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FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
Peaking Lights Lucifer album artwork for Mexican Summer/Weird World Record Co, 2012. Cover artwork for GUM Flash in the Pan LP on Spinning Top Music, 2016. Artwork for Thee Oh Sees An Odd Entrances LP on Castle Face Records, 2016.
eople assume the stuff I’m referencing is 70s record covers or kroutrock, but I’m basically trying to continue the way things were done before computers.
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FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Tame Impala Disciples single cover, 2015. Tame Impala Eventually single cover, 2015. Tame Impala Cause I’m a Man single cover, 2015. Tame Impala Currents album artwork for Modular Recordings/ Interscope, 2015. Both photos of Robert Beatty by Pichfork.
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f you are familiar with
today’s independent music scene on any level, you most likely have come across one of Robert Beatty’s visceral album designs not knowing the mind behind it. Recently Beatty has become almost “a one-man industry of psychedelic album art,” working with a myriad of musicians including Tame Impala, Thee oh sees (and other John Dwyer projects), Real Estate, The Flaming Lips, Charlie Hilton, And Gum just to name a few.
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Screenshots of Piotr Kamler’s Une Mission Ephemere,1993 Background. Thee Oh Sees A Weird Exits back cover artwork for Castle Face Records, 2016.
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e is really interested
in the continuation of pre-
digital processes, which explains the airbrushed reminiscent quality of his form. Although he does work primarily in the sphere of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, the images that come out do not really shout digital. Much of his influence comes from very interesting sources, which in hindsight can be seen seeping through the ablum covers. Some of the mentions include advertisements and experimental film from the 60s and 70s. Piotr Kamler, a polish animator, being an example.
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Cover and gatefold of Cornelius’s Fantasma on Polytar, 1997.
hen looking at design in the context of psychedelic culture a few names come to mind. Most of the time a person like Wes Wilson who basically categorized the movement will be a subject that is conjured with this genre, or some late sixties or seventies equivalent. Robert Beatty is a prime example as a person that has continued this idea and maintains the relevance of the genre in today’s culture. It is important to remember that subcultures and genres are in this continuous fluctuation throughout time. They evolve with every new artist and contributor, as well as political tensions. For that reason, when thinking about psychedelic design one should not habitually look towards the birth of the culture but its whole
history, how far it has come. Countless numbers of artists are part of this movement, each influencing the next and in turn each creating a continually esoteric library of the culture’s flavor. From past to present is a long line for sure and for that reason it is easy to get enveloped in the visuals and sounds coming out every year. Designs like the one found on Cornelius’s 1997 album Fantasma make people like Robert start hatching ides of their own, as Beatty says this was “the first sleeve design that really excited him.” Who knows where what current genres and subgenres will stir up for the future of design.
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“
It’s really novel for me that I’m even recognized for what I am doing, I’ve known this is what I wanted to do all my life, but I didn’t take a path I knew was going to get there.
“
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Damaged Bug (John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees) Cold Hot Plumb LP cover for Castle Face Records, 2015.
t is a very beautiful thing when a certain individual’s work can resonate with somebody so much that new things come into the universe. You can see much of that in the co-operative approaches to a lot of his album sleeves. In his process he finds it works best to almost skip the step of sketching and get right into what could be the final product. This opens possibilities of manipulation and transformation to something that was already somewhat close to being finished. An example being the Damaged Bug cover that he talks about in a video that Pitchfork made about him and his process. Beatty shows the multiple steps it took while in constant conversation with John Dwyer in the efforts of fine
tuning the image to become something that John thought was an accurate depiction of the abstract ideas he had in his head, and something he would end up calling his own. This is an aspect that definitely is present while talking about Robert Beatty’s designs. He even has musicians who single handedly helped evolve Beatty to the personality he is now asking for permission to use his artwork. This was the case in how Robert came into making The Flaming Lips latest LP titled Oczy Mlody. In his own words, “it’s really novel for me that I’m even recognized for what I am doing, I’ve known this is what I wanted to do all my life, but I didn’t take a path I knew was going to get there.” The band was very important to him
in hm as a teenager, saying “they were one of the weirder bands that you could see on TV.” so to have Wayne Coyne contact him personally was a shock to say the least. One artist feeding off another that came around to subsequently feed off of that first artist. This is that same snowballing of influence that is important to the world of creation.
Concept for the Cold Hot PLumes Cover
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don’t like having an artist’s “ Istatement, I want the work to speak for itself and let people make their own interpretations
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BOTH PHOTOS FROM Tame Impala Currents album artwork for Modular Recordings/ Interscope, 2015.
his success in the music industry just has to be because of his method of continuing this pre-virtual process. There is something so powerful and raw that emanates from Beatty’s work for the soul fact that he comes
walk away with a feeling of a pure experience of their own. Not one takeaway would be exactly the same. This is significant of an artist to do. Take all of that context of what was stated in the past pages of this book and dip it into this cultural conversation into this one image that gives through a discrete and hidden just enough to whip around a back door. Someone that is person’s thoughts and hand them so invested and conscious in their own interpretation, withthe passing of time, and the out giving them too much. continuous metamorphoses He touches on this too, he of technology. It is something says “I don’t like having an that a lot of independent artist statement, I want the musicians can see within the work to speak for itself and images and grasp onto, and let people make their own see a little bit of themselves interpretations.” This is just in. Much of it is also the another level of the work dreamlike visuals that the that latches so nicely with designs offer, you could sit the idea of album there for hours and look at sleeve design. these covers while listening to the piece of plastic you found in between. After all of that, everyone would then
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FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Artwork for Forma Physicalist LP on Kranky, 2016. Charlie Hilton Palana album cover artwork/logo for Captured Tracks, Photo by BriAnne Wills. Logo for the Real Estate Days on Domino Records. Cover photo by Dan Graham, layout by Rob Carmichael/ SEEN, 2011. Illustration for Childhood’s album Lacuna. Layout and design by Rob Carmichael/SEEN, 2014.
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35 years old R obert to live in Lexington KY. working from his own home surrounded by his collections of artifacts of technology’s past. Most likely with a record playing in the background creeping in and out if the hums of synthesizers and white noise. He plays in his band Three legged Race, and is starting to exhibit his experimental videos in various galleries in the area. He has recently published his own book of just images out of Floating world Comics named Floodgate Companion. Check out what he is up to or just keep an eye out in your local record store for the next album cover t
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All artwork by Robert Beatty, unless stated otherwise. Book design, lettering, and words by Kyle Ross, 2017.
Inside cover Illustration for Childhood’s album Lacuna by Robert Beatty. Layout and design by Rob Carmichael/SEEN, 2014. Cover lettering by Kyle Ross. Backround Artwork by Robert Beatty for Thee Oh Sees An Odd Entrances LP on Castle Face Records, 2016.
Inside back cover from News for Lulu Circleson Urtovox, 2014. Back Cover photo from Tame Impala Currents album artwork for Modular Recordings/Interscope, 2015. SOURCES The Washington Post, article by Aaron Leitko January 19, 2017. Pichfork TV Unsung Documentary. October 27, 2015. AIGA Eye on Design article by Emily Gosling, August 29, 2016.