Agna Moraine’s Autobiography, handwritten record art
Emo bands from the late 1990’s make up a good portion of my record collection. I was really drawn to quirky vocals, high pitched screams, odd tempo changes, and plenty of twinkle in the guitars.
Twinkle twinkle, whining in sweaters
Another aspect of these bands that I enjoyed, were the materials being released with their records and tapes. Almost always created by hand, my favorites were either silk screened designs or deliberately worn photocopies of original drawings and illustrations.
Produced on the cheap meant you often received extra “goodies” in the record sleeves that you’d never see in commercially released albums. And because the methods of producing these elements were following a do-it-yourself ethic, the end result looked like one of a kind creations. Notes and drawings scrawled in a journal, torn out, folded, and placed alongside a 7-inch record for you to connect with when played on a turntable in your bedroom.
Collect for the music, collect for the artwork
Agna Moraine’s Autobiography put out a Self Titled 7-inch sometime in 1999 (I think) on Anima. From the liner notes it looks like these dudes might be from Kalamazoo, Michigan… unless that’s the label’s home base.
Artwork on the front sleeve appears to have little to do with the song titles or content. Unless there is some obvious connection between knives, brown leaves, guns, wishes, skulls and memories I’m missing.
There is a mix of hand written lyrics silk screened on scraps of fabric (nice touch), and what looks like a poem typed out on a sheet of white paper. The poem sheet includes an illustration of a fish jumping out of water. As far as I can tell this sheet has nothing to do with the record since none of the words appear in the songs.
The record is pressed on black with white labels. Side A lists the 4 song titles, while Side B has a crude line art drawing of a man worshiping the moon near a dead tree and pond.
Images, sounds, and lyrics are all over the place on this record. But that’s ok. Maybe they’re meant to be from a dream…
Additional packaging photographs
