As a former faculty member and adjunct professor in UT’s Department of Art and Art History, Clarke Curtis said he felt confident in his design and printmaking abilities. However, not knowing what academics would become when COVID hit, Curtis left UT and started working on a new album with his Austin-based band, Black Books.
After four years of work, Eyes on the Mirror, Head in the Clouds will release on Nov. 1. Curtis, keyboardist and art director for the band, said his design experience came in handy when creating this album.
“Anytime that we produce new material, I love to propose an idea of how I can do something that’s DIY to go (in) tandem with any new release,” Curtis said. “Black Books is self-sufficient, and we take great pride (in) that.”
Curtis said he held several positions since leaving UT, but now manages a sales team for a union print shop in Austin. While at UT, he said he used the resources available to him for his band.
“With my background within fine art and printmaking … my knowledge within those mediums easily starts to build from there,” Curtis said. “I had done some screen printed t-shirts with some of the materials that I had access to within the department. I made a zine for our previous release. … We used the risograph machine, which is still used within the art program (at UT).”
Curtis said design concepts for an album often come last. Sam Rich, drummer, videographer and photographer for the band, shot the album cover for Eyes on the Mirror, Head in the Clouds.
“(I’d) never shot an album cover before,” Rich said. “It was the most wacky, out of left field idea. I was like, ‘This is not gonna work,’ but it worked. It always does.”
Curtis said the band shot the album cover behind their guitarist Kevin Butler’s studio, and within a month they finalized it. Ross Gilfillan, vocalist for the band, said the cover took an unusual creative direction.
“We’re grown men standing around on the side of this (studio), we have a disco ball and some fishing line,” Gilfillan said. “What we’re going for is this epic image. We have to trust that our ideas are good and that we’re going to capture it somehow.”
Gilfillan said the band brings all of their interdisciplinary talents into making the band successful.
“(We’re) this machine (where) all these parts are working together, because everybody is so different (with) what they bring to it,” Gilfillan said. “I’m constantly amazed.”
Black Books will release Eyes on the Mirror, Head in the Clouds on vinyl. Curtis said listening to the vinyl pressing sounded richer than listening digitally.
“I have heard these songs so many times, but hearing it on vinyl for the first time as a finished product negates all of that experience,” Curtis said. “It makes it a whole fresh new thing. I got a little emotional over it … because I’m so proud of this stuff.”
The band said they plan to release another version of the album shortly after its release and perform an album release show on Nov. 7.
“We’ve been working on this for so long,” Curtis said. “(The album is) 14 years of accumulation of songwriting, of attitude and heightening, just everything. I’m very happy with it.”
