December Batch Out on Jozik Records

Yesterday was a really busy day. We have released a new batch of tapes on Jozik records. The day of release is always really busy and i have to spend all day in front of the computer processing images, writing blogposts and newsletters, creating PayPal buttons and so on. Lots of work. But we finally have the tapes out and we are happy :)

This time i designed the artwork for only one of the tapes. The other two were designed by our good artist friends Maiorov and Anya Kuts. Maiorov made hand made carton boxes with a beautiful drawing of his and Anya designed a lovely insert (the green one) to stick inside our new poly boxes.

I decided not to do too much hand made stuff this time, so i also designed an insert to fit into poly box for a great tape by Brian Green. I based the whole thing on a drawing inspired by my new book of Indian ornaments.

Wind in Willows / St. Atom HRT605 split packaging

Here is the last release that came out on Jozik this summer. For this one, the paintings were done by another artist, Helder Coelho Dias, a friend of one of the musicians. We were not acquainted with Helder's work before, so we didn't really know what to expect. But once we saw the paintings, we loved them.

There is a separate painting for each side of the box (one painting per musician), and there are matching paintings for each side of the tape itself.

All i had to do was to cut out the boxes, print out the stickers and attach them to the boxes and tapes. Well, i also had to design the inner sticker with the info, but there's nothing to design there really :)

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

Banana Pill / Timothy C Holehouse split packaging

We met Tim in Lithuania when we were on our Europe tour with Banana Pill. We played two shows together.

We really liked what he does and he liked what we do so we decided to do a split tape together. And now it's finally out! We released it together with Tim's label. He took care of the tapes and we did the packaging.

I really like the "reel-to-reel" tapes Tim chose. We wanted to use this kind of tapes for a while now, but we never ended up ordering them. Now we finally have them.

I did the same carton covers for this release as for the previous one. I didn't know what kind of carton to use, so i just went to the stationary store to see what they have. Once i saw this black carton, i was sure i want to use it. It was perfect thickness, and i liked how black and shiny it was.

I came up with this painting some time ago. When it came to deciding what kind of artwork to do for this split, i thought why not use this idea. I did the painting again in "portrait" shape and added the names of our projects to it.

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

Punktieren/Ous Mal / Coaxil split packaging

For all the other three releases i've decided to make carton boxes. I kept the same shape and dimensions as i had for my previous boxes, but this time instead of gluing the boxes together i've decided to keep them closed by securing them with rubber bands (i got the idea from the other tape packaging done by our friend artist).

For this release i've decided to use Mitya's sister's old painting sketches that have been lying around in our house for months. When Mitya's parents were moving, they wanted to throw them away because his sister didn't need them, they were just some paint experiments. But we liked them and thought we could use them for something. And finally they were just perfect for this tape.

I just love how every box is unique while they all are done in the same style.

We used white tapes and plain stickers with just the artist names on them. All the info was printed on the label paper, plain text on a white background. I like how the paintings on the boxes go all crazy and colorful, while all the rest of the design is really minimalistic.

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

Sashash Ulz / кот кот split packaging

Four new tapes are out on Jozik records and it's time for me to share the packaging i've made for them.

For this tape i've been sewing fabric envelopes again. We found this beautiful fabric (it was actually a large skirt) at a second hand shop. The skirt was enough for exactly 49 copies, we were lucky with the size (we planned an edition of 50 copies first).

For an insert i got a new idea this time. I used textured craft paper, which i was lucky to get 50% off from Sinelli, it's really good to buy these things in summer when the sales are huge. I used label paper to print the info for the insert.

I am especially happy for the tape labels. I scanned the back side of the fabric and printed it on the labels. I think the color goes really good with white tapes. And i love how colored stickers look on matte opaque tapes.

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

Olli Aarni / summerTales split

For this release i've decided to make fabric envelopes similar to the ones i did for our 4-way split. Actually i used exactly the same dimensions, the only difference was that these bags do not close. The fabric i chose was not as slippery as the one i used for the 4-ways split, so i saved some time by not attaching press studs to them. And this pretty fabric used to be old soviet curtains that were hanging in Mitya's kitchen in Petrozavodsk when he was a little kid.

For the insert i've scanned the fabric and printed the pattern adding all the info on the other side.

Since both splits came out at the same time, we kept the design matching by having white cassettes for both releases as well as making same kind of labels on the cassettes, just changing the text color.

Check the description and sounds on Jozik records.

Varropas / Rainbow Valley split

This release was all about knitting. I got an idea for this kind of packaging when knitting one of my soft cases. I picked up two nice colors of the same yarn that is thick enough for the knitting not to take too much time and started making these tape envelopes. I have made a bit more than half of them by now, they are taking really long time. But i enjoy knitting and i can do it while watching a movie or when i'm in a train or a bus. I does not require much concentration.

White cassettes have been our favorite recently. For the cassette labels i wanted to be minimalist this time, so i've printed the artist names on the left-overs from CD-label paper and cut them out.

For the insert i used color print paper. I've made the inserts looking a bit like a booklet with two pages. So there's a cover page, artist information inside and label information on the back cover. The "booklets" came out so tiny, they look very cute. There are two colors for the inserts as well, purple for blue envelopes and blue for purple ones.

Check the description and sounds on Jozik records.

Glina "Spiritual safety"

A new cassette is out on Jozik records. 

Glina from St.Petersburg with their 50-minute album called "spiritual safety". Check Jozik for description and preview and here i will tell you about the design.

In the very beginning we had an idea of making an insert out of white paper with a black and white drawing on it, which would be differently painted with watercolor on each cassette separately. And that's what we actually ended up with, but we also got a nice new experience.

I was taking so long time to come up with a drawing. I kept sketching animals, plants and other things and nothing valuable came out. I am not so good in drawing, really. One day i was checking a blog of one artist i'm following and realized, that this guy's drawings are exactly what i'm looking for. He is an artists from Murmansk, his blog is called Maiorov-DIY, check his drawings and other things he makes, i really like them.

So i contacted him and he was happy to participate, and the next day i got this cute cockroach. The day after i got another drawing with many little cockroaches. I was supposed to choose one, but they were so pretty that i decided to use them both, one on the outer part of the insert and another one inside.

After i got the drawings, i placed them and all the needed text in places, printed the inserts on greyish paper, cut them out and then the most fun part began. I painted each of them differently with watercolor, as we planned. As i already mentioned in previous posts, i love painting with watercolor, so i had lots of fun painting these inserts. I still have a bit less than a half to paint.

This was the first time we collaborated with an artist this way. The previous release was completely done by Diana Vishnevskaya, but this time we worked together, and i really liked it this way.

Thanks to Maiorov and Glina for amazingly looking and sounding release!

4-way split on Jozik records

We've finally put out a 4-way split cassette on Jozik records. The artists on the split are Architeuthis Rex from Italy, Hobo Cubes from Canada, Mpala Garoo from Russia and our project Banana Pill. We've been waiting for this release for a long time. We even had to change one of the artists on the cassette. Originally there was supposed to be Summer Recreation Camp from Spain, but unfortunately he did not have time to record his material and we got Hobo Cubes on the split instead. I hope we manage to release something by Summer Recreation Camp some other time in the near future.

I've spent quite a lot of time creating the covers (i still have not finished them all), but i like them.

For the fabric envelopes i've bought a huge skirt from a second hand shop. We ordered orange tapes via e-bay from a very nice guy rainbowtapes. Even though shipping was a bit too expensive, the cassettes look good and the quality is good as well.

I did not want to make any stickers with artists' names for the cassettes, because the cassettes look good on their own. So i used a hole-puncher to make blue and green sticker dots to indicate the sides of the tape.

The tape can be ordered from Jozik records.