Willesden Junction cover art deconstruction with Designer and Artist Beau Smith
When coming up with the concept art for Badger I was initially thinking about how a multi-track project would look and how to world build across 12 different songs that don't necessarily share similar genres but mores textual similarities. How this space can have growth at the same time as defining its mood with a singular image.
When listening to the tracks I decided to separate the two and focus on the colour the songs were defining and carving out and leaving the 'world' open and to be determined by the sonic space rather than defining it myself visually. I don't have sound-colour synesthia but I tried to limit the songs to a colour range and atmosphere. Maison Margiela Replica Perfumes were a direct inspiration of this. To me Willesden Junction is 'cold' as the lyrics directly reference but also fresh and reflective and slightly grey like London.
Initially the bottle was to be curved replicating the curved nature of the stretched vocal throughout however it was clear once rendering that the size and complexity of the image was drowning out the song itself. It was immediately clear that I was doing too much for a track that doesn't need that sort of representation and that the colour and material of the perfume bottle itself would replicate and contradict the complexity of the sound.
When creating an image like this which is the initial opening for a song its a pressure to represent the track in the 'rightway'. I feel as though now and when talking to Badger about the process of song making it is important to contradict and create something that isn't a direct representation but moreso a relatable negative space opening for then the song to fill said negative space.
