Yoyodyne

Release date: April 2009

“Yoyodyne is the name of the secretive and possibly malevolent corporation in Thomas Pynchon’s book ‘The Crying of Lot 49’. I think the album is kind of partly related to my own experiences of dealing with a major label and concerns about alienation and corporate influence.” — Fergus Lawrie (Projekt A-ko)

Cover art by Stef Thomas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stef3d/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stef3d/3326829298/

“I got hold of a hard copy of my first flirtation with album artwork today. The new album by Projekt A-ko entitled ‘Yoyodyne’. Projekt A-ko were formed from the ashes of one of my favorite Scottish bands when I was younger, Urusei Yatsura. I had pretty much a free reign on this other than the initial comments from Fergus and the final artwork is the result of throwing various ideas around between us.

The cover image is based on a photo I had taken a while back and I thought that as well as being a strong image for the cover it also fitted in well with the themes of isolation and corporate influence and could be seen to make a comment about large record labels viewing artists as a commodity and as being disposable.

The inner artwork is a combination of found images and some photos and text supplied by the band and has a kind of industrial feel weaving in another theme to do with a preoccupation with ‘Victorian steam-punk robots’ as Fergus put it in another conversation.”