It’s hardly a news flash — particularly if you read Neill Jameson’s reports from his time as a record store clerk — but physical music is either in its death throes or experiencing a painful rebirth. Whether it’s A or B depends on who is involved in the conversation.
Aqualamb Records is banking on the latter. The Brooklyn label, owned by two graphic designers/musicians, is releasing albums as artwork: 100-page bound and printed books. We’ve seen bits and pieces of these type of releases — the book insert in the deluxe edition of Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind comes to mind — but this might be the most ambitious project yet.
When it’s all done it looks a little bit like this (click to see larger images):
One of the label’s first releases is the self-titled album from Cleveland doom/improvisational unit Hiram-Maxim. We aren’t able to give you a full taste of what makes these releases so cool but you can stream the album below for starters. It’s out tomorrow (March 3).
