2 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 2 album covers documented under the "noir" design theme, all from the 1990s. These covers sit within the electronic, rock, alternative tradition and feature work by Portishead, Sonic Youth. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.
The grainy, noir-ish photograph with a woman's face partially obscured in shadow creates an atmosphere of nocturnal melancholy — the purest visual expression of the 'Bristol Sound' aesthetic of dark, cinematic trip-hop.
Raymond Pettibon's stark black-and-white ink illustration — based on a photograph of witnesses from the Moors Murders case — features a speech bubble about stealing, killing, and hitting the road. The confrontational art was a statement: no aesthetic sanitizing for a major label.