It's been a long time in the making, musically, emotionally, and artistically, and I am more than proud to give you the first visual glimpse at the cover to the new full-length CAGE album, "DEPART FROM ME", that I did the entire package design for, and which will be in stores this July 7th, just in time for a Summer in Hell.
I know I have mentioned this album a LOT recently and there is good reason for that. Even though Cage is 4,000 miles away from me at most times, he is one of my best friends. We met through a couple of mutual Cardboard City friends during the production of his last album, Hells Winter, way back in the beginning of 2005, when I was just a random Cage superfan. Since we shared similar interests in film, influences, and imaginations, we started talking about working together in the future. I was ecstatic. Time went by and we kept in touch, worked on a couple of things with him, like merch, and posters, etc, but i was really just waiting to dive into one of his albums, knowing how descriptive and emotional his music was, and how demented his imagination was. I excitedly and patiently waited for his new album like Dracula counting the minutes to sundown, and about a year ago, he let me know it was finally coming together. We had verbally gone a visual journey of loose ideas back and forth in the months that his album was being molded, and with it changing lyrically and sonically so much during that time, the art direction did too. Some directions were weird, some were mean, some were fun, but overall, we both just knew that we need to wait until the album was done, then we can move on visually. So again, I patiently waited and pissed myself in excitement.
Finally, a couple of months ago he sent me the full finished album and i got to sit back, and for the first time in 4 years, just listen to my favorite musician skillfully and emotionally pour his melted heart out over the most ridiculously sinister drawling but catchy music orchestrated by F.Sean Martin of Hatebreed. That night was amazing for me. I listened to the album about 20 times by the next day when I started to sit down and come up with the visuals. And Cage trusted me and my imagination enough to just let me go nuts. So I did.
Above is the first glimpse at the album's visual side, which will actually include a fully illustrated 12-page booklet upon its release on July 9th, 2009.
If you havent heard any of Cage's music yet I really suggest checking it out. Not a fan of rap? I can tell you one thing. "Depart From Me" is almost indescribable as far as genre goes. It's not a rap album. And even with F.Sean's weird fused bass guitars and keyboards scaring every drum track on the album, it's not a rock album either. So I hope that you give yourself a chance to check it out in July. And here is a link to his myspace page:
CAGE'S MYSPACE PAGE
And here is a little breakdown of the evolution of the assembly of the cover, from the initial sketch that was about 2 inches by 2 inches, to "real" rough sketch, to the final piece. hope you enjoy.
More soon;)
Alex
