'Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On'

Discussions on the cover art for Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's 2024 LP

Available from the Clay Pipe Greedbag is a coaster set based on the artwork for Andrew Wasylyks and Tommy Perman’s Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On.

Below I discuss how we came up with the design for the LP:

When I first talked with Andrew and Tommy about the design for their new album Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On, they were very sure they wanted an abstract style rather than a more illustrated one. They sent me a collection of images that inspired them, including work by Elaine Lustig Cohen. Tommy was already working on the graphics for their videos and live show, which involved painting shapes onto discs of card that he was filming spinning on his record deck using various handmade camera lenses, producing amazing psychedelic visuals.

I tried to take what Tommy was doing as a starting point. Here are some of my early ideas:

At this point I wrote to them saying: ‘My initial thought was to do something based around the idea of a spinning circle - inspired by Tommy's graphics, then I moved on to think more about the titles and my response to them - I feel they have a lot of light and movement in them: Floating Vapour, Flow State, Gull Glides On, Grow Emerge, Full of Light etc and I've been trying capture this in an abstract way, which has proved quite tricky.

The images are all quite flat at the moment, I haven't paid a lot of attention to fonts etc but I wondered what you both think of them as a starting point? or if there is one in particular you think might be heading in the right direction.”

Andrew replied:

‘Tommy and I had a brief chat about them, as thought it might be more efficient to reply together. We really like them all, but were both really struck by the vibrancy and beauty of 'rough 1'. It's really captivating. I love the playfulness of the shapes and, to me, there's sort of a 70s feel to the colour scheme.’

So Rough 1 - the final image posted above, went on to be the cover for the LP - with only small changes. We also needed artwork for the four digital singles, the booklets that came with Monorail and Assai editions, as well as designs for the Greedbag print and back and inner sleeves. I took the colour pallette and created lots of abstract shapes using the colours to create a feel of depth and light and shade.

Big thanks to Andrew and Tommy for making such inspiring music. An unbelivable amount work went into this LP and the shows they did alongside it this summer. It was great to be involved.