Before they were famous

I recently completed the longest running job in history, and I felt the need to mark this momentous occasion with a blog post. Due to my own crapness, and various other reasons we shall put down to the fates buggering with me, I have only just managed to fulfil a promise I made to my very good and talented friend Matt Stalker a year and a half ago. Mr Stalker and his associates the Fables have produced an EP of completely beautiful and haunting folk songs called 'Press your ear to my chest, listen', and Matt asked me to design the EP artwork (in January 2000-and-bloody-7).

No doubt if the pressing urgency of a gig in Newcastle hadn't arisen, the job would have rambled on for quite a bit longer. But I seem to work better when there's a big fat deadline looming over my head. So I promptly pulled my finger out my ass and got on with it. Luckily for me, budget being an issue, the sleeve was pretty simple - just a folded card really, into which Matt, presumably with his ladyfriend Laura, had to hand apply 150 foam dots to hold the cds on. But God love em, they did it, and by all the accounts the gig was a triumph, with punters asking for the CDs to be signed (down solely to Mr Stalker's talents I might add, and not because they were so enamoured with my illustrations, but, still...).

So anyway - here is the finished result. It doesn't look like a year and a half's work because, erm, its not - but its still rather nice. We went for the carved-into-wood look to compliment the folky, crafty, love-lorn nature of Matt's music, and the swirls were inspired by the EP title suggesting breath, and snatches of lyrics relating to smoke and stormy water. All a little cryptic, but who cares? Its pretty.

Have a listen to Matt's music on his myspace page here. You heard him here first.