Eighties new age cover art, pt. 1
Category: Visual
Gauche the Cellist (1982, Isao Takahata)
Considered ‘proto-Ghibli’ for Isao Takahata’s direction hence lots of visual similarity. The story (originally written by Kenji Miyazawa) follows a struggling cellist who indirectly learns the skills he needs for his concert through encounters with talking animals.
See also: Fairy Florence
‘Singing bird’ music box
A boîte à oiseau chanteur or singing bird box is a music box with mechanical ‘birds’ singing along to the tune of the bells, organs, and so on in high pitch while twitching their heads, turning and moving their wings. This video is a great example.
The Encylopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, 1971
The Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments is a huge resource on self-playing antiques like orchestrions, music boxes, barrel organs, fairground organs, and player pianos. The book features a lengthy chapter on each variety with origins, histories on specific developers, galleries, old promos, and details on specific models’ functions.
Kimbra – “Two Way Street”, 2012
Abaco Music Library artwork, 1990s
KPM Library cover art, 1980s
The 1950s saw KPM start to produce music for film, radio and the emerging commercial TV market. Shortly after, the now highly collectible green sleeve ’KPM 1000 series’ records went into production. 1960s to 1980s proved to be KPM’s glory years and the 1000 series records defined the sound of the era, spawning dozens of popular TV themes of the day. – WhoSampled, The Influence of the KPM Music Library
