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our dear friends the protomen are 10 years old this year – the same age as us in fact. above is the poster we created for their anniversary show in nashville this weekend. hidden in it are various artifacts dating back to when they recorded their first song, due vendetta. hard copies are of course available at the show, and likely afterwards too.

here’s to another 10 years as magnificent as the last.

cheers,

2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of the founding of our company, version industries. to celebrate the occasion we threw a party at the cake shop in manhattan, new york. it was a magical affair to say the least, with friends and collaborators flying in from europe and all over the US to be a part of it.

we created a poster and an engraved, acid-burned copper plate to commemorate the occasion. these we gave out to those in attendance. the plate itself of course inspired by the late joy division’s record sleeve for their song, love will tear us apart. each plate’s lettering was hammered in by giles and myself personally. both the concept and the treatment just seemed apt somehow.

the following are some photographs from the night, which consisted of food, drinks, live music, dancing, glowsticks and all manner of other madness. none of which would of course be possible without incredible performances from SONOIO, makeup and vanity set and BELLS≥, and of course the help of andy boder and all the other fantastic people working at the cake shop.

thank you a million times over to everyone who’s ever asked us to work for them in any capacity. we are only still here because of you and you’ve quite frankly given us a reason to live. not to mention a chance to see some of those ridiculous dreams we had as children realized.

here’s to you.

working with makeup and vanity set continues to be a very exciting, fluid and rewarding process. we will never take for granted the fact that we get to work so directly with such an exciting, cinematically driven collective of musicians down there in nashville, tennessee. MAVS and the protomen continue to challenge and inspire, and this project was no different.

that said, when MAVS first approached us for this project we had a lot going on and so he was forced to go elsewhere. however when that didn’t pan out as planned, he offered us another shot at it. by this point we’d had a chance to listen to the record a great deal and lament on the fact that the job was no longer ours. this of course meant that the moment we got given the reins again everything came together very quickly. the work was done in 2-3 days and proved to be a rather cathartic and emotional experience for all involved. both MAVS and i had been through intense personal experiences around this time and listening to the record now whilst looking at the cover, it clearly expresses both of our desires to keep searching for an answer no matter how dark things got.

beyond the obvious emotional understanding, we’d been informed that it was to be a cassette only release and that MAVS was keen to echo a visual from the VHS era of home entertainment. old enough to have lived through a great portion of the VHS and cassette era, we understood how this record would sound when fans heard it and very much where it was coming from in terms of cinematic narrative. the decision to in some way make it photographic and involve some sort of backlit misty scene came very quickly, and was undeniably influenced by our shared love for shows from that era like twin peaks and the x-files. so it was then a matter of building that out with a combination of photographic elements and a series of photoshop brushes and textures. finally, the typography came about as a result of wanting something elegant and not too cliché, but that would also feel a little like film credits.

it goes without saying but we can’t express just how fantastic the music is on this record. it’s powerfully cinematic and takes you back into a world made mysterious by not just the technologies used to create and record it, but also by the melodies and the concepts behind them.

stream the record here and by all means buy a copy of if you dig it. it’s only $6 on mp3, or $15 if you want the cassette version.

on march 16th the man in the ski mask otherwise known as makeup and vanity set (MAVS) will be releasing his new, self-titled album. a few months back he allowed us the great honour of designing the sleeve for the record, and you can see the fruit of our labours above. MAVS is often more widely known as the touring DJ for the protomen and was responsible for their uncanny 8bit remix album, makeup and vanity set presents… the protomen.

the new album will be available on CD and mp3 at the time of release along with a supporting range of awesome t-shirts. in the meantime you can listen to some of the music from the new LP here:

myspace.com/matthewpustimakesmusic

if you’re getting really impatient, you can also download a copy of MAVS’s excellent experimental music side-project DAAS, here:

daas.bandcamp.com

the above, giant, 3′ x 4′ poster was available exclusively at the protomen’s act II release show last weekend in nashville, TN. we created it with the band as a thank you to fans for making the long trek, as they all did, to see the band perform both their albums back to back in thunderous, conceptual glory. version industries representatives, myself included, attended and helped make sure the performance was recorded both in HD video and with digital still photography. below is a taste of the material we gathered -

you can view the rest of the photographs we took here. you can also expect video footage of the show from us in the coming months. in the meantime check out this incredibly flattering review of the new album by nashville resident yewknee. a perfect come down to an incredible weekend with our friends in the south.

here’s our poster for the protomen’s act II release show. with two stages, a choir and an orchestra playing both album’s back to back, it’s safe to say you’re missing out if you ain’t going. see you all there. we’ll probably be the ones workin’ whilst you dudes are playin’, though don’t doubt our desire to meet you all and share a few stories. it’ll be our first time in nashville and we’re determined to make it count.