WALPURGISNACHT.
Light the 13 candles of doom, brothers and sisters! For this 13th installment of Gross Anatomy we herald the arrival of Sweden's Saturnalia Temple with their debut full length recording Aion of Drakon. These invokers of psychedoomic Black Magic Metal reaffirmed my faith in the majesty of electric amplification and all things heavy. I am honored to be involved in the manifestation of their latest hypnotic masterpiece and delighted to announce its official release at the strike of midnight...TONIGHT! The evil seed bears its wicked fruit...
"Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible." ~Carl Jung
I worked out the symmetry with this very loose pencil sketch. In many ways Aion of Drakon is a gateway for the listener and was very much a threshold for me as well. It will be most of the world's introduction to the band since their previous recordings were available in relatively limited pressings so I was conscious to arrange the central imagery within a portal of sorts. I also wanted to convey the seductive foreboding and transcendental awe that Saturnalia Temple inspires at their heaviest.
I started with the red ink to reduce smudging...
Many hours and several spent ballpoint pens later, I emerged from the dungeon with a nearly completed creation. My lady snapped this photo on her "smart phone", which is so damn clever I imagine it will be doing the actual drawing in a few years. As Fenriz recently remarked, "It's the best of both worlds, hand drawn covers and mobile phone photographs!"
The drawing is now desaturated for pure blacks and rich grey tones.
"....Cut the silver cord with the Scythe of Thantifaxath..."
The CD version of Aion of Drakon is available NOW from the AJNA OFFENSIVE and in Europe from NUCLEAR WINTER. Vinyl pressing to be unleashed on the coming Solstice!
Until next time....
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
4 comments:
Didn't think there would be anything so soon to compete with TK's art for the new Grave demos boxset. Shading and detail on the eye and slimy fiber stuff is awesome. Cool you got to incorporate that kind of psych lettering you busted out for the Brown Jenkins piece a few entries back. Definitely interested in checking out this band!
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback, Todd. Always appreciated. "Compete" is probably the wrong word here but TK is among my favorite living artists in recent years so the reference is not taken lightly.
i am not an artist just a fan of your work and i gotta say that Saturnalia Temple cover is out of this fuckin world! I am friends with Allen Jaeger from new orleans,he is a great artist,just curious what you think of his work?
I like the way the lighting in the camera phone photo makes the red ink a gradient. Nice either way.
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