East Ghost West Ghost
Rob Christiansen is a musical mad scientist. No doubt about it. You may know his work with Eggs, Grenadine, Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers or as a producer or engineer of hundreds of insanely aaaaamazing records. For his instrumental project, under the East Ghost West Ghost moniker, I kept going back to the literal image of two ghosts pulling knives and guns on one another. The name is just that good. Luckily I finally had the good sense to realize that the name was in fact so good that it certainly didn’t need that sort of help. Instead, I began to focus on opposing sides ultimately coming together in something unique. The music kept drawing out racing images for me, darting all about.
One disassembled bike later, I had the photos I needed to work a little magic. Sticking to two colors, you can see the press sheet above with the clean cover and spines and layered funky back – just like the work inside it.
The Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers pair of Rob and Jeannine were living in Japan while they recorded this record. Sending me little packages of random items along the way I made sure not to lose a single artifact. Naming the release “Ume Sour” after a sour plum drink that could be found in their region (complete with floating plum of course), I knew I wanted to wrap the packaging in their little correspondence to me. Combining various elements with Rob’s scratchy handwriting, explaining what they were trying to convey, made for the perfect presentation.