This was my submission to the 2020 edition of Secret 7″. The sleeve design is for Harmony Hall by Vampire Weekend, and an exhibition of all 700 sleeves took place at NOW Gallery in Greenwich in October 2020.
When I first heard the track, I was struck by the lyric “I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die”, recognising it as the same refrain from the band’s earlier song ‘Finger Back’, on their previous album. I thought this repetition of the same phrase was interesting, and the new song almost felt like a reincarnation of the the old one, like it had been reimagined in an alternate universe.
The artwork plays on this idea. The two symbols represent the sun or a star, radiating outwards, but rendered in different ways and in opposing colours. The sleeve reverse shows the artist name and song title in Wingdings, as the rules dictated no text was allowed on the artwork.
The sleeve sold at a blind auction, helping to raise over £134,000 for the charity Help Refugees. A risograph edition of the print is available now from my shop.
