Behind Glass

Hospital: We Are 18

Here’s an album cover that started in an unusual place: A shop window in Camden.

After Hospital had a successful six weeks doing a pop-up shop at Shoreditch’s Boxpark in the summer, they organised another pop-up in November – on Camden High Street, and for one week only. Holidaying meant I missed the opportunity to flex my creativity at the Boxpark shop, so when I heard about the next one, I told Hospital I wanted to go there and put a big H in the window. They agreed, but didn’t really seem to understand why I was so excited by the prospect. Continue reading “Behind Glass”

The Trickartt DJ Bio Generator is back!

Hospital Advent 2013Part of my sprint toward the end of the year involved getting the Hospital Advent calendar ready again. I drew a nice medical-seasonal Santa behind an X-ray screen for the artwork this year, which was a good starting point.

We at The Purple Gates like to believe the record label is more than just music, so across the 24 days of Advent, we give away a bit of everything. This includes nonsense from me, so when we were scheduling the calendar, the 22nd was allotted to Ricky Trickartt’s Wonderful World of Colour.

We started scraping the barrel for one of my inter web experiments. As proud as I am of WashMa.ch, the Hospital Officers decided it was too esoteric to share. Instead, they suggested I give my DJ Bio Generator from 2009 a little revamp.

Just in time for the 22nd, I did exactly that; it now has additional ludicrous options and more current references so you can make a sillier Drum + Bass DJ Biography quicker than ever. Check it out here, make your own bio in a snap, and if you’re really a DJ, paste it into your Soundcloud profile (or wherever you like to share your mixtapes). If nothing else, it sure beats taking the task of biography-writing seriously and doing it yourself!

Press ‘1’ for Hair Emergencies

Press '1' for Hair Emergencies

Hey Internet! Here’s something cool I did recently – one of a few new T-shirt designs for Hospital. Maybe you know that most graphic output at Hospital is my work anyway, but this design feels a lot more Ricky Trickartt than most things I do for them, which is why (like George Forman) I put my name on it!

There are robots on it. Lots of robots. And a lot of other electronics, both modern and obsolete too. And best of all, they’re all unique! Tall robots, short robots, robots on wheels, vacuum cleaners, telescopic robots, dancing robots, and it wouldn’t be right without a washing machine or two as well.

doppel

So what’s with the hair emergency? The phone menu style comes from the robots, the emergency is because it’s Hospital, and the hair problems are all me.

original

Confused yet? Here’s what you need to do: Go to the Hospital Shop and buy a Robots T-shirt, in blue or white, wear it and love it. Alright!

Hospital Internet Evolution

surgeradio

The Hospital Records website and I have been on a long journey since I began working with the label. I’ve been planning on writing this piece about it for what must be several years now, but the thing with working on the internet is there’s never a finished point. You can’t carry on tinkering with a product once it’s been printed, but you can when you publish something on the internet! We launched a major redesign this winter, so now it’s had a few weeks to settle in, it finally seems like a good time to look back at how it evolved.

Back in 2005, before I got my foot in the door, their sites looked like this:

2005 2005-shop

They had their own website, which could only be updated by one member of staff, and their webshop was run by a third party. Oh how I remember that store – I used to buy white labels from it as soon as they were available, only to regret being impatient and not waiting a few weeks for the full artwork. Sometimes I would buy both anyway – Sainsbury’s must have paid me well if I afford so much Vinyl back then! Continue reading “Hospital Internet Evolution”

Year of the Boris

Considering that it’s probably the biggest project I’ve had the pleasure of working on to date, I’ve come to realise I haven’t said much about the work I’ve been doing for Netsky over the past twelve months!

2012 has really shaped up to be our Belgian friend’s year- I remember being astonished at how quickly he ascended over the course of his debut album in 2010, but that was nothing in comparison to his follow-up! The sheer expanse of this project has really brought it together – it’s not just record covers; the artwork goes much further! Continue reading “Year of the Boris”

Fearing Not

Matt Logistics’ fourth studio album ‘Fear Not’ is out this week, and once again, I have had the pleasure of doing the artwork for the project!

I love working on Logistics albums as I so often get the opportunity to go the extra mile with my artwork – starting from his debut in 2006 where I soldered together 750 lights into the album cover to 2009’s Crash, Bang, Wallop, which I hand-painted a canvas for, Fear Not has become a multimedia art project involving sleeves, stickers, animations, videos, hand-painted T-shirts and even Rubik’s Cubes. Continue reading “Fearing Not”

My baby: NHS200

I’m pleased to announce (or rather acknowledge as it has been public for a couple of weeks now) that NHS200 is not actually a salmon slicer but a book!

This project has been my baby for the past several months. Making a book of all of the art and other visual stuff from the label is something that Chris and I have wanted to do for a long time, with the idea being suggested several times at Hospital over the past few years. More notes and photos after the fold! Continue reading “My baby: NHS200”

Skulls, Spaceships and Playmobil

Tom Chambers is a man with a camera. He’s been taking some great photos and videos for Hospital for a little bit now, and became a resident documenter for Hospitality while at uni in Brighton. His videos for us have been smashing it, like this video from Hospitality at Lovebox Festival this summer, doing a great job of capturing the atmosphere of our parties.

For his final project at University, he made a documentary about Hospital! I was very honoured when he asked me to be a part of it; he even missioned it on public transport all the way out to Rickmansworth to come and see me. I guess it was worth his time though, as he used a lot of footage from our chat in the end result – somehow I ended up getting considerably more air time than Chris and Tony even did, and they’re the bosses of the label!

We were all really blown away by the end result at Hospital; so much that we hassled Tom to let us release it as part of our Fifteen Years Of Hospital extravaganza. I am a bit freaked out by the sound of my own voice, I feel like I say some stupid stuff in it (sorry Edgar, I don’t mean anything bad about you or your job, I promise!!) and I seem to not bother finishing my sentences a few times too, but if you turn a blind eye to my flaws you’ll find a really tidy little documentary.

So if you’re interested in our world, check it out! It’s a great little look into the Hospital ethos of fun, and shows a little glimpse into how we work and why we do it too. It features contributions from a selection of staff, artists and general friends of the label – thankfully it’s not all about me, or even I would’ve embargoed it!

And big up to Tom for making it!!

Reverberations (and Riots)

This week has seen the release of Unquote’s debut album Reverberation Box, an album project I have had the pleasure of working on over the past couple of months. The artwork I created for this album has been greeted so warmly I thought I’d show it a bit of love on Notes!

Unquote is a St-Petersburger signed to Med School after he had a couple of fantastic tracks on big sister Hospital’s Future Sound Of Russia project in 2009. His debut single, the substantially titled ‘Hide Your Tears Because We Are In Heaven‘ came out last year, and my artwork for this is where Reverberation Box started.

Continue reading “Reverberations (and Riots)”

Hospital Bike Club

For some silly reason I have agreed to partake in Hospital Bike Club – along with some of our officers, I shall be embarking on a two-wheeled journey from Hospital’s HQ in South London to Brighton on Saturday 8th October, before Hospitality Brighton that night.

I have been given the relatively easy end of the bargain here, because unlike my colleagues, my two wheels will be propelled by a tiny engine. This doesn’t make it much less daunting for me though – the trip from SE26 to the Brighton seafront in itself would be pretty much the longest journey I will have ever taken my tiny 50cc Vespa on in nine years of owning it, and my journey doesn’t even begin there, as I have a thirty-mile ride to the start line too.

Still, I can’t complain too much – Edgar, Riley, Zac and Tom will be doing this using the power of their own bodies while I buzz along with them, handing them sugary drinks and kendal mint cake to keep their energy up! Lilly may also be joining me to ride on the back, as it would be fun to film the event Tour de France style, with her facing backwards with a camera. We’re not sure on the legalities of that, but I will document the event one way or another!

So why are we doing this?

Well, aside from fun, we are doing this for charity! We are raising money for MIND, the mental health charity, which is a pretty awesome cause. You can donate money on our Just Giving page here. And if you don’t think my mammoth Vespa trip is worth it, then do it for the chaps who are actually pedalling the whole way!