Well while Chelsea get the garish Dolce & Gabbana in to do their new clobber (see Italo-British post), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that England and Umbro have had a bit more taste and got graphic art guru Peter Saville in to design the new home shirt (detail left).
Turning over a new-ish leaf from the 2010 World Cup disappointment the shirt - and rest of kit - will be adorned by England this Friday when they play Bulgaria in a Euro 2012 qualifying group match.
Famous for his record cover designs this is actually Saville's second brush with the England team having designed the cover for England's official World Cup song 'World in Motion' in 1990.
And continuing this weeks OM(IT)D theme we were pleased to discover this rather lovely and incredibly desirable re-issue of the band's eponymous 1980 debut album with a CD sleeve design coming very close to the original 'die-cut' LP sleeve. It's a "Limited Edition" U.S. only release on Micro Werks records and we thank co-bloggers Version Crazy for the info and the excellent photos taken by someone who obviously fully appreciates this artefact. As well as the utterly tasteful design, adapting the original sleeve to the CD, there also seem to be some copious sleevenotes and a never-seen-before (at least by us) band picture (which judging by the haircuts and line-up relates more to Organisation period OMD, but who's complaning?). Oddly this release has not been featured on the official OMD website (concentrating heavily on the new album) - with fans being kept in the dark (ahem) and has raised only a handful of eyebrows when mentioned in the forum. However, LIM hopes to have this marvellous object within our grasp before the summer's out and the music may even become an unexpected soundtrack to our holidays. It may even make up for a 30-year old qualm of never having found the die-cut cover LP ....
OMITD 2010 re-issue ... just look at the shadow it makes!
Well, woke up this morning after not enough hours of sleep to three big news items:
1. England are still in the World Cup (amazingly) and will face Germany in next match.. (should be a laugh)
2. John Foxx has put up T shirts and limited edition prints and wotnot up for sale on the Townsend site. Call me old fashioned but £20 still sems like a lot of money to me for a T-shirt. I might go for the limited edition 'art prints' (postcards) and Cathedral Oceans book though. Anyway if you're interested roll up roll up and click for details / orders.
3. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark have released details of the new album History of Modern to be released on 20th September 2010. There is also a Sounds-of -the-Universe style box set with T shirt, book, vinyl, DVD, Peter Saville stuff, etc etc. Fifty quid. Let's hope the music's good too. The official website has also undergone a welcome facelift with HoM graphics (sort of a mixture of debut album and Dazzle Ships) and a Facebook/Twitter friendly design. McCluskey and Humphreys have both contributed to the blog. Throroughly Modern.
Electronic music worshipping and serious album buying start here..
Some people would describe their life changing moments as having their first baby, meeting the life-long partner for the first time or having a car crash or whatever...which are all true in my case but another one I'd have to add to the list is ..seeing OMITD (abbreviated for convenience) performing Messages on TOTP (abbreviated for convenience).. I'd heard Electricity over the previous winter and most probably Red Frame / White Light earlier in the year and even a John Peel session, but the single version of Messages and even more so seeing the band on telly really brought the message home and, well, changed my life. As a band they were slightly geeky, they played synths (geekiness guarantee), the singer/bassist had an unfashionable natural perm (duly cropped within the year) the drummer only had one drum and they had a tape recorder (which also had a name, Winston) as part of the band. Oh dear thought many but naturally I loved 'em, and the song was brilliant too. The doot doot doot doot doot doot that starts up the track (on tape) and continues throughout, the drums that come crashing in to drive it along with the guitar-bass line, the synth hook chorus (it didn't have a sing-along chorus), and the angstful lyrics (It worries me, this kind of thing..) about a finished, but not quite over, love affair strewn with coded messages and poison letters were all combined in sheer brilliance. The verse with "I'd write and tell you that I'd burned them all..but I've kept them anyway" says it all. Sort of like 10cc's I'm Not In Love "I keep your picture upon the wall, it to mess and stain just lying there.." the love was over but somehow preserved. A lover's lament, and an electro-classic was born.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – the album Oddly, I decided not to buy the single but go straight for the album as this was a band I wanted to hear more of, plus I'd read about the stylish Peter Saville cover..the one with holes in, and felt it was a must have. Much to my chagrin I failed to find said artefact but only an erstaz sleeve edition which was still suitably mysterious and stylish. Bunker Soldiers, Almost (heard for the first time), Mystereality, Electricity, The Messerschmitt Twins...all brilliant even on first listening. But imagine my disappointment in hearing the album version of Messages! A lot more 'weedy' and primitive, not the one I'd seen on TOTP or heard on Kid Jensen at all...but of course I learned to love this version too, together with all the rest.
I love Messages, I love the album Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Liverpool-combo Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are slowly giving details of their new long-awaited album The History of Modern. Their latest blog on myspace states that therecord label that will be issuing the album is 100% Records, who have previously worked with Moby, Placebo and The Temper Trap. The provisional release date for the album is set for late August/early September and while Paul Humphries "has been working" on it recently with mixing work coming up Andy McCluskey is meeting with Peter Saville this week to discuss sleeve design concepts.Stay tuned to LIM.
Well while Chelsea get the garish Dolce & Gabbana in to do their new clobber (see Italo-British post), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that England and Umbro have had a bit more taste and got graphic art guru Peter Saville in to design the new home shirt (detail left).
Famous for his record cover designs this is actually Saville's second brush with the England team having designed the cover for England's official World Cup song 'World in Motion' in 1990.
