Right, cool. I'm just frantically trying to remember the scenes from the book. I don't really remember what the Golden Country is... although it's pretty easy to guess. I'll also try to remember how I pictured the characters!

If you want, as I'm fucking lazy, you could quote a few short descriptions from the book which influence your ideas for this cover. Not that you have to, but it might help

Yeah, why not, it's the least I can do! First though, I was kind of hoping to keep this website 'secret' until the album was finished, but I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway, I was just being silly, but anyway, I've set up http://www.thepriceoffreedom.co.uk where I've put up my lyrics and an overview of the story of each song - ie. which bit of the story each song represents, rather than an overview of the entire story. So that should help you jog your memory a bit. When the thing's finished I plan to make the site look a bit more snazzy with some artwork and I'll put the whole album up there for free downloading fun times. Incidentally, the person who's credited for the non-existent artwork on the 'personnel' section will change, as he's not doing it anymore (obviously!).

Anyway, here are a couple of choice quotes to conjure up some imagery for you!


- From the first chapter:
"Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner..."

"A kilometre away from the Ministry of Truth, his [Winston's] place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape."

"The Ministry of Truth was startingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres in the air... picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

- About the Golden Country:
"Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground...... It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot-track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees."


Well, I can't believe I was bothered to just type all that out, but I hope that helps!

Cool! I really should read that book again sometime, the quotes are reminding me of it a bit.

It makes me wish I was doing your course, I would love to just be asked to write a whole album on a theme of my choice! Hope it's going well.

What do you mean by the three main characters by the way?

I meant Winston, Julia and O'Brien, I suppose he isn't in it as much as Winston or Julia but I saw him as a main character too.

It really is a great book indeed! It was possibly the first real great book I've ever read (and that was only last summer), since then I've been reading like a madman, I read Frankenstein straight after (which was brilliant) and then Brave New World (which was the mopst unbelievable thing ever!) and then 1984 again (because it's so brilliant) and now I'm just reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K Dick which sounds like it could also be such a great thing.

Anyway, yes indeed, the course is really great. The task for the Independent Project was basically to do 25-35 minutes of music in some form, so some people are writing and producing an album like me, some are just producing someone else's album, others are doing a showreel of film music, and stuff like that. It's really cool that you get freedom to do what you want, pretty much, and there's no genre discrimination, so the fact that it's metal and I'm allowed to do it is really great indeed. Very good, yes!

Anyway, cheers again for helping me out on this one, I look forward to seeing your ideas!

no one even cares

Hahaha.

Resilience Records wrote:no one even cares

Your mum doesn't even care.

Here's a concept sketch I just started doodling. It does not really feature O'Brien, but the face in the sky is meant to signify Big Brother (sort of reminiscent of Eddie in the sky of Brave New World). I'm not very happy with how he's drawn at all, but this is only for layout purposes anyway.

I quite like the idea of the two figures below looking quite ghostly like that... also if you notice, they are just stepping into the Golden Country, walking into some grass. If you think that idea is a bit cliche or whatever then we can keep it a city setting and reserve the Golden Country for the back cover.

The cityscape is just random buildings scribbled in - again, not particularly happy with how they look, as it doesnt really look like 80s London. I featured the Ministry of Truth pyramid though, which might be quite cool.

I've been thinking I could do the actual details with some sort of fine ink pen (sort of grey and blue colours), and then wash in a sort of dull background with water-colours?

Anyway, the main thing at the moment is the layout - tell me what you think:

Thats a cool image, if you can pull it off it would look wickeeeed!

What Atom said! That looks like a really cool layout. I like the idea of showing a little bit of the Golden Country at the bottom, like a sort of hint I suppose, and then having the proper thing on the back cover. Maybe you could extend the view of the city to go over the back page of the front cover, and perhaps have some more golden country on the two inside pages (just the same image that'll be on the back cover I suppose). Also a very good idea to include the pyramid, very nice!

Basically, as far the whole rough idea in general goes, I wouldn't really want to change any of that. I can imagine in the final version it would look very cool indeed. It doesn't matter if it is a little bit cliched, the best things in metal always are!

Finally, as for how you're going to draw it - you mentioned using ink pens and water colours etc - I'll leave that decision entirely up to you, you're more likely to know about that sort of stuff than I am! Thanks for your efforts so far, I look forward to seeing the next stage!

thats awsome james!!

really cool concept. i can't wait to see what this is going to be like when its finished!

Do you like the Big Brother head concept Jon?

James wrote:Do you like the Big Brother head concept Jon?

Oh yeah sorry, forgot to mention that! Yes, a very nice idea indeed, I didn't really think of that before. Here's another thing I thought of actually. I forgot to mention that I'd quite like something for the actual CD itself as well, maybe a singular eye of Big brother or something along those lines, could be quite cool, and then I can write stuff around it (track names etc). Do you think that'd be okay? Hope I'm not asking too much!

By the by, I'll happy to reward your efforts, like a cash prize or beer tokens or something along those lines. Or just real pints in a glass next time I see you!

well I don't want paying, but I dont have any of these pens or water colours at the moment, so it might be useful if they were funded

That's pretty cool man. You should make the head in the sky the "your country needs YOU!" bloke! Or Uncle Sam! Hahaha :p That's really ace though