Fehler

Irrtum n. Mistake, Error Mangel n. Fault, Defect

Packaging Sound

Published in 2003 in the inaugural issue of e | i magazine, 'Packaging Sound' by Fehler member and Fallt co-founder Christopher Murphy highlighted the challenges emerging digital distribution methods pose to packaging sound.

I wouldn't want someone printing out a digital 12k cover if they were low on cyan ink in their printer, or printing it out on cheap paper.

Taylor Deupree, 12k

As we accelerate towards an era where music is characterised by the fluid dynamics of zeroes and ones downloaded and stored in the abstract and immaterial world of data it's easy to forget that music once consisted of nothing more than marks on paper, symbols or notes, realised only periodically during performances and concerts. Ironically music has come full circle, once again occupying a position of pure information.

En route we've made a journey which has seen the steady fetishisation of the object - the musical package or container - sound packaged as desirable object. At this point, on the edge of an ocean of data (some of which is sound), what does the future hold for the packaging of sound?

As we fast forward into a new millennium we now find the very package itself confronted. As music frees itself from the restraints of media, the sheer physicality of the medium of music itself is once again being questioned. The work of The Designers' Republic, in particular their characteristic hyper-brands developed during the 90s for Warp Records, point towards potentially exciting avenues of exploration, where the line between the CD package and artist' website are increasingly blurred. But this shift towards the purely digital, particularly the web with its relentless pursuit of newness, comes accompanied by the pitfalls of the inherent fragility of data, ever dissolving.

Stop by www.funkstorung.com (another by-product of The Designer's Republic's growing Empire) and you'll doubtless discover an ironic pastiche of high point 70s ultra-modernism that turns corporate minimalism on its head. This is, after all, the essence of the distinctive yellow and black Funkstörung 'brand', but the version you see has developed and evolved since it was first introduced. The original is long-forgotten.

It's this constant evolution that forces the question: where to from here? If sound packaging becomes just an experience, something you're unable to own or hold in your hands, what does its future hold? Software, with its version numbers and endless upgrades suffers from the inevitability of obsolescence. Soon the memorable Funkstörung website becomes nothing more than that, a memory, as version 1.0 is slowly, but surely replaced by version 2.0, itself slowly, but surely replaced by version 3.0… And as our memories fade, what do we have left?

This shift towards the purely non-physical has been further underlined by the meteoric rise of the .mp3 format. It's explosion in 1997 heralded a new era for music, the possibility of perfect digital copies, largely free (largely thanks to Napster). From a listener's perspective, it's certainly an exciting time with high quality audio available for the price of a download, but the reduction of music to .mp3s, minus packaging, offers a potentially huge loss from a visual perspective.

The good news: High quality music, freely disseminated, is spreading like a virus. As debate rages in the mainstream over the damage that 'free' music is doing to the 'big five' labels (specifically to overpaid CEOs), smaller labels operating at the margins of business practice (often completely off the map of profitability) are embracing the potential that .mp3 offers as a distribution medium. In the process, ears are colonised and a whole new audience is being exposed to genres they might never have considered if they weren't freely available: .microsound, clicks and cuts, glitch… The sheer proliferation of (sub)genres itself bears witness to music's new-found malleability.

The bad news: A half-decade of downloads later and my hard drive suffers from the inevitable incompatibilities that relentless software upgrades leave in their wake. No end of files, with generic names - 0008.au, df3000.mp3, 03.??5K7^4.ogg… - leaving a faceless history with only their sounds to identify them (if, that is, the original software to play them still exists).

Lacking ID3 tags, these files stand as a warning to a future bereft of packaging. Not only do they lack basic essential information - artist, album, track titles and release dates - worse, they're divorced from the visual form that has been a cornerstone of the music industry since British artist Peter Blake's iconic cover for The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' introduced the lavish packaging of the gatefold sleeve into a mass market driven by youth audiences in the 60s.

Perhaps the answer lies in the cross-over potential currently pursued by the rise of a new breed of smaller, fleet-of-foot digital labels: 12k (www.12k.com), Fällt (www.fallt.com) and Mille Plateaux (www.mille-plateaux.com) to name but three. All resolutely pursue a twin-tracked approach which embraces both the distribution of purely digital content, whilst retaining physical releases as revenue stream (albeit small) to underpin their non-profit making digital excursions.

Revenue streams aside, however, it's what these physical releases offer in terms of innovative packaging and design that's exciting. Despite being liberated by the freedom to explore online, designers like Taylor Deupree and Richard Chartier (12k/LINE) are continuing the tradition of questioning, challenging and developing design. Their use of non-standard techniques - embossing, foil blocking and die cuts - more often than not all at once on the same cover, are seeing a welcome return to the values that once informed the high point of music packaging in the vinyl era of Reid Miles' 60s Blue Note covers and Mati Klarwein's flowing gatefolds of the 70s.

As the jewel case dissolves away and artwork unfolds into the digital wilderness of the internet, it's no surprise to discover designers eagerly colonising the boundaries of digital space, but recognising that the physical forms of packaging are equally important - even essential - is crucial if our designs aren't to become lost to history. As packaging eases from the realm of the physical to the virtual we run the risk of it slipping away. As sleeves become virtual are we seeing the fleeting era of music packaging drawing to a glitch-filled close? Only time will tell…