Category: Stanley Donwood

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Radiohead Stanley Donwood The King of Limbs

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Radiohead is releasing a newspaper

The Universal SighIf you haven’t heard, Radiohead will be distributing a free newspaper at 61 locations worldwide to promote the physical release of the King of Limbs, which comes out on Monday everywhere except North America, which must wait until Tuesday. The band have worked with long time collaborator and artist, Stanley Donwood, to produce a wholly undigital ink-and-paper handout called the Universal Sigh.

From the band:

The Radiohead album ‘The King of Limbs’ will be available for purchase in all good record stores everywhere on Monday 28th March, except in the United States of America and in Canada, where for reasons beyond the purview of this writer it will be available from Tuesday 29th March. On VINYL! On COMPACT DISC! As a DOWNLOAD!

To commemorate this momentous occasion, Radiohead have produced a newspaper which will be given away, free, gratis, without cost to the consumer by accredited vendors from a multitude of locations WORLDWIDE! In the USA, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, Poland, Germany, Austria, in the Czech Republic, in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, France, Italy, Slovakia, Finland, Greece, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Australia, Latvia, Iceland, Romania, New Zealand, the UK and a load of other places around the globe, our dedicated teams of newspaper delivery people will be handing out copies of  THE UNIVERSAL SIGH to anyone who wants one, until we run out!

In conjunction with this unbelievable offer, Radiohead have established THE UNIVERSAL SIGH as a website on the internet, where details of your nearest vendor can be found, as well as more informations and a photogallery where we will be posting photos and the lucky owners of the gratis tabloid are invited to post pictures of themselves and their friends reading the newspaper in locations diverse and unusual. There will be other stuff too, but we haven’t thought of it yet.

Continue reading “Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Radiohead is releasing a newspaper”
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Radiohead Stanley Donwood

Stanley Donwood Art Show in San Francisco

Stanley Donwood is having an art show in San Francisco, CA from September 2 to October 27th at FIFTY24SF Gallery. Here’s the press release:

FIFTY24SF Gallery Presents “Over Normal”
New Works by Stanley Donwood

Fifty24SF Gallery presents “Over Normal”- a solo exhibition by Stanley Donwood and his first ever showing in the United States.

When thinking of iconic imagery in music from the last 20 years, Stanley Donwood’s work with Radiohead invariably comes to mind – and for good reason. Where Radiohead’s music stretched the auditory horizons and painted musical sceneries of mans place in the modern world, Donwood’s imagery and packaging forced us to face the gravity of the music from the minute the album hit our hands; and by creating cryptic, academic and (at times) dystopian layouts, the albums themselves became as striking and relevant as the music they contained.

Although Stanley Donwood generally avoids the grandeur of media and would prefer to be undersold, to speak only in terms of his work with Radiohead would be a disservice. From his exhibitions of intricate etchings at Lazarides Gallery in London, to the vibrant works that made up his show at Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona, Donwood’s gallery work has consistently mixed personal and political emotions with modesty and humor.

For “Over Normal”, the catalyst for the large works featured in the show is in Los Angeles, where Stanley began to notice (with equal parts amazement and distress) that the advertisements bombarding him on the multilane highways were made of seven basic colors, immediately grabbing viewers’ attention in a primal way. More recently, Stanley noticed a parallel between the use of those colors and an influx of spam emails that promised everything from more fruitful sex lives, to cheap foreclosed properties at the expense of someone else’s misery. The word’s that were used in the emails were formatted in the same fundamental way as color in the advertisement’s had been used: to grab unconscious attention and tell a story without the viewer knowing it. Marrying the immediate words used in these emails with the attractive and distressing colors of the advertisements, Stanley has produced a line of seven vibrant, original pieces for this exhibition.

Stanley has also produced a 12 page newspaper to accompany the show, this explains how he came about putting together a neuron firing sound installation in an artificial neural network which is also featured in the show and is entitled ‘The Overnormaliser’.

“Over Normal” will run from September 2nd – October 27th with an opening reception occurring on September 2nd from 7:30PM – 10:00PM.

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Relevant Links:
FIFTY24SF Gallery: http://www.fifty24sf.com
Stanley Donwood: http://www.slowlydownward.com/
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Here are some examples of the artwork that will be shown:

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Stanley Donwood

Monday

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Stanley Donwood Thom Yorke

Stanley Donwood on artwork for “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses”

Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses

Stanley wrote us today about the artwork for “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses” (or “feelingpulledapartbyhorses” as he and Thom write it). He says there is some vagueness and lack of information about the sleeve for the album, and for good reason:

“its all black ink. no colour. the outer sleeve is lasercut into the design of woodcut lines. the inner sleeve is a design made with spraypaint. when you pull the sleeve out a tiny wonder occurs. it doesnt translate well to digital form. youll need a record player to get the most out of the release.”

We can’t wait to see what the “tiny wonder” is. You can pre-order the 12 inch vinyl and see how cool this will be for yourself by heading to the w.a.s.t.e. shop.

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Ed O'Brien GP Phil Selway Radiohead Stanley Donwood

Radiohead Lately

pandemoniumx3

It’s been a while since our last post. Here’s what you (and we) have missed:

Radiohead opens up a new digital store. You can now purchase the In Rainbows CD2, as well as other treats.

Radiohead’s Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief Get Deluxe Reissue Treatment. Capitol is at it again. (via Pitchfork)

Ed and Phil are being included on the Neil Finn supergroup benefit album. It’s called The Sun Came Out and will feature the singing debut of Phil. Yeah!

Stanley Donwood exhibits new work in Bristol ‘EL CHUPACABRA’.

Stanley’s apt choice of title ‘El Chupacabra’, meaning ‘the goat sucker’ in Spanish is his response to suffering a long fixation with the horned gods and having to live amongst some of the most mendacious economic times he can remember provoking him to start making pictures of Pandemons.

“I’ve got nothing against goats. I’ve simply discovered that if I draw a goat, give it the mouth of a rapacious carnivore then dress it in the suit and tie of a disgraced banker or politician it looks fucking evil. There are thirteen Pandemons in the show called ‘el chupacabra’. Thirteen ghosts at the funeral. Thirteen spectres at the feast of the goat. Loitering on the blackened cliffs of free-market economics, cackling as they raise a glass to toast Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet. Gallons of paint I’ve poured over them to drown their snickering. But still they laugh.” Comments Stanley Donwood.

Sounds amazing.

And finally, you’ll notice a new look to GP. This is our first major design change in over 6 years. After dozens of mockups, we’re finally settled on this look, which should hopefully be more clean and simple. Many of the sections are still old so we’re working to convert those over. Until then, things may be a bit stupid.

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Stanley Donwood

Six Inch Records

Stanley Donwood

We encourage you to check out Six Inch Records, a new music label started by Radiohead artist, Stanley Donwood. Yes, that’s right, Stanley is a CEO of his own record label.

What is this all about, you ask? We’ll let Stanley fill you in:

‘SIX INCH RECORDS’ is a project that may take a little explaining.

The story begins around the time of Christmas 2006, when I drunkenly decided to become a record label boss. Every man needs a hobby, or so the cliché has it, and if I was going to make a late-stage attempt at normality then that was one of the things that I should do. So, still reeling from red wine, I typed out a email to three musicians that I knew, suggesting that I release their music on my as-yet-unnamed record label. I have no record of what I wrote in that fateful email, and I had no recollection of it the following morning, when I awoke with a hangover.

Forgive me, for I knew not what I had done. The three musicians replied to my email with alacrity and enthusiasm, promising to send me music, and, perhaps surprisingly, not telling me that setting up a record label at the precise historical point that record labels large and small were going to the wall was probably a really stupid idea.

Never mind, never mind. I started to work out how my ‘hobby’ was going to work. It was true that the musicians I had contacted made music I liked, and I was fairly sure that other people would like it too. I liked music, but during the period that I had been designing record covers I had come to detest the compact disc. The CD, I had decided, was simply too small.

I began to muse on numbers, thinking about the twelve inch record, the speed of thirty-three and a third revolutions, and so on. Eventually I realised that releasing three six-inch records in editions of three hundred and thirty-three and charging six pounds sixty-six pence for each one was the only was to do this.

There would be nine hundred and ninety-nine records in total. Half the profits would go to the musicians and half would go to me. I was going to do this properly. I drew up a contract, which I mailed out to ‘my’ musicians and got them to sign it. SIX INCH RECORDS was born.

Read the rest at the Six Inch Records Blog….
(thanks to Rex)