In an attempt to try and define the aesthetic styles that dominated particular stages in Reynolds' Continuum, I'll be posting (and discussing) a series of sleeves and other ephemera.
With hardcore rave we see the popularity of hand-drawn artwork. Particulary there is a reference to graffiti. Yet we may view this as a visual representation of the alligning of music styles. Hardcore rave's difference to other forms that emerged after the acid house explosion in the UK is through its move away from the rigid 4/4 beats associated with much of the the house and techno music of the late 1980's. In place, we have the use of breakbeats - sampled and sped-up drum loops largely lifted from hip hop records [or at least taken from the records that were similarly being used as the basis of hip hop records]. The use of graffiti on the packaging similarly borrows and subverts motifs that would communicate the relevance of hip hop to the sound. Yet it is also a cultural signifier that appears to trade on the attitude of hip hop and graffiti: replacing some of the psychedelic hippy-ish imagery that was previously adopted by the rave scene with something tougher and ultimately more urban.
Dave Nodz (born Dave Noddings) recorded as Noize of Art for Romford's Suburban Base label. Elsewhere he had an even more prolific role as the label's sleeve artist/designer. The two above sleeves are examples of his work with the first created during hardcore rave's heyday and the latter after a transitional period where the sound had mutated into what was defined as jungle. More examples of his work can be found at Woebot's site here.
In a later interview with Woebot (here), it is interesting that Nodz explains how much of his style was linked to his avoidance of technology. He discusses the lo-fi methods involved in its creation and we can see that the approach was down to personal preference. Yet this is the early 1990's and the Apple Mac was available. However a previous interview that I conducted with Trevor Jackson about his early work for labels like Gee St, Cooltempo, Network and Champion confirmed that the price of such machinery at this time meant that it was still out of reach to many young sleeve artists (and many of the independent labels from the sector would not have been using the larger agencies for what were 'underground' products). In the Woebot interview Nodz recounts an argument with his employer that marked the end of his work for Suburban Base. He states how his request for royalties (due to significant income being generated by the merchandise he designed) was met with a comment that they would instead "get a computer". This indicates DTP technology's eventual availability to the more successful independent labels. We later see the use of computer technology as providing very machine-like, cyber imagery that is more in tune with the mechanical, sci-fi influenced music that subsequently emerged.
At this point in the early 1990's, we do find the kind of work referencing graphic artists like Vaughn Bodé [see the Lucky Spin logo pictured below] to reflect the Subway Art and Spraycan Art of Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant's seminal graffiti books. Also it is worth noting that the designs for hardcore label Reinforced were produced by 'b-boy' and graffiti artist Goldie: an individual whose own chance encounter with rave prompted a subsequent evolution where he would become a figurehead for jungle and drum & bass.
In terms of my own distillation of a visual style, I'm less interested in the use of graffiti. Although it does play a part thoughout the continuum and, especially within grime, it becomes a consistent signifier of the alligning of a sound with hip hop, the style has also become a shorthand for representing general 'youth culture'. And its now cliched use is perhaps typified by the ease in which is can be adopted through ready made fonts (above). There were other styles that also emerged during this era such as the airbrushed flyer art by the likes of Steven Perry a.k.a. 'Pez'. Advertising raves with names like Telepathy and Dreamscape while pushing some new age-y transcendental aesthetic, this also appears to be very much 'of its time'. Reynolds also references additional childlike imagery associated with hardcore rave:
It’s emotionally regressive too (as all the musically progressive genres of the last decade – rap, oceanic rock, Noise – have been): hence the infantilism of ravers sucking on dummies, or bubblegum chart hits like 'A Trip To Trumpton', 'Sesame’s Treet', The Prodigy’s 'Charly'. But then Virilio reminds us that “child-society frequently utilises turnings, spinning around, disequilibrium. It looks for sensations of vertigo and disorder as sources of pleasure”. He cites Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s childhood game of spinning round and round, in order to create “a dizziness that reduced [the] environment to a sort of luminous chaos”.The distorted cartoon-like qualities of this sample culture (often resulting in sped up voices that were referred to as "chipmunk vocals") typifies both the irreverence and the enthusiasm of the scene at the time. This was derided within more elite clubbing environments and we might view harcore rave [like other forms with Reynolds' Continuum] as being in opposition to the parts of the scene that would have been championed by the style press. It is then worth bearing in mind that the artwork associated with hardcore rave was then never supposed to be overtly stylish or particularly fashionable within a general context and is, instead, very much tied to a subculture.
In addition to its energy, what I feel is worth taking from the featured work is the use of the naive and hand made plus the limited use of colour. The bold lettering that has been drawn for the reverse of the 2 Bad Mice sleeve and for the Genaside II covers (below) may emulate the comic book style of 2000 AD, but it helps to illustrate that aforementioned irreverence plus the rough and ready quality of the music itself.
