“True Detective” by T Bone Burnett/Various Artists

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True Detective may be my TV surprise of the year so far. This HBO series is superb in every way! Be it the original characters (Nic Pizzolatto) and their portrayal (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson), or the brilliant direction (Cary Fukunaga) and stunning cinematography (Adam Arkapaw). Everyone involved with this series performs at the top of the game and I cannot recommend it highly enough. But the game-changer for me has been T Bone Burnett’s meticulous selection of songs, that are featured so prominently within each episode. He assembled a collection of songs that is utterly fantastic. Unfortunately there hasn’t been an official soundtrack album yet, neither…

“A Scanner Darkly” by Graham Reynolds

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I‘ve yet to fully embrace Graham Reynold’s score to A Scanner Darkly. Its dark, brooding sounds interweaved with Jazzy, almost Avantgarde outbursts make it the perfect match for Linklater’s Sci-Fi art film. But listening to it on its own is another story. Yet I’m still coming back to it consistently. It’s a definite “grower”. The original artwork (#1) made quite a few things right, although someone didn’t think it through to the end. The spacing of the text is different above and below the logo. Also the term “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” is just a bit too long. That’s a no-go, especially for a movie as visually striking as…

“Hannibal” by Hans Zimmer

Categories: Custom Covers · Remakes · Vinyl CoversTags: · 2 Comments

The soundtrack to Ridley Scott’s Hannibal had it all. Beautiful classical compositions by Hans Zimmer and Company, a haunting orchestral performance by The Lyndhurst Orchestra and above it all, Sir Anthony Hopkins’ annoying monologue passages that ruin almost half of the album’s running time. But thanks to the filesharers community there existed a fairly decent bootleg of the score without all that I’m sure highly significant, but ultimately disruptive drivel. But there was one thing missing to put the cherry on the cake. Right… Originally my three renditions of the official artwork (#1 incl. variations) date back to 2003, when…

“SE7EN” by Howard Shore

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Grunge, filth and even more grunge. The cover series to Howard Shore’s magnificent score to David Fincher’s cult thriller is characterized by its ghastly apparition. Though it never really got a proper release (what a shame!), there’ve been a few different soundtrack albums circling around. And I’ve remade all of their respective album artworks. First the commercial release by TVT Records in the US-American (#1) and European (#2) version. And then the rare bootleg, apparently scattered among movie buffs by Concorde in 1995 (#3). I’ve redesigned and altered them very slightly and added a texture to #2 to give it a little more depth. My customs below are mostly…

“Knowing” by Marco Beltrami

Categories: Custom Covers · Original Covers · Vinyl CoversTags: · 4 Comments

After my last monster project Godzilla I need to squeeze in a few smaller ones to cool myself down a bit. And so I started rummaging my iTunes library, listened to soundtracks and picked potential candidates. And it was during one of those listening sessions that I discovered two of Marco Beltrami’s recent, highly recommended(!) efforts Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Soul Surfer. So I thought I’d seize that opportunity and come up with a few designs for a score I wanted to tackle for quite some time. My all time favourite of his works: Knowing. I’d like to begin with a few variations (#2,…