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7"/Book
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RBK 2200BK
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After having borrowed lines from Jimi Hendrix and English poets for all previous anniversary releases, Rune Grammofon struck out for this one until Kim Hiorthøy, well after the deadline, accidentally stumbled over Johnny Cash and Forever Words: The Unknown Poems (2016). Let's Put It To Music quite nails it when it comes to the basic idea of the book and how the label approach the whole process of making a record. As Tim Gane is quoted in Adrian Shaughnessy's introduction "a Stereolab record was never finished until the cover was done". That rings true for Rune Grammofon as well, and they would like to add that a sleeve is never designed for the sole purpose of selling a product (it took 28 releases before an artist was pictured on the sleeve), or necessarily reflect the music in any way, but rather to establish a suggestive relation between the two, often based on the album title or a song title, but not in an obvious way. After some 200 releases, Kim has never "explained" a sleeve design, and Rune can't remember ever asking him. But it's hard to recall another label that has worked with one designer exclusively for 20 years and 200 releases. The exclusivity was a premise for the collaboration from the very beginning, but Rune certainly never had any expectations about how long the label would be able to keep it going. Especially when considering that Kim is occupied on a number of arenas; as photographer, filmmaker, illustrator, painter, writer, musician, dancer, and choreographer. As one will discover, the book is far from being a catalog lining up the releases (it's not even "complete" or chronological in that sense), but gives an interesting insight by also including sketches, rejected designs, and unused ideas that never left the drawing board... until now. Lists are a source of controversy, as Hedvig Mollestad discusses rather well in her text. The idea of including a 7" single also came late, and would depend on getting at last one track really quick. To Rune Grammofon's delight, they miraculously ended up with what is surely three of the most beautiful tracks in their catalog, and all exclusive for this release, featuring Fire! Orchestra, Maja S. K. Ratkje, and The Last Hurrah!! with Nora Zheng. Introductions by David Fricke and Adrian Shaughnessy. 224 pages.
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