Electric Eden. Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music
Book cover design by Eleanor Crow for Faber & Faber
Electric Eden documents one of the great untold stories of British music over the past century. While ostensibly purporting to be a history of that much derided (though currently fashionable) four-letter word, 'folk’, Electric Eden is a magnificent survey of the visionary, topographic and esoteric impulses that have driven the margins of British visionary folk music from Vaughan Williams and Holst to The Incredible String Band, Nick Drake, John Martyn and Aphex Twin.
Eleanor Crow’s cover design for Rob Young’s book uses Ivory, paired with Electra for the blurb. Released in 2009 by FaceType, Ivory is inspired by decorated letters found in an illustrated compendium about pomology from 1882. Here, its glyphs were wired up to a power pole, making the Victorian curlicues appear energized.
Faber & Faber’s paperback version (2011) uses a less playful cover design, still with Ivory and Electra.
The accompanying double CD set (Universal, 2012) sticks to Ivory, too, now making use of its separate swashes style for a bichromatic setting. Artwork by Estuary English.
