Cover Story. Смоляное чучелко — EP (2020)
The album cover was created by French artist Blexbolex (Bernard Granger) — the author of the cult book L'Imagier des gens (2008), which was awarded the title of “Best Book Design in the World” at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2009. This illustration was conceived as a “missing page” from the original edition, continuing its visual language and preserving the distinctive Blexbolex harmony of hand drawing and stencil printing.
Bernard is a very private person, and no contact information for him is publicly available. Finding a way to reach him took quite a bit of time and effort, but the result exceeded all expectations.
The price for the work turned out to be astronomical — roughly the cost of a used car. However, his agent liked the music and promised to pass my proposal on to Blexbolex. Just as I was about to give up on the idea, Bernard reached out to me himself. He said he had done a bit of online research on the term tar-baby (“Смоляное чучелко”) and found the concept intriguing, and he also mentioned that he enjoyed our music. In the end, we agreed on a reasonable price, and Bernard provided two cover options to choose from.