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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,

the above layout is a part of the latest in our ongoing collaborations with the protomen – it’s the inlay of the cassette single for their cover of roy orbison’s i drove all night. it’s been public knowledge for a while that the band have been working on a covers LP, and this marks the first release from that project. never a band to back down from going all the way in terms of developing a narrative around their releases, this covers record is going to be a very unique thing indeed. striving to be both the greatest covers record you’ve ever heard, it may also turn out to be the greatest soundtrack to a film you’ve never seen. either way we are yet again being pushed by the protomen to pull out the stops on creating the most immersive artwork experience we can in support of it.

the i drove all night cassette single, whilst just a teaser of what’s to come, provided a good warm-up to working on the larger release. you see for the protomen the process of selecting songs to cover is a little more in depth than with most bands we’ve worked with. i drove all night was chosen not just because it’s a tough old jam that harks back sweatily to another time, but also because lyrically it echoes very strongly elements of the protomen’s own story. expanding upon this, what you see when you open the cassette up and turn over the inlay is this -

calling once again on the mighty talents of john delucca, we went back and forth on various different angles and layouts until we had in essence captured what we felt told the story best. once john had drawn in all the details we were after, he brushed in the colour and we took over with various aspects of post-production and layout work. all of this in order to bring it in line with the band’s reference-fueled vision for the overall package.

the cherry on top was of course including the name and logo for the film for which this covers album would be the soundtrack. aptly named the cover up, we wanted with just a logo to give fans a little taste of what’s to come – what the story of the covers LP might be about and what sort of tone it might have.

only 1000 copies were printed of the cassette  - you can grab a copy of it here whilst stocks last.

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.

well, where to even start? it was 20 years ago when my friends and i first saw the original TRON film. my parents rented it on VHS for my birthday party back home in england. the TV sat at one end of the table and about 8 kids sat around the other end, which was otherwise covered in food, streamers and wrapping paper.

we all adored it, but more importantly a seed had been sewn and over the years i found myself playing TRON games on all manner of gaming systems. the first time was on my best friend’s ZX spectrum 48k+ back in the late 80s (seen above) and the latest, years later, when we stumbled across an original TRON arcade machine living out the end of its days at barcade in brooklyn.

now as for daft punk … it was about 4 years ago that we finally sat down to watch the interstellar 5555 animated film in its entirety. i was taken-a-back at the quite brilliant and moving concept behind it. consequently i swiftly purchased their second film electroma, and it was even better. ordinary house DJs these guys were not. requiring further validation for my new found obsession i called my friends the protomen (with whom i shared a great love of concept-based music) and consulted them on the matter. pretty soon my entire line of thinking on what daft punk was about had done a massive U-turn. then, as if waiting for my undivided attention, it was announced that they were going to score the new TRON film.

…

tronsoundtrack.com

so there it is. a small testament to years of love for that great old movie, and to the incredible potential of the new one and its soundtrack.

all the site does right now, formerly speaking, is register your interest in the forthcoming soundtrack release. however in order to satisfy the fans out there of the original film, daft punk or both, we packed it with as many tricks and secrets as we could.  we also made it work on ipads and ipods as well as it would on any desktop. this involved giving a suitable nod to the generation of internet users that would have grown up with the original film. i.e. we threw ASCII art imagery in the source code, built out all the site animations using .gifs, and included another element … but since no one has worked that out yet we’re not about to spoil the fun here.

the look and feel is of course taken from both the dusty desktop computer in the second TRON LEGACY trailer and the sites some of you will have seen when playing the flynn lives ARG. that is of course with the exception of the boom / ripple animation, which was adapted from a piece of code that mr. doob (of arcade fire video / harmony fame) wrote. all we did beyond that was build it all out using HTML5 and javascript rather than video or flash. we did this so that you can move the windows on the site with your fingertip on a touchscreen, as well as with a mouse. a touch that again we felt true to the world of TRON.

what’s to come after this? well even we don’t know right now. such is the mystery of these things. in the meantime we wish to extend our thanks of course to topspin and disney for helping us be a part of all this, and hope that we’ve done enough for now to satisfy even the most rabid fans out there.

end of line.

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.

it gives us great pleasure to present the cover for the protomen’s long-awaited second album, act 2 – the father of death. once again a huge thank you to artist john delucca for his stellar draftsmanship. it’s not often you can completely realize a vision, particularly one as vivid and painstakingly detailed as that of the protomen.

we handled all design + layout duties on this project and created the 24 page booklet that comes with the cd. if you are a fan of the film-makers john carpenter, walter hill, sergio leone, ridley scott and james cameron, then this record is for you. for all involved it was an exercise in bringing together every element of the toughest cinematic experiences out there and melding it into an audio-visual experience of the most unique and powerful caliber.

the record is out on september 8th, but you can preorder it now either at zambooie or on amazon. for more information about this and the forthcoming release show, check out the band’s news page.

overall it’s extremely satisfying working with a band like the protomen. particularly when after years of collaboration they still manage to enlighten and inspire with the consistent quality of their musical output.

here, complete with flash design by us, is the first fully mixed and mastered track from the protomen’s forthcoming new album, act II -

light up the night

if you like what you hear, pass it around. music like this needs to be heard.

we are proud to present the logo for the protomen’s forthcoming sophomore release, act 2. a limited run of t-shirts bearing this new emblem just sold out at their recent bonnaroo ’09 festival performance. stay tuned to the band’s online merch store at zambooie for a forthcoming new run of these shirts and more. in the meantime, check out the animated version that was projected above the band during their bonnaroo showcase:

animated act 2 logo

at 7:51 CST precisely last night (5/25) the protomen activated an online portal to the world of act 2, their second album. 4 years in the making, the follow-up to act 1 is set many years before the events detailed in their first record. we were hired to help realize that vision for them, along with the powerful & visionary artist, john delucca.

theprotomen.com