The art work is finished for my upcoming solo album. It's quite an uncomfortable feeling for me to bare my soul and record songs for posterity, but with no other creative musical option on my cards and some downtime. I felt it was time to take a big deep breath and just do it. I'm very pleased with the results.
For the artwork, there was no question but to work with Kenneth. He was the first person to listen to the tracks and gave me some support on continuing with my ponderous soul searching songs. He came up with the theme of baring my soul and not having anything to hide behind. We toyed with the concept of nudity and nakedness, and at one point thought of shooting me naked surrounded by all the instruments I'd played. With the fear of other people listening to my songs, the nudity was the least of my worries, but we abandoned the idea.
One summer evening when we were kicking our heels we went for a drive to the Dunaskin Industrial Heritage Centre. I don't think its open any more, but you can still get in and wander around the old buildings and all the industrial age machinery from the coal mines there. We wandered around with his dog Ruby and took influence from a bygone age.
A few days later, Kenneth sent through the draft album cover with the title "bare buff". I couldn't come to terms with nudity, nakedness and laid bare as an album title without thinking of sepia tinged shots of me staring into space like a pre raphaelite poet. Bare Buff means naked in a more archaic, joking, colloquial Scottish way, which I was much more comfortable with.
I found the artwork a little sparse initially, but it slowly grew on me. It has a darkness and the broken crane gives it a theme of interrupted productivity. There is also light at the end of the tunnel and hope on the horizon. Trying to build a future on a rusty history. I think it is as good a visual representation of the album and where my head was at when I recorded it as I can imagine.
