Gogoj a.k.a. Sheng Jie – Oviparity album art
For the first solo record of Beijing-based cellist and multimedia artist Gogoj (also known as 盛潔, or Sheng Jie), designer Qingyu Wu conceived a very stark sleeve, using a combination of KRSNA (originally designed for another record cover) and a yet unidentified Chinese font. The title on the front is printed with silver metallic ink and the back cover layout is entirely vertical (a typesetting known as 纵排 [zongpai] in Chinese), like if the liquid text was dripping from the top of the record (see also the raining code from the Matrix movie).
The combination of black and silver inks with spiky interlocking letters might recall to some people the viewing of cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo the Ironman, the story of a salaryman turning into a metal creature made of screws and pipes. A movie so raw (in all the meanings of the word) that it is the perfect echo to gogoj’s music, a mesmerizing mix of classical cello performance and loud noise music.
Limited to 300 copies, the record is still (at the time of writing) available from Maybe Noise Records and WV Sorcerer Productions.
KRSNA is part of the Lab typefaces, available from Swiss Typefaces.
