They’re, within the phrases of their frontman, ‘that video band’. However now OK Go – the indie-rock group rightly fêted for his or her jaw-droppingly revolutionary pop movies (the Grammy-winning ‘Right here It Goes Once more’, ‘Needing/Getting’, ‘This Too Shall Move’) – are additionally That Album Packaging Band.
After a prolonged hiatus (as a result of youngsters, the pandemic, a co-written/directed movie referred to as The Beanie Bubble, middle-aged life), the LA-by-way-of-Chicago fourpiece re-emerged earlier this yr with And the Adjoining Attainable. It had been 11 years since their final album, so OK Go got here onerous they usually got here extra-inventive.
(Picture credit score: OK Go)
Okay Go
Okay Go – and the Adjoining Attainable | Tough Commerce
The video for the only ‘Love’ was shot in a Budapest railway station utilizing 29 robots, an infinity of mirrors, precision choreography and sleight-of-hand costume modifications, and was one other one-take surprise. Albeit that take was the 37th. However theirs is a love you’ll be able to maintain, too. The vinyl of their fifth album comes encased in an elaborately engineered 3-D sleeve that speaks to the lyrical themes of the album, and was designed in partnership with a ‘sound as a medium’ artist Yuri Suzuki, London multi-disciplinary design studio Yard, and the Vietnam-based paper specialists of greetings card firm Lovepop.
‘It is a sliceform sculpture,’ explains singer Damian Kulash, ‘a pop-up sculpture made of some dozen ribs that create two nested spheres. They’re truly half spheres, however there is a reflective background on it, so that you get the reflection, finishing the sphere itself. What it means is that you’ve a complete bunch of small, disparate, two-dimensional components that, when pulled collectively, create an surprising three-dimensional world.
‘This bunch of songs is all concerning the magic within the areas between,’ continues Kulash, a big-thinking musician who’s as expansive as And the Adjoining Attainable’s gatefold sleeve. ‘It sounds so cliché once I hear myself say it out loud. However the entire actual which means, the entire actual alchemy of life – and of artwork in life – is in these unusual connections. You place two notes collectively and someway they flip into an emotion.’
In different phrases: place two issues collectively and as if by magic – or by arithmetic – you get the chance for a 3rd factor ‘on a very totally different dimension. You get the adjoining attainable. That is actually what the title is about. So we wished the album package deal to do the identical factor. To take the only components and make one thing that appears unattainable.’
OK Go’s And the Adjoining Attainable vinyl
(Picture credit score: OK Go)
After all, this took its personal model of 37 takes, with ‘dozens and dozens of iterations’. That value some appreciable time, though the band are used to that: ‘Making the frilly movies provides a yr or two to every of our album cycles.’ However did that value OK Go – who run their very own file label – cash, too? Eager pupil of rock historical past Kulash will probably be properly conscious of the lore of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ 12-inch: a sleeve so intricate that each time they bought a replica, it value their label Manufacturing unit.
‘Sure!’ he replies, laughing. ‘We anxious about that with this! It’s not low cost. However we realised that the neighborhood of people that purchase OK Go data on vinyl are devoted. [It would be different] if we have been Taylor Swift and needed to guarantee that we have been coping with the bins in Goal and precisely what number of you’ll be able to slot in a kind of bins to guarantee that your value overruns aren’t [excessive]. However we’re not dealing on that scale.’
That mentioned, ‘it does get bought in massive field shops. However we determined it was value it to say: as a substitute of this being a $38 file, it is a $44 file. But additionally, if you wish to hear these songs, they’re rattling close to free on streaming companies. And if you would like this artwork expertise, it felt prefer it was OK to have or not it’s a barely extra premium object.’
(Picture credit score: OK Go)
That premium object rapidly bought out of its preliminary urgent of three,000. And OK Go followers weren’t the one ones who thought it was value it: the Grammy Awards not too long ago handed the band nominations for Finest Music Video for ‘Love’, and Finest Recording Package deal for And the Adjoining Attainable.
Certain, says Kulash, a win in both class can be marvellous, albeit largely by way of recognition for his or her valued collaborators. However the artwork is itself the prize.
‘Our feeling with this file was: we’re not attempting to get a replica in each set of palms within the universe. What we would like is that each set of palms that will get it, falls in love with it. It is a sculpture that only some individuals are going to get. And once they do, we would like it to be their favorite album cowl they’ve ever held. That was extra necessary than our revenue margins on the finish of this file cycle.’
The 2026 Grammys are on 1st February
