For their seventh album, Radiohead enlisted Stanley Donwood, a long-time friend of Thom Yorkeâs, to design this strikingly colorful artwork. The photograph underneath the text displays blotches of paint and ink thrown onto paper as revealed by Donwood himself in an interview with DIY Mag.
âIt was during the recording of what became In Rainbows that IâŚaccidentally spilled wax on the piece I was working on. Ultimately, the combination of hypodermic-squirted ink and molten wax became the dominant motif of the artwork. This happened as I was realizing that my very graphic, technical drawings of cathedral-like shopping malls and carparks were increasingly at odds with the trajectory of the music, which was becoming more organic and ethereal. The trickled ink and the effect upon it of the wax was a more intriguing direction.â
In a separate interview, he claimed the abstract nature of the artwork was directly influenced by outer-space photographs taken by NASA. Many have speculated that the orange mass being depicted represented a fetus but Donwood has stated, âItâs a rainbow but it is very toxic, itâs more like the sort of one youâd see in a puddle.â.
â GENIUS (Matthew Huynh)
âIâve gone in the wrong direction a few times,â says Donwood. âWith âIn Rainbowsâ we got to this decrepit stately home in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire and the music was in the early stage and Iâd read this very depressing book about what happens when civilisation runs out of oil. I had this idea that I was going to do drawings of shopping malls as cathedrals surrounded by suburbia. But the music took a different direction and became much more organic, sensual and sexual so I started working with wax and syringes. While they were staying at the stately home they found the bath used by George III. âIt used to have Mad King George in it and now itâs full of dead flies. Really weird, very haunted,â he says.
â NME (Lucy Jones)
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âWe did very well with Kid A considering what was going on,â says Donwood. Along with pressure to live up to âOK Computerâ and extreme fame, the band were also adjusting to different musical styles. Following the sparse method of âOK Computerâ, Donwood let rip on âKid Aâ. âI got these huge canvases for what became âKid Aâ and I went mental using knives and sticks to paint with and having those photographed and then doing things to the photographs in Photoshop. The overarching idea of the mountains was that they were these landscapes of power, the idea of tower blocks and pyramids. It was about some sort of cataclysmic power existing in landscape. I was really chuffed with it.â
â NME (Lucy Jones)
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