Trick or Treat?

Teasing closer to Madness...

and

Oct 31, 2024

Jagged, foreboding mountains angle across each other as the clouds above form disrupted patterns of broken parallel lines. — Preliminary art for AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

We’re not quite ready to reveal Michael’s cover illustration for At the Mountains of Madness yet—it’s a cursed deadline, damnit!—but I do have a few more teasers to share while Michael completes his finishing touches.

I’d like to think the tease last week didn’t draw Michael back into madness but here we are…it’s Halloween and I promised a newsletter!

The preview follows an expanded feature on the cover for Sepultura’s classic Chaos A.D. album.

Happy haunting tonight!
~ME

CACOPHONY

Subject of some mad experiment, a figure bound by tight cords and wrapped in a sheet hangs upside down. Segmented conduit runs the length of the body projecting from a filthy array of mechanical equipment above. A horizontal strut extends to an injection site at the neck. As the wrapped figure writhes, bandages dangle over a glassy eye set in the machinery below. He cranes his neck as if sightless he senses its presence. Hidden within the machinery, gruesome faces peer out. From behind the bank of equipment, hands reach up suggesting the rapture of some hellish concert crowd. Rendered just behind, a dark maw opens to receive body and soul. The rest of the background is an abstraction in purple, warped brick interrupted by scenes of suffering—faces crying out, more pierced by spikes and consumed within toothy amoeboid shapes. An ammonite spiral unwinds to take snail form. A trilobite floats out of a standing circle of stone. — CACOPHONY (1992), Mixed Media - 24" x 24"

I had a good relationship with Road Runner Records and Sepultura after their Beneath the Remains and Arise releases. When they sent a sample of “Refuse/Resist”—which I loved—I was eager to be part of the project for Chaos A.D.

LEFT: Album cover for BENEATH THE REMAINS by Sepultura featuring the painting NIGHTMARE IN BLACK. RIGHT: Album cover for ARISE featuring the painting of the same title. — Album covers for BENEATH THE REMAINS and ARISE

Everyone—from the band to the art director and staff at Roadrunner—was terrific to work with. It was such a no-hassle thing compared to other efforts for other artists. They were encouraging and the atmosphere was excellent; we were, I felt, all on the same vibe.

The music was the uniting force. But to be honest, I could have done several paintings just on the theme of “Biotech is Godzilla”! So my main problem was choosing which of a welter of potential ideas to run with!

Working on CACOPHONY. Photo by Brad Stanton

I saw the picture in my head one evening when I was stuck in a crowded room filled with noisy people. I felt trapped and driven to distraction by the commotion, hands grasping at me for attention, when all I wanted to do is get away and find quiet somewhere.

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