Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares (Elektra Nonesuch)

The US release on Elektra Nonesuch for Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares comes with very different album art than the UK version on 4AD from the year before. Both cover designs include elements that, from todays’s perspective, identify them as being made in the 1980s, and yet they couldn’t be farther apart.

Carin Goldberg (art direction and design) worked with an illustration by Melanie Marder Parks, which is characterized by clear-cut lines and bright contrasting colors. Again we see pieces of womens’ clothing, but no face, hands, or feet. While Grierson’s photograph is melancholy, even eerie, Marder Parks’ depiction of a dancing women in a traditional costume sparkles with vitality.

Goldberg augmented the nocturnal mood by adding a broad frame of black. For the typography, she chose Novel Gothic, an Art Deco sans first issued by ATF in 1928. It here is used exclusively in capitals, with ample letterspacing. This look was apparently en vogue in New York in 1987, see Louise Fili’s book cover for Bigfoot Dreams from the same year. The back cover (not pictured) is set in various styles from Goudy Oldstyle.

The same concept – illustration by Marder Parks with caps from Novel Gothic – was also used for a number of related releases in the Explorer Series: Vol. 2 (1988), Music Of Bulgaria and Georgian Voices (1989), Ritual (1994), and a box set (1995).