Judging by the covers
MANILA, Philippines - As a follow-up to its much-hyped first sampler album, the very hip Number Line Records, a relatively new local indie label, released a second volume during this month’s Fete dela WSK, champion of all sonic art. The second coming promises to save not only your ears from trash pop but also your eyes from trash art. The label asked five different artists to create album art for the release.
I went beyond music and lyrics, talking with three of this artist batch including the esteemed Poklong Anading and Louie Cordero. There’s Luis Santos, who began painting only last year but already sold out two shows’ worth of his canvases of tediously detailed bones. Dan Matutina, on the other hand, is a widely published illustrator and a socially involved graphic designer and founder of Ideals Creatives, Inc. The barely legal Nicole Coson, meanwhile, student at the art star-producer Central Saint Martins, is this batch’s prodigy on the loose. Take musical and visual notes.
YOUNG STAR: How did this cover art project with Number Line Records come about?
LUIS SANTOS: In the past, I made a poster for Attraction! Reaction! (a regular gig which includes acts from Number Line Records). Bobby Benedicto (label co-founder) already asked me then to make a cover for them.
DAN MATUTINA: I wasn’t familiar with the label before, but when I checked it out, I got interested. It reminded me of Ghostly International, also a label that distributes indie culture.
NICOLE COSON: My sister, Mara Coson, wrote about Number Line Records, so through that project, I met Bobby... I agreed to do it because I’m a big fan of a lot of the bands in Number Line.
What’s your favorite Number Line music, and how do you relate to it as an artist?
LS: Modulogeek. I like that he puts film audio clips. He has that in this one track, An Android’s Lament. On this sampler cover, I also overlaid pulp images. The woman there is shooting heroin, and her head is cut on the edge, but the image continues right beneath it. The other parts are also from vintage pulp magazines...
DM: One track I especially like is Similar Object’s Loose Lips: Sensitive Dependence. I like its beats and the way it feels.
NC: Modulogeek’s new one, Transition. Everyone’s used to seeing my portraits, but I’m at this place in my creative journey where I’m trying to branch out a little bit... I just told Bobby that it’s a concept piece with a great color balance, but I’m just gonna let people figure out what it is.
If you have a band and it’s releasing a Number Line album, what would the cover be like?
LS: I’ll ask Mariano Ching to do it. He’s my favorite artist.
DM: It would be about listening to music in outer space, where there is no sound. It seems to be a nice place for listening to music, which could give life to that kind of atmosphere.
NC: I definitely have to think about the music first because a lot of my art is music-based… I’ve done a lot of work based on someone drumming to me, and it comes out really interesting. It’s such a physical experience, and then I take that into something aesthetic.
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To download the sampler, go to www.numberlinerecords.com
