poetic at the same time.

I immediately sensed he would know how to translate the music of my new album visually, and his video for “Hidden in the Current” has surpassed all my expectations: Daniel has come up with a kind of vibrant, warm abstraction which is the perfect equivalent of what I try to do in my own music, and in the process has perfectly transmitted the essence of what “Hidden in the Current” is about. For me his animation takes the song to an even higher level, in which bodily sensations can be experienced and unconscious meanings uncovered.

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