Wearing your sleeve on your…er…sleeve

I’ve been lamenting the death of the album over the last week or so. The mourning began whilst I was waiting for itunes to install on my computer, and thankfully took away an immense feeling of guilt that I was selling out part of my musical soul in a rather 1960’s style fashion to the… er… the man.

An just as I thought I’d found everything you lose by buying your isong and keeping it on your icomputer and ipod, (top of the list, by the way, is that everyone in the world seems to think anything can be made cool with the prefix ‘i-‘, so watch this space for the new ispoon or itoothbrush), some plucky guys and gals in Cardiff have invented another.

Sleeveface is a rather groovy idea. All you need is an old LP sleeve, a camera and a spark of imagination. The plan is simple: Pick an album, and fill in part of the picture with an album cover. And, is if to prove they really have thought of everything, there’s even a YouTube instructional video.

I recommend whiling away a while taking a trip down memory lane and reminding yourself of how great album covers used to be before they were reduced first to 4×4 cd inlays, and then 150×150 pixelations. Amongst my personal favouites are the Zappa, the Connolly and the Linda Ronstadt complete with knobbly knees.

There is of course a far greater positive from all this aside from being the perfect filling for the last 30 minutes of my life – it’s heartwarming to know so many people still listen to good old fashioned LP’s.