In case you were wondering about the photos, with the exception of ‘Beachcombing’ (24th June) which is just a nice rock I found on my way round to the house, the others are close-up details of the forthcoming album artwork by Martyn James Brooks.
Martyn was the inspiration behind the concept and development of the artwork for the record. All I would do is say ‘Angels In Drag’ and he’d be off, already dismissing ideas before they’d even made it out of his mouth, mind-Ferrari-tight-corner-artistry-nonsense. Those late-morning meetings over tea and the finest of pastries in Patisserie Valerie, Old Compton Street, London were very much part of the album-making process. Tangled pictures, threading dreams together, painting with spoons and napkins, hoping for a miracle.
We got the miracle, in the shape of Emma Perry. The shoot took place in late autumn 2002, in Ireland. We shot much of the stuff at Brendan Perry’s house and at Quivvy, his 19th Century church converted into a recording studio. Emma had an angel costume (which I’d imagined would be white), and she’d agreed to dress up in it for us. She is 5 years old. When she came down, the dress was brilliant pink with little wings on the back, perfect for the title. We wandered down to the lake by the house, where Wildcard (over for a bit of company and mayhem) and I stretched a huge white sheet to catch the glaring sun while Emma danced and danced, beautiful little ballet spins,the dogs going crazy jumping in the water and curious fishermen looking over as their boats sputted by breaking the silence.
Martyn was so good with her – he just had that instinct. And, crucially for me and my dreams of the cover shot, he GOT it. If I’d given him a budget of £100,000,000 and ten years it couldn’t have been better… I can’t tell you how good it is to see something that you’ve had in your mind for years suddenly there in front of you, real, in full colour, perfect.
But I can’t show you the whole thing yet. Wait for the record to come out.
Brendan Perry was formerly half of the cult band ‘Dead Can Dance’ in the 80s and early- to mid-90s. He’s an incredible vocalist and songwriter, a huge inspiration to me… I got the chance to do a world tour with him as guitarist in 1999 and we’ve been friends ever since. He generously agreed to sing one of the tracks on the album, ‘Higher Deeper’ – I’ll put an mp3 excerpt up later today or maybe tomorrow, along with the lyrics. I did his website for him in 2001, in the old days of Flash… even so, its worth a look, if for no other reason to visit the section on Quivvy church where we did part of the photo-shoot.
What a day! I never imagined I would see surf like I did today. I cycled down to Mistral Point, down south of Coogee beach, about 20 minutes of nightmare uphill/downhill bike nonsense, but worth every puff of breath…It was like watching a liquid avalanche with every wave coming in. About 20 other people were watching too… spellbinding. The noise was deafening, a huge crushing rush of water, with the offshore wind blowing the spray into 30 foot-long manes of white, the sun glaring down, conspiring to perfect the scene with huge rainbows.