Checkland Kindleysides has recently designed and produced the limited edition songbook Dreaming with Alice.
Dreaming With Alice is the title of an album recorded in Rome in 1971 by 19-year-old Englishman Mark Fry. Released only in Italy and almost entirely overlooked at the time, Alice was rediscovered three decades later by a new generation of music lovers and acclaimed as a masterpiece of psychedelic folk that continues to fascinate today. An original Italian pressing fetched over $4,000 at auction in May 2013.
The renewed interest in Dreaming With Alice prompted Mark to return to recording and performing. His 2011 album, I Lived In Trees, a collaboration with The A. Lords, incorporated a striking concertina sleeve by illustrator and engraver Iker Spozio, much of whose intricate, handmade work is linked to music.
Mark, who had been nurturing a project to create the definitive Dreaming With Alice songbook, commissioned Iker to create a set of original linocuts and CK to design a limited edition book that would draw together music, lyrics and illustration.
Checkland Kindleysides' concept embodies a gentle yet sophisticated tone, perfectly reflecting the psychedelic folk genre. The studio looked to bond the traditional values of typesetting with unexpected graphic cues evoking the mood of the era and the haunting nature of this cult record. The colour palette and tonal qualities of the stock, along with the traditional binding methods and gold blocking used in the production of the book, echo the period at which the album was produced, yet are bold enough to resonate with the renewed interest and appreciation for Dreaming With Alice. Iker's beautiful linocuts sit proud on the page before the calm and simple delivery of the lyrics on the opposite page.