’93, 4AD & Me

I was flicking through my record boxes recently, which doesn’t happen very often these days, and found an old favourite from 1993 – the Isabel Bishop EP by Unrest (I also found a questionable amount of Acid Jazz records that we’ll speak no further of). I thought I’d share this on our blog, if only because the artist Isabel Bishop, who inspired this record, is worth reading about.

It’s a record that’s very nostalgic for me, both because of the music and the sleeve design. In ’93 I’d been studying graphic design for about a year, and my interest in music was also escalating, and so my delight in discovering the record label 4AD was two-fold – aural stimulus provided by artists such as Belly, The Breeders, Pale Saints and Unrest, and the visual stimulus of their sleeves designed by heroes of the day Vaughan Oliver, V23 and Chris Bigg.

I still enjoy the music on these records, and although I’m not as enamoured with the sleeves as I once was, at the time they gave me great pleasure and inspiration – I remember spending a significant amount of time, to no avail, trying to make photographs like Jason Love’s for The Breeders’ Cannonball cover shown above.

Unfortunately my little trip down memory lane was cut short as my 2yr old daughter has managed to detach and hide the stylus for my turntable, however, through the modern miracle that is Spotify I can share the title track with you here.