New shoes

Summer shoes of 2010:

Tunnel at the end of the light

Just finished up this one. 7":

Life nowadays:

Plastic-pickup-love.

Passenger seat.

Short walks.

Photographing strangers, slightly drunk, in the middle of the night.

Drawing.

Cronenberg-marathon by myself.

Working and working

So I finally managed to drag my but up to Trondheim, and the summer days are filled with work and good music here. I've been trading in some old CD's lying around here in some sweet vinyl, amongst others, I got my hands on the Jesu / Eluvium-split. Justin Broadricks' Jesu is one of my favorite bands, and Eluvium has done some nice stuff as well. I'm really into their (his) Talk Amongst The Trees album. Hypnotizing and beautiful!


Eluvium (Mathew Cooper) also made music to the new, and first feature film by Matt McCormick, "Some Days Are Better Than Others". Check out the facebook page for that film here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Some-Days-Are-Better-Than-Others/82275557873#!/pages/Some-Days-Are-Better-Than-Others/82275557873?v=wall (seems to be most updated site). The movie is screening on festivals all over right now, and hopefully the ones of us stuck in other places will get a DVD soon.


Music wise, I've been diving into Herbie Hancock (especially the soundtrack for the first Death Wish film in '74, very unique, check it out on spotify: Herbie Hancock – Death Wish: Original Soundtrack Album), Blood Command, a band from Bergen who debuted earlier this year with the fantastic "Ghostclocks" album on Fysisk Format, a bit of Yeasayer to get my grooves on, and the debut album from norwegian Moddi who won the A-ha prize, giving him one million NOK. Quite good. Like a norwegian Sigur Ros, interesting. I also came across this guy on myspace recently, a guy from trondheim with his guitar - worth checking out: http://www.myspace.com/oskarmusikk


Some spotify links for you:


Moddi – Floriography
Yeasayer – ODD BLOOD
Antidepressive Delivery – Chain Of Foods
Blood Command – Ghostclocks
Seabear – We Built A Fire
Isis – The Red Sea
Herbie Hancock – Death Wish: Original Soundtrack Album
Quiritatio – As The Dead March, Birds Will Fall From Heaven
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart
Swans – Soundtracks For The Blind
Damien Jurado – Saint Bartlett

On to more design related issues, I've just about completed the Antidepressive Delivery design for the new album. Much drawing, back and forth and battling the scanner, but now it's more or less done. You can download the entire album for free at www.antidepressivedelivery.com, so go check that out. I also redid their myspace page at www.myspace.com/antidepressivedelivery


I also completed the artwork for a smashing new band with a promising future, Moral Diffuse. A bit In Flames and a bit Sepultura, and a bit norwegian attitude: http://www.myspace.com/moraldiffuse

I'll post all of the artwork to my portfolio at www.attheends.com at due time. I have a lot more to update sooner or later. 

Trials

Is what life seems to be about these days, but I guess that's the essence of life anyway. I've been using my time looking for an apartment and a place to work, but things have seemed to settle in some way. I'm trying to get all work done in time, and so far things seem to work out.

My old friend Erlend from the fantastic death metal output Legiones just asked me to do artwork for his new release on Duplicate Records. I also did artwork for their merch, and demo, in addition to no less than three photoshoots over the years. :)

Here's a link, and a statement about the artwork:

"Reknowned designer Robert Høyem (At The Ends Of The Earth Design) whose works include covers for among others Slagmaur and Shining, will provide the visual aesthetic and the ep will be limited to 500 copies. Release details to follow."

http://www.duplicate-records.com/legiones.htm

Love and life

And all in between. Summer is here, and as usual, I had high hopes of getting loads of work done. Since I suddenly got this fantastic amount of time on my hands, I might do some everyday blogging. In june I've filled my life with heartache, listening DM stith, working, drawing, short walks, and coffee with my friend Sunniva on occasions. I take a photograph every day, and have been doing so for a long time. Nothing much happens these days.

I'm moving out of my apartment here, and into a new one in August. I'm actually going to do some more studying, so that's great I think. In the meantime, I'll be living in Trondheim for a couple of months earing some money, meeting old friends and drinking good beer. I'm looking forward to that. All though nostalgia always hits me. I hate being away from people I like. I wish I could just gather them all up in one place.

My friend in great coffee and conversation, you will be missed in Oslo!

Most crappy photo of all time, but this is my drawing of my future desk. A3 I think.

Just down the hill there, is where I currently reside.

Thats how I spend my days. On a design related note, I've got some really great work ahead of me. Really good bands have honored me with request of much design work, and I've also got a lot of good work done as of recent. High five!

 

List over cover designers

I was asked by a friend of mine who writes for a norwegian music publication to list a bunch of my favorite cover designers, preferably with links. Since I've already made the list, I'll post them here as well. My descriptions are in norwegian, so I'll just drop them:


Justin Bartlett
http://www.vberkvlt.com/

Seldon Hunt
http://www.seldonhunt.com

John Dyer Baizley
http://www.myspace.com/johndyerbaizley

Jacob Bannon
http://www.jacobbannon.com/

The Terje
http://www.theterje.net/

Trine og Kim
http://www.trineogkim.no

Grandpeople
http://grandpeople.org

Aaron Turner
http://www.aaronbturner.blogspot.com/

Mark Riddick
http://www.riddickart.com/

Remi Juliebø
http://painbucket.blogspot.com/

Seth Siro Anton
http://www.myspace.com/sethsiroanton

Travis Smith
http://www.seempieces.com

Niklas Sundin
http://www.cabinfevermedia.com

Halvor Bodin
http://www.deconstructure.com/

Martin Kvamme
http://www.unitdeltaplus.com/

Josh Graham
http://www.suspendedinlight.com/

Kim Hiortøi (google him).

Yokoland
http://www.yokoland.com
http://www.metronomiconaudio.com

New Anathema

Fan-tastic. Anathema seems to really have fulfilled the potential they displayed earlier in their career. This is by far the most mature, energetic, organic and wholesome album they have ever made. More progressive and more striking, lost of emotion as always. Great band! Steven Wilson has done the mix (maybe it's just me, but I sense some Porcupine Tree inspired sounds in there), Lasse Hoile has done the layout: We're Here Because We're Here. Go buy! http://www.anathema.ws/

http://www.burningshed.com/store/kscope/collection/222/

On another note, Justin Bartlett is selling some of his original drawings, so if you have some money to spend:

http://www.vberkvlt.com/

Hello, summer as usual.

Almost.

As the dead marches...

First of, the new Antidepressive Delivery site is launced at www.antidepressivedelivery.com - you can download their entire new album for free at that exact location. Good stuff! It's also up for streaming, and is going to be released on vinyl in august. I've been asked to make the artwork for all of this stuff, and it all turned out really good. This is the front of the vinyl: 

We also brushed up their myspace site at www.myspace.com/antidepressivedelivery so check that out as well. Here is a t-shirt associated with the release that is in the print right now:

I made a cover for Quiritatio a few years ago, a band hailing from the north, around the same area as Iskald. Fantastic group, they released a smashing debut album that looked and sounded like nothing else in Norway at the time, and they followed up with a great 7" release called Yana. What happened next is that they contacted me to make a cover for a 7" if my memory serves me right, but the decided to release another record, and use the cover for that release instead. I don't thing I was to happy about it, because I'd rather have another take on the cover concept for a album release. As things turned out, the album was never released, because the band broke up. Anyway - the album is FANTASTIC, and it's now up for streaming via Spotify so search for:

Quiritatio with the album  "As the dead marches, birds will fall from heaven".

I also got a few copies of the new Fall of Empyrean, album that have been delayed for years, probably made at same time as the album mentioned above. Some times things really takes time. Anyway, the print turned out great, and the album is as expected really cool. A real shame that it all took so long. In addition, we made a t-shirt to compliment the release, Grau printed these ones, and I really have to hand it to them, fantastic print from difficult material, and also as big as intended. So go pick up your copy of the new Fall of Empyrean, and a t-shirt: http://www.myspace.com/fallofempyrean

Other than that I'm working on a new Evoken release, it's a great honor to me to get to work with these fantastic doomsters once again, in the meantime be sure to check out their previous release: http://www.myspace.com/evoken

Some promotion

Narcissus + Little Truths

I've posted two of my latest short art film experiments online on vimeo, check them out:


Narcissus from Robert Høyem on Vimeo.


Little Truths from Robert Høyem on Vimeo.

Music

Music is a real important ingredient in my daily life. First of all, most of my professional work is centred around music, and a lot of the things I do otherwise is inspired by music. I started a music website seven years ago which has grown a bit of proportion for my sake, but I used to do a lot of reviews, interviews and features on different artists. Unfortunately that kind of work often comes to a point where you feel you can't really offer any of the music any fair judgement any more, and starts to objectify every aspect of it. Although I'm really busy with a lot of other projects these days, I sometimes miss the process of reviewing music and getting that special thrill when I dug deep into the bands history and whatnot. Without raising the bar too high, I wanted to mention a few albums that have caught my attention the last couple of months.

Midlake, The Courage of Others.

I guess this band is kind of big, but since I obviously never manage to keep up with the fuzz, this name is new to me. I stumbled upon a more or less kind review of this album, praising their 2006 album The Trials of Van Occupanther, which I immediately fell for, and when hearing this one I got a real kick on the things they seem to get some criticism for this time around. Amongst others, this album sounds a bit more gloomy than it's predecessor - suiting I think. It's allowed to be a bit more gloomy in 2010 than in 2006.
Check them out on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/midlake

Kollwitz - Like Iron I Rust

This hardcore / doom orchestra hails from Bodø, Norway, and this is the first release under the moniker of Kollwitz. The band members have a lot of good music on their conscience already with other nice Bodø-hardcore outfits. Fysisk Format has a history of really nice releases and with cover art signed the inspiring young artist Johannes Høie this both sounds and looks really good. Take Mouth of The Architects Quietly and dip it in the latest Cult of Luna, give it a nice unpretentious "fuck it"-attitude, and you have an idea of how this sounds. Check it out on myspace! http://www.myspace.com/kollwitztheband

The Album Leaf  - A Chorus of Storytellers

There's not much I can tell you about this band that you can't google yourself, but this american band is led by Jimmy Lavalle, and is somewhat connected to Sigur Ros in different ways. The music is not too far away from early Sigur Ros either, and that is good. Check them out on spotify or myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thealbumleaf

Dm Stith - Heavy Ghost

This album has been out for a while, but still worth mentioning. A very mysterious and rich album made by a really terrific musician David Michael Stith. I really don't know what to say about this album except I think it's really beautiful in its entity. Check out his blog / website which by the way is really inspiring, you'll find some of the music there as well:
www.dmstith.com

Monzano - By this time last year everything will seem younger

Norwegian pop/rock outfit finally got around and released their second album. The first album is a bit more rock and roll, and possibly a hint more rough in the edges, and this one is more radio friendly in every way. It doesnt really matter, because these guys write so damn good songs, it couldnt really turn out wrong. They had some really nice concerts around Norway to promote this release as well. Good stuff. Check them out:
http://www.myspace.com/monzano

Welcome back to earth

We had a really intence period of applying for schools, and it's really a relief it's over now, and I feel able to breath and live a bit again. 12-15 hour days really takes a toll on both your mind and spirit, and it feels really good to have a couple of weeks to just stress down before things intensify again. School wise we're working in this old factory building with these really nice offices in the 7th floor. I've been lucky and got a room with really nice light and some nice qualities, so I look forward to see what happens there. Beneath are a few photos from the location.

These following paintings are things I worked on before applying to different schools around the country. All of them are painted on wooden plates. Kind of monochrome with a touch of color here and there, they revolve around an eerie ambivalence.

Updates to AtTheEnds.com

Wheyey! A bunch of new updates to my portfolio:

I did a total redesign of the whole webpage and went over all of the elements in the portfolio, added some, took away a few, and put up some old ones as well. Some of the keypoints to this updates is the following:

- Easier to navigate through the comissioned work

- Photos of the actual printed items in most cases

- Description of the work I did on many items in the portfolio

- Added a lot of posters, merch design and a bunch of bandphotos I've

taken over the years.

- Added alot to the personal section, got a couple of short films that I'll upload sooner or later.

New stuff thats coming soon is:

- New designs; Majestic Downfall, Evadne, Moral Diffuse and Evadne amongst others.

- New T-shirts to the shop, and maybe some other stuff I've been working on.

- I'll also get the unused artwork section up and running again, contact me if you want to have a peak at it.

Above: A drawing of mine, and some detail from the latest Drautran-release.

jeez

Sorry for the total neglect of this blog; been very busy with school and design. Right now I'm working on the new Anti Depressive Delivery album, Moral Diffuse' first EP, Majestic Downfalls second album (smooth!), and some merch for In Vain. In the art department I'm putting down a lot of work on some kind of concept, more about that later I guess. I've finished up most parts of my first (very) short film, simply called Narcissus, and right now I'm working on another short with the working tittle "Little truths", or simply "Små sannheter" in norwegian.

To supply with some visuals this time as well I'll post two photos I have here:

This one is from a large projection of "Narcissus" at school, simply for sake of testing it.

This is a photo of a drawing I've been working on this autumn. I had the oportunity to snap some photos of it when visiting my parents a few weeks ago. Since the sun honored us with is rare presence, I took the photos outside.

Oh, and I'm also very busy working on a new online portfolio these days, so expect that one to be up in a couple of weeks, tops.

Happy easter, and cheers!

I'll just sleep in the rain

Shirt designs for In Grief. Like the colors, hope I get a copy!

This is the back of a vinyl release thats due very soon I hope... Skulls and blood, and stains and all very old school-ish but not. 

This last one here is a new sticker or something promoting At The Ends.

Saturday