Worst looking CD/LP artwork

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Not to be rude, but Google is a wonderful thing, much quicker than a bulletin board:

https://www.yellowbarn.org/page/mauricio-kagel-exotica

Scored for "non-European instruments", Exotica was a commission for the 20th Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. The first performance took place under the direction of Mauricio Kagel himself, and the instrumentalists included such well-known new music personalities as Vinko Globokar, Siegfried Palm, Christoph Caskel, and Michel Portal. The six participants had to "manhandle" around 200 wind, string and percussion instruments wholly unknown in Europe. In Exotica, Kagel strove to question "the dominance of Western music or 'culture'" and "go back to the primeval origins of music-making, when singing was still at one with making sound out of simple, everyday objects."

Interesting.  And thank you!

PD

[71 dB]

Speaking of Regietheater, this (Blu-Ray DVD, apologies for off-topic) cover is merely silly-looking,

That's like the less stylish parody version of The Prodigy's last album 'No Tourists' 

[VonStupp]

His music spans a wide spectrum from slightly quirky to extremely avant-garde/weird. Exotica is very much on the latter end of the spectrum.

Yes, I am finding that out with some samples I have found of Mauricio Kagel. I have a soft spot for performance art, Dadaism, absurdist tendencies, and their ilk, although those types of performances seem most effective live and in the moment. Recordings rarely capture the frisson of seeing the music in action.

Having performed some of Charles Ives songs, he often writes out eccentric visual instructions to ride along the music. So much is lost of the Ives experience only hearing them on record.

https://www.yellowbarn.org/page/mauricio-kagel-exotica

I know I will probably not even have a footnote when I shed my mortal coil, but what a great header to a brief musical biographical entry:

A composer whose assaultive music was categorized as "classical" because record stores didn't know where else to put it, Kagel was an intellectual prankster and social provocateur on the grand, protean level of Marcel Duchamp—or Lenny Bruce. His specialty was a heady, unforgiving onslaught on audience expectations, the sort of theatrical meta-gesture that, for example, requires the conductor of an orchestral piece to feign a realistic fatal heart attack on stage.

[Madiel]

Is there some special cultural significance of his face painting?

PD

It appears to be Japanese style.

I'm not sure I get "questioning the dominance of Western culture" from a Western man painting himself as if he belongs to a different culture and then labelling it as exotic. That just tells me it's the Western lens that still matters.

[Madiel]

I see no implication.

[Jo498]

It appears to be Japanese style.

I'm not sure I get "questioning the dominance of Western culture" from a Western man painting himself as if he belongs to a different culture and then labelling it as exotic. That just tells me it's the Western lens that still matters.

Of course. And it's still the same almost 50 years later with "questioning Western dominance" attitudes being very much a Western (WEIRD) thing, even if Kagel would be at least roasted for well meant "appropriation" nowadays.

[Peter Power Pop]

I thought this was a refreshingly non-classical-music cover. It's almost defiantly non-classical-music.



Details at Bridge Records
Details at Amazon

[SimonNZ]

Am I right in thinking that Crumb has made a surprising number of appearances on this thread given the size of his discography?

[Mirror Image]

I thought this was a refreshingly non-classical-music cover. It's almost defiantly non-classical-music.



Details at Bridge Records
Details at Amazon

To the bolded text, are you classical police?

[Peter Power Pop]

To the bolded text, are you classical police?

Not at all. I was just taken aback by a cover that isn't yer standard classical music cover. George is not in a concert hall, he's not wearing a suit, he's not at a piano, he's not in front of an orchestra, the cover isn't a photo of a landscape, or a musical instrument etc.

It's none of those things, and I like that it isn't.

[amw]

Am I right in thinking that Crumb has made a surprising number of appearances on this thread given the size of his discography?

Bridge Records Inc. is a fairly low-budget operation and clearly made the decision to primarily spend that budget on things other than graphic design. Performance and sound quality by comparison are usually pretty good. I think it's an acceptable trade-off.

[Peter Power Pop]

Bridge Records Inc. is a fairly low-budget operation and clearly made the decision to primarily spend that budget on things other than graphic design. Performance and sound quality by comparison are usually pretty good. I think it's an acceptable trade-off.

I agree completely. The play's the thing (as someone once said).

[SimonNZ]

I broadly agree with that.But  I guess I'm suggesting that many of us here could make more professional looking covers on our home PCs.

[SimonNZ]

[Peter Power Pop]

I'd completely forgotten about that.

Here's the image uploaded to PostImage:



And here's the back cover:

[Madiel]

I thought this was a refreshingly non-classical-music cover. It's almost defiantly non-classical-music.



Details at Bridge Records
Details at Amazon

Not so much an album cover as a family photo that got placed in the wrong folder on the USB drive that went to the printers.

[Mirror Image]

Not at all. I was just taken aback by a cover that isn't yer standard classical music cover. George is not in a concert hall, he's not wearing a suit, he's not at a piano, he's not in front of an orchestra, the cover isn't a photo of a landscape, or a musical instrument etc.

It's none of those things, and I like that it isn't.

Ah, I understand what you're saying. I'm personally not a fan of much these Bridge covers. They look amateurish. You or I could design better album covers.

[Scion7]

At first glance, I thought he was holding a garden-sprayer.
Kill the weevils!

[T. D.]

Not so much an album cover as a family photo that got placed in the wrong folder on the USB drive that went to the printers.

I looked up the booklet on the Bridge site.
The Variazioni were recorded in Odense, Denmark in 2007, and the cover photo was taken in Odense by Becky Starobin, President of Bridge Records and wife of guitarist David Starobin, the founder of Bridge.
So it is more or less a family travelogue photo.

The Bridge George Crumb Edition covers are almost all quirky (maybe George is just that kind of guy). This is the only one that impresses:

[JBS]

If anyone does like Crumb's music, Bridge Records is offering what seems a nice deal on its complete Crumb edition.  From the link to Bridge's website Peter provided, go to the bottom of the page to find a further link with the details.