Cover Art of the Week #30: Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors

A Dirty Projectors’ album cover and blue and red brush-stroke-like shapes. Have we seen this somewhere else already?
On their Slaves’ Graves and Ballads’ cover art, actually.

In graphic designer Rob Carmichael’s words:
“The whole thing was pretty collaborative. It was basically [Dirty Projectors main man] Dave Longstreth and me sitting down and talking about it. But I think, if I remember correctly, that was mostly his idea to try and evoke the old cover, to try and tie the new thing back to the history of the band. It really was literally that we traced the old drawings and then tweaked them enough to work on the new cover.”

Photographer Jason Frank Rothenberg (well-known for his work for Spin, Vice and Urban Outfitters amongst others) shot the portraits for the album’s artwork. Band members Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman (who is also on the sleeve of the single Stillness is the Move) grace the front cover and Dave Longstreth can be found on the traycard. He’s the only band member featured in the image, but he’s not alone.



Questioned by Pitchfork about it, Carmichael says: “You’d have to ask Dave. That was definitely his baby. To me, it just seemed really funny to put in there. I mean, maybe until you see the band live, you’re kind of unclear who these women are on the front cover. [Seeing Nietzsche on the back] actually just seemed funny or amusing, that the whole thing wasn’t so serious and could be a little playful.”

In addition to creating this gorgeously understated album cover, Rob Carmichael (as SEEN Studio) has created such album artwork designs as the circus-like collage of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, the retro-feeling artwork to Beirut’s Gulag Orchestar, Black Dice’s checker-board-esque Creature Comfort and the hypnotic and controversial cover to Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Check out Dirty Projectors’ tour dates in Europe, Japan and the U.S. all summer long and dive into their finest experimental rock right now by tuning into our Dirty Projectors AUPEO! Artist Station!