Joseph Allred – Cub Creek Blues (Blue Hole Recordings)

Joseph Allred’s Cub Creek Blues issued in a hand numbered edition of 100. C34 cassettes dubbed at home, in real time on a Tascam 202 MKIII. Graphic design by Matthew Boteilho. Cover collage by Joseph Allred. Mastered by Micheal Potter. Artwork text is set in Grand Slang by Nikolas Type paired with Ogg, Ogg Text, and Sharp Grotesk by Sharp Type. Catalog number BHR015, released by Blue Hole Recordings on March 15, 2020.

Blue Hole Recs’ packaging was developed by Matthew Boteilho and William Csorba after more than a decade of buying and listening to cassettes from the global DIY experimental community. The c-card inserts are an obi strip- and book spine-influenced (see: the early 70s paperback Foxfire series) element that uniformly relate across the whole discography by utilizing the same type treatment, print method, and paper lines.

Using commercial vendors with digital machines allows quantities to be kept low while opening up the ability to experiment with the 5th color unit. Loose download cards commonly found inside modern physical media were done away with the help of variable data so that unique codes could be printed direct to the art.

While adhering to a no templates, no mockups mentality—Blue Hole Recs instead places emphasis on making sure that it is the creators and makers themselves who are given the space to spec out the process from start to finish.