1985 programme about design duo 23 Envelope and their work for 4AD. Features Vaughan Oliver & Nigel Grierson (23 Envelope), Ivo Watts-Russel (4AD boss), and Robin Guthrie & Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins). Sorry for the quality.
My goodness. That was a lot about fish! 😄He doesn't want the fish. Send it back. I love Elizabeth's laugh. But I do agree with Robin. The 23 Envelope sleeves are timeless. And it's a perfect fit for Cocteau Twins (and This Mortal Coil) because they're music is timeless and really just in a space of it's own. They may not have realized at the the time but, in my opinion, after Garlands and Head Over Heels, the rest of their music hardly sounds dated. They could've released all their music last year. Anyway. I love the Garlands sleeve. And Treasure. The Sunburst and Snowblind and Love's Easy Tears ep sleeves. While I'm here, and after watching this, I must confess I was never a big fan of their music videos. I always felt their videos need to be a huge, avant garde, theatrical and cinematic. But I'm sure there was no budget for how I envision their songs or how I would create their videos. But, to this day, I still have my versions in my head when I listen. But back to their music-- it is so lush and beautiful. It's like they actually don't even need music videos. The music is dreamlike. The vocals-- heavenly. And the lyrics are mostly unintelligible/unknowable. Let the imagery follow. You don't know what an actual angel in it's true form looks like. Leave it be. Or it will end in tears indeed.
Now that I think about it, 23 Envelope was very influential in my choosing graphic design as a career 10 years after this documentary. It was with their work on the 4AD album art that I began appreciating graphic design.
I love so many of those 23 envelope covers. Especially It'll End in Tears or the first This Mortal Coil EP (16 days) - that house... it surely influenced the David Lynch film Lost Highway.
I will be eternally grateful to 23 Envelope for all the artwork done, in particular for having created the sleeve of the homonymous Clan Of Xymox album and of their single "A Day", two absolute masterpieces of abstractionism and symbolism. Forever in my soul.
Sounds like "When The Boat Comes in" when Vaughan Oliver starts talking about Little Fishes on the dishes in his Geordie accent. Liz Fraser just giggles her way through it all and Robin Guthrie sounds like an awkward teenager. Heady days of one of music's most creative and memorable record company
He was from Sunderland, calling him a Geordie would've been an insult. I always try and say: from the north east, prevents me from putting my foot in it.
Thank you so much for uploading this. Really cool to see the guys behind the fantastic Graphic Design. Their artwork is really inspiring :-) . Love their work. Love the music too. I own lots of these albums aswell. . Thumbs up from me.
The future looked interesting during this period based on creativity being divorced from the past. Somehow they made it a brighter and more interesting package and this approach to creating a new vision was refreshing. Artists look forward, and we discover their insight as we realize their intuitions held up well. Like explorers on a frontier we can only imagine, they remake our experience into something more interesting by not looking back but forward.
Hi would you happen to have a link to your full version of this one? The full documentary already on youtube was uploaded years ago and yours looks much cleaner and brighter in comparison
Ok. Hate me. Idc!! I did an extensive clinical rotation/residency for psychology in 1985 at a large state institution. In fact, I was assigned w/ three other students) to the worst of the worst 'houses' - the forensically insane. Half the people in that 'house' lovingly dubbed 'the snake pit' were not as bad off as these poor dudes.
