Inferno Artsyle Discussion

[Redd Panderson]

You know, I was going to share this before the album was announced and now I'm wishing I had

Something about the campaign seems maybe designed to confront the BOC community with the 7 deadly sins, maybe. Especially if the saga of the kid leaking some of his dad's rare BOC CD was actually staged. Because then you have:

Wrath - of the fanbase on reddit against an innocent kid
Envy - rare VHS tapes
Greed - selling one for $1000 on eBay
Gluttony - maybe, the conversion of a finite resource (some VHS tapes) into an "infinite" supply through digitization
Lust - just look at the response to Tape 05
...open to suggestions on these and pride and sloth.

7 hexagons
7 sins
7 flavors of negative energy within us all that we have to learn how to coexist with in order to be whole

[Den]

I’m really appreciating everyone’s posts. I’ve been thinking about the poster with the blue-green face that is also inside the album art and on the CD itself and how it implied something unexpected to me. People were focusing on the sense of horror evoked by some of the posters, but I think that is too weighed down by genre and that this album is way more expansive than that. Look at the images again here… horses! And riding up to this massive, unidentifiable structure. There is a photo of what looks like Scotland, similar to the since deleted website background. The image of the child inspecting the flower is so psychedelic (also, you can see a fern in the bottom left corner, in-fern-o). The ostensibly one-dimensional quality of the album cover is surprising, yet, when you open up the record there’s all of this...



I feel like the cover art intentionally shrouds what’s happening inside.

[Quiller]

Looks like the title shot from a dystopian/disaster flick from the 1970's ala Rollerball, Towering Inferno, Z.P.G., Logan's Run, China Syndrome, The Final Programme, etc. Fits right into their aesthetic. I imagine the Sandison Brothers have a huge library of films like these.

[Redd Panderson]

I think we're cooking with the same grease here

There's a vague surface to the things/events of our lives and underneath, multitudes in a web that we're all woven into

[Den]

I think we're cooking with the same grease here

There's a vague surface to the things/events of our lives and underneath, multitudes in a web that we're all woven into

Yes.

[Redd Panderson]

Not to fill the board with stuff not directly related to the cover art here but

I want to stop and say I really appreciate this community right now, it's been cool to read everyone's thoughts and bounce ideas off of everyone. Such an exciting time!

[Decorah]

Not to fill the board with stuff not directly related to the cover art here but

I want to stop and say I really appreciate this community right now, it's been cool to read everyone's thoughts and bounce ideas off of everyone. Such an exciting time!

Couldn't agree more!! Been a while since we've been able to discuss BoC in this way.

[Chodlington]

What are those people on the cover even doing? Standing around looking impy? If they took a random family photo again and tried to stage it as being ”sinister” that’s a bit corny. At first I wondered if there was someone lying on the ground in front of them. Imagine a BoC cover pic about someone getting their ass kicked

There's a coach in the background, and two of them seem to be carrying bags whilst the third is kneeling down at something. So I'm guessing they've just got off the coach and are about to embark on a backpacking journey, or something like that.

I don't mind the cover it's growing on me, but the text is too big and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.

[Redd Panderson]

What are those people on the cover even doing? Standing around looking impy? If they took a random family photo again and tried to stage it as being ”sinister” that’s a bit corny. At first I wondered if there was someone lying on the ground in front of them. Imagine a BoC cover pic about someone getting their ass kicked

There's a coach in the background, and two of them seem to be carrying bags whilst the third is kneeling down at something. So I'm guessing they've just got off the coach and are about to embark on a backpacking journey, or something like that.

I don't mind the cover it's growing on me, but the text is too big and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.

I guess...what is a "board" here but an organization that exerts influence? A dominating force?

Different strokes in the end, that's okay! I'm just feeling it after sleeping on it I guess. The feeling I got when it was revealed was so peculiar and uncanny

[The Other]

Not to fill the board with stuff not directly related to the cover art here but

I want to stop and say I really appreciate this community right now, it's been cool to read everyone's thoughts and bounce ideas off of everyone. Such an exciting time!

Good times isn't it? I have been visiting this forum since 2006. Basically two album cycles. This will be the third. Sadly haven't been on here as much the past 13 years... but these are exciting times and it brings back very fond memories of TCH and TH. With lots of great conversations about BoC and other shared interest. Twoism will always have a special place in my heart.

BACK on topic:
I think the contrast between the eyes of priest/cleric figure that are blacked out and the the eyes of the kids being all white is very effective. Have the children intentionally been blinded to the corruptness of the world around them? Or have the been poisoned/possessed in their youth and they will eventually be taken over by the same darkness we see in the adult? Certainly some HEAVY themes in play here... Cant wait to be listening to this album while looking at these pictures for context within the songs.

[softfokus]

I feel like it's on brand for the "video nasty" thing and is reminiscent of a lot of more genre film art of the seventies/eighties. I personally don't tend to prefer giant text blocks like this, but it's also entirely possible they have to confront the reality that that vast majority of people are going to listen to this on their phones, streaming platforms, etc.

I wouldn't really expect them to adjust their art style or vision for that, but I could see them playing with that idea/subject and making a bit of a statement about it. In that sense, maybe it's funny to them that the text is so huge across the cover art. Most people are going to see this as 1"x1" box on a tiny screen at best, as opposed to seeing it blown up across a vinyl slipcase cover.

All that being said, there seems to be a big shift with all the internal images, I assume the booklet as well, and maybe it's a compromise between legibility on smaller screens, and having all the internal images that'll never get seen on those platforms anyway.

Whatever the case may be I can't wait to get my grubby paws on it, get it under the needle, and listen to it at high volume.

[WATER_CAN-_-]

Each day we get closer to the big bad fire ♪

[jcnporter]

Bringing in an idea I brought up in the general Inferno thread because it applies to the cover. It has to do with the idea of our past, present, and future selves being contained in this one moment and how parts of ourselves get frozen in the past.

It involves behavioral loops that get stuck on repeat in our psyches as we age and continue to manifest as similar situations in our lives over and over. It's like the negative edge of nostalgia. Not necessarily trauma, but the momentum of habit that we are often blind to while ending up in the same difficult situations time and again.

Also related to loops: feedback. The closed loop producing monstrous things with exaggerated features in our lives, dreams, and societies, frightening us until we can cultivate enough equanimity to face them head-on. I think that exaggerated, maybe even cartoonish, character of our demons when left unchecked kind of fits with the bit of camp in the design for Inferno.

I already said it somewhere else, but, to me, I'm getting the feeling this isn't strictly a dark album, but also about the process of turning to face your demons--individually and as a society--in order to transcend and move beyond them. To thaw the frozen parts inside. To befriend those exiled aspects of our psyche so we can rescue ourselves from the havoc they can wreak when left unchecked.

So I appreciate the kind of horror, kind of camp look. There's a funhouse mirror yet sinister look and I do think it all has some parallel to what some people call shadow work.

I usually just lurk here and read posts - I'm usually on keyosc (rip WATMM) and reddit - but I logged back in to tell you this is my favorite theory/interpretation so far and hits on things I struggled to articulate. My pet theory is this is an overt break from their past work of hauntology - i.e. broadly speaking an aesthetic and perspective of an imagined future vision from the past, wrestling with nostalgia, revisiting old obscure yet existing media, etc. This is a vision of the future, or some other perspective defying linear space/time, where even the concepts of memory and humanity are a mystery. I think that's why there are subtle distinctions to be made of the artwork, the track listing, and the media they've previewed so far. It feels like no longer an exploration of memories and past zeitgeists but veering into more liminal ambiguity and unknown dimensions and worlds.

https://forum.keyosc.com/topic/1980-inf ... ment-56573

I think this is a good call.

[jcnporter]

I’m really appreciating everyone’s posts. I’ve been thinking about the poster with the blue-green face that is also inside the album art and on the CD itself and how it implied something unexpected to me. People were focusing on the sense of horror evoked by some of the posters, but I think that is too weighed down by genre and that this album is way more expansive than that. Look at the images again here… horses! And riding up to this massive, unidentifiable structure. There is a photo of what looks like Scotland, similar to the since deleted website background. The image of the child inspecting the flower is so psychedelic (also, you can see a fern in the bottom left corner, in-fern-o). The ostensibly one-dimensional quality of the album cover is surprising, yet, when you open up the record there’s all of this...



I feel like the cover art intentionally shrouds what’s happening inside.

I'm fascinated by futuristic/brutalist sculptures in ordinary landscapes, love it.

These have a similar feel to me -





Maybe even a bit of Stalenhag



Or Michael Heizer's City -

[Den]

Agreed, I’m really feeling this aspect of the art… someone had said earlier that TH depicted the world without people in the future, and Inferno feels like it’s almost going back in time (deep time) - or into the future if history took a different track. Or maybe it’s all just about what’s happening right now.

[jcnporter]

I don't think I've seen any discussion of the inner sleeve art? Combination of the posters and other stuff.
I particularly like the hints of artist Nicolas Moulin's stuff - 'alien' brutalist superstructures dropped into landscapes.

Very 'fucked up alien happenings in rural America' Area X or Close Encounters - type feel to these images as well. It always strikes me how they mainly prefer to use American imagery and references than British, even in depictions of the future.

[Redd Panderson]

I don't think I've seen any discussion of the inner sleeve art? Combination of the posters and other stuff.
I particularly like the hints of artist Nicolas Moulin's stuff - 'alien' brutalist superstructures dropped into landscapes.

Very 'fucked up alien happenings in rural America' Area X or Close Encounters - type feel to these images as well. It always strikes me how they mainly prefer to use American imagery and references than British, even in depictions of the future.

Ahhh, Southern Reach. I love those 4 books. Strongly recommended!

[Den]

Yes, and it’s depicted in a way that feels connected to stone circles and alternative perspectives on ancient history.

[magrathea_ultima]

Any hint of brutalist architecture and style wins my heart over. There is something about the striking emergence of a structure like that in unusual surroundings.

[mechanismj]

Bringing in an idea I brought up in the general Inferno thread because it applies to the cover. It has to do with the idea of our past, present, and future selves being contained in this one moment and how parts of ourselves get frozen in the past.

It involves behavioral loops that get stuck on repeat in our psyches as we age and continue to manifest as similar situations in our lives over and over. It's like the negative edge of nostalgia. Not necessarily trauma, but the momentum of habit that we are often blind to while ending up in the same difficult situations time and again.

Also related to loops: feedback. The closed loop producing monstrous things with exaggerated features in our lives, dreams, and societies, frightening us until we can cultivate enough equanimity to face them head-on. I think that exaggerated, maybe even cartoonish, character of our demons when left unchecked kind of fits with the bit of camp in the design for Inferno.

I already said it somewhere else, but, to me, I'm getting the feeling this isn't strictly a dark album, but also about the process of turning to face your demons--individually and as a society--in order to transcend and move beyond them. To thaw the frozen parts inside. To befriend those exiled aspects of our psyche so we can rescue ourselves from the havoc they can wreak when left unchecked.

So I appreciate the kind of horror, kind of camp look. There's a funhouse mirror yet sinister look and I do think it all has some parallel to what some people call shadow work.

I usually just lurk here and read posts - I'm usually on keyosc (rip WATMM) and reddit - but I logged back in to tell you this is my favorite theory/interpretation so far and hits on things I struggled to articulate. My pet theory is this is an overt break from their past work of hauntology - i.e. broadly speaking an aesthetic and perspective of an imagined future vision from the past, wrestling with nostalgia, revisiting old obscure yet existing media, etc. This is a vision of the future, or some other perspective defying linear space/time, where even the concepts of memory and humanity are a mystery. I think that's why there are subtle distinctions to be made of the artwork, the track listing, and the media they've previewed so far. It feels like no longer an exploration of memories and past zeitgeists but veering into more liminal ambiguity and unknown dimensions and worlds.

https://forum.keyosc.com/topic/1980-inf ... ment-56573

joshu_atx, are you the one who made that 1991 album? Love it! Played the opening track on my old radio show before.