Kirill Platonkin is an ambient music composer who lives in far-off eastern Russia, in a town called Blagoveshchensk. The town is on the Chinese border, paired with a Chinese town called Heihe. In this remote reach, the Internet brings the world to Russia's Amur Oblast and vice versa. Platonkin's music combines electronic drones and textures, and field recordings. As a member of the Stillstream online music community, Platonkin asked me to do a cover for his latest release. I have already done a number of CD covers for Stillstream musicians.
On this cover, I asked Platonkin for a photograph of "Lenin Street," where he made some field recordings that were used on a track in the album. I was surprised that Blagoveshchensk looked so European, at least that part of it. I listened to the music and tried to match the mood and title to the illustration, using a heavily Photoshop-modified version of the Lenin Street photograph. The idea was to re-create the environment as a waking dream, populated by pale bluish shadows, that fades into light, much like the trance-fostering electronic drones in Platonkin's album.
CD cover is Photoshop, 4.80" x 4.80", June 2011.
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