This is the kind of news that makes my day! Warp Records is releasing a new EP by Flying Lotus in September called Pattern+Grid World, a collection of new tracks coming just months after his last full-length, Cosmogramma (probably my favorite album this year). If Reset is any indication, he is no slouch on his EPs so I’m really looking forward to this. Included with the album is a poster by Portland-based artist Theo Ellsworth (below).

I’m not familiar with Ellsworth, but he has a Flickr account packed with his work which is all pretty fantastic and surreal. A great match for Lotus’ sound, I think. Here’s another piece below that I liked, similar to the format of the poster, along with some amazing woodcut characters.

While I’m not sure what the rest of the album is going to sound like, I do know this (below) is the beat that Mike Bigga (aka Killer Mike) used for “Swimming” on Adult Swim’s recent Singles Program (also below). I want to hear more southern rappers over tracks like this.

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Download: ♪ Mike Bigga – “Swimming”

Update: As Judge Mental from Vinyl Meltdown pointed out in the comments, Ellsworth also illustrated this great cover for Ramona Fall’s album Intuit.

Flying Lotus
Theo Ellsworth
Theo Ellsworth @ Flickr
Warp Records: New EP Pattern+Grid World – out 20/21 September 2010
Adult Swim Singles Program
Ramona Fall

The “Madlib Invazion” has been going on for a long time, but this year Madlib is working extra hard to get as much money from my wallet as possible. The Madlib Medicine Show is a monthly series of albums all by Madlib. Odd months are original material, even are mixes. July’s release, High Jazz, is a compilation of new and unreleased tracks from the Yesterdays Universe collective. And by collective, I mean imaginary musicians that Madlib uses as a mask, bringing some friends like Karriem Riggins and Ivan Conti along the way.

The album is in much the same spirit as Yesterdays Universe, which I wrote about back in 2007. Each track is supposedly taken from rare records in Madlib’s giant collection, going as far as having Jeff Jank create covers for each, same as he did for Yesterdays Universe. The Blue Note/Reid Miles influence on the front cover is obvious. The other covers may be less so.

As with all odd month Medicine Shows (like #1), a 3 LP limited edition vinyl version (above) with covers screen-printed by the Hit + Run Crew was released. Of course it’s sold out now, but it looked very attractive. I also wanted to share what will soon be the cover of the next album in the series, Advanced Jazz. See how many jazz musicians you can identify crossing the Hudson.

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Download: ♪ Generation Match – “Electronic Dimension”

Madlib
Jeff Jank
Hit + Run Crew

DeviantART has a reputation of being a bottomless pit of amateur anime doodles and lazy photography. But really, there are a lot of great artists there (Jasinski, for example), though you may have to dig for them. One of those artists is ~trance-orange, aka Lala aka Lauren Albert. As soon as I came across her profile I was amazed by the colorful, distorted, twisted, at times multi-limbed/eyed figures that occupy her work.

She recently posted the piece up top, a cover for experimental pop artist Jihae’s single “Succubus”. This is actually a variant of what was actually used for the cover, which has a warmer orange and green color scheme. Above are two similar pieces from her portfolio. Also, an animation! Featuring music by The Knife.

Lala
~trance-orange @ DeviantART
Jihae
The Knife

To accompany The Cover Up’s new home, I’ve also begun migrating posts from my other album cover blog, The Cover Down, into a Tumblr page. After I’ve finished moving the old posts I’ll start scanning new covers from my collection. Yes, this is a Blogger exodus.

The internet never fails at providing me with new illustrators’ portfolios to stare at enviously. One of those portfolios belongs to Iain Macarthur, a “fanatic of art since eight” based in Swindon, England. Honsetly, his list of influence reads like it could have been pulled from my own bio, including the likes of Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, James Jean, Ashley Wood, Sergio Toppi and others.

His muses serve him well, as much of his work combines fantastic line-work on abstract design elements surrounding tightly rendered portraits. I especially like these two portraits above of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the ornately detailed boombox below. It seems most of his newest work is on his Behance account, so be sure to check there.

Iain Macarthur
Iain Macarthur @ Behance

I’ve finally finished migrating The Cover Up from Blogger to WordPress. Along the way I’ve made some improvements. A tighter designer, a working search, related posts in the sidebar, a giant tag cloud, Lightbox on all posts, improved audio embeds and some other additions. Eventually I’ll also import The Cover Down. Flip through the site and let me know what you think! New posts coming very soon…

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I haven’t posted much here for a month or so. I’ve been busy. But I did have a chance to put this relaxed mix together, featuring a few recent favorites. Take note of the track from Dela’s Robert Glasper beat tape and The Roots track from their Dilla covers compilation. Also, rest in peace Nujabes and Steve Reid, both great artists. Oh, and props to the Freer & Sackler Galleries for their “In The Realm of the Buddha” exhibit. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to take photos… I’ll be putting together some more mixes soon.

Download: ♪ CoverCast #6: Spiritwalk

1. Erykah Badu – Agitation
2. Bonobo – Eyesdown
3. Dela / Robert Glasper – Dizzy
4. José James – Love Conversation (Featuring Jordana de Lovely)
5. The Roots – Hall & Oates
6. Daedelus – Order of the Golden Dawn (Featuring Laura Darling)
7. Nujabes – Moon Strut
8. Dimlite – In Groups To The Hydrando (Album Edit)
9. James Pants – Thin Moon
10. Gonjasufi – Sheep
11. Whitefield Brothers – Chich
12. Jaga Jazzist – Toccata
13. Four Tet – Plastic People
14. Steve Reid – Lugano