This new piece of work, a cover illustration for metal band Melechesh, was still in progress only a month ago but the album in question, The Epigenesis, has been announced so I can post it here. This follows a design I produced for an earlier Melechesh album, Emissaries, in 2006, both of which refer to the Sumerian mythology which powers the band’s music. There’s some vague Parajanov influence in this piece which isn’t the kind of thing that usually extends to the metal world but Sergei Parajanov’s films were one of the reference points the band offered. The suspended carpets at the top left are the most obvious allusion to the director but for the composition as a whole I also had in mind the tableaux scenes he creates in The Colour of Pomegranates and other films.
The Epigenesis will be released on the Nuclear Blast label on October 1st, 2010.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Short films by Sergei Parajanov
• New things for October
Pretty nice, John. But why is the hebrew Tree of Life included in a work which takes the viewer to the summerian land(mind)scape?
The band requested a figure like a Kabbalistic Tree of Life. I think you can read this as being Kabbalistic or not, the shape doesn’t exactly correspond with the Tree of Life, there’s a different arrangement of spheres and the paths are incomplete. The four gold circles are from a Sumerian design.
THIS IS INCREDIBLE!
OK, my last comment may have seemed a bit overwrought, but I absolutely love this! Great job, maestro!
Ha, thanks!