This month's crop of record sleeves include new releases from Apparat, Cadenza, Plaid, S.C.U.M, Tiefschwartz, and Yellowire...

First up is the Deluxe Edition of Apparat's new album The Devil's Walk - which takes the form of a hardback book full sporting an embossed and foilblocked front and back cover and 24 pages of beautiful illustrations by Berlin-based Hanna Zeckau. Layout: Carsten Aermes. Label: Mute.

Next up is Dutch Uncles' album Cadenza, released on Memphis Industries. Panels in an isometric grid feature crops of mostly painterly artworks from various bygone eras. The record itself is white too which always feels a bit special. Design: DR.ME.

More isometric imagery, this time spelling out Plaid as a rotational ambigram on the cover of Plaid's new album Scintilli, released on Warp. The album is packaged in an oversized CD digipack, due to the inclusion of two printed rings with which, together with the CD itself, you can make the pictured sculptural piece. Design: Chap Idler II.

We've got S.C.U.M's album, Again Into Eyes in the CD version, a gatefold package which features artwork and photography by Matthew Stone. Below are shots of the open gatefold, and then of the enclosed booklet and finally the back cover. Label: Mute.

The above image is a preview of the front cover of the ninth release in Watergate's excellent series of mix compilations, each of which has sported an illustration of a bird of some sort illustrated beautifully by Frank Höhne. The forthcoming release (due out on October 31) features a track selection mixed by German duo Tiefschwarz and this illustration by Höhne of two owls on the cover. Design: Matthias Last.

The CD pack for Yellowire's Machines On Fire (limited to just 2000 numbered copies), is unusual in that it's been devised, with the assistance of Think Tank Media, to showcase an unusually large amount of album imagery by graphic artist Jimmy Turrell. First there's the slipcase. Then the pack inside folds out four times to reveal five panels, and of course, the CD. both sides of this long pack are covered in illustrative artwork, as is the 24 page booklet enclosed AND a fold out insert. Label: I.D. Records

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog but if you're not also reading the magazine in print, you're really missing out. Our October issue includes the story of Blackpool's Comedy Carpet, a profile of Jake Barton whose studio is currently working on the 9/11 Memorial Museum, plus pieces on branding and the art world, guerilla advertising coming of age, Google's Android logo, Ars Electronica, adland and the riots, and loads more.

And, if you subscribe to CR, you also receive our award-winning Monograph booklet every month for free.

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