#rattlebag

Rattlebag - The Tyburn Sisters

"A retelling of the supernatural murder ballad ‘Two Sisters,’ set to a traditional Swedish tune (Sörgsen Tön) and presented as part of London’s bloody history. Many miscreants danced the Tyburn Jig beside that infamous stream, buried now but still flowing. The river doesn’t forget." [x]

Two girls both young and fair of face walked by the rushing river One girl, her heart the blackest stone, had grown to hate the other And though she wore a smiling face, she’d fallen far from human grace Her sister she did murder

And by the lonely Tothill Marsh the girl did breathe her last Thrown from the twisting Tyburn's edge into the stream so fast The killer watched her sister drown, smiled as her body floated down Beneath the rushing river

The river hid its guilty face beneath the dirt of ages But hidden deep and far below the angry water rages And on this murdered daughter’s bones there grew the city’s ancient stones One death among so many

And others came to die in time upon the stones of Tyburn Hung from the twisted gallows tree to face a justice stern The blood that flowed into the ground was now the blood of London Town And of that hidden river

Death, plague and dreadful poverty are suffered by the living Still for the restless angry dead there will be no forgiving The seasons pass and bring a fool to build a house at Old King’s School Above the secret river

He dug the soil in that fell place where he had made his home And as he worked he found himself holding the whitest bone He took his blade to carve a horn and from his work a flute was born To sing the song of Tyburn

ART BLANCHE: Rattlebag

It's pretty clear from talking to Ben Ottewell that he is fascinated by anything to do with the Dia de los Muertos. Unfortunately for Ben, trying to merge this love of Mexican imagery with his music hasn't always been successful… for a different reason than you might expect.

"Well, I'm in a band called Gomez," he laughed. "We toyed with using Mexican art for posters a little but because of the name we kinda stayed away from it -- it seems so obvious."

For the British singer-songwriter, a solo album, titled Rattlebag, was then a great excuse to use some of the Mexican imagery he was so taken to.

“The thing about album artwork is it really kinda of finishes the record off for you.”

This meant that for Ben Ottewell, the cover for Rattlebag had to be both aesthetically interesting, and properly complementing to the music.

“[The art for Rattlebag] was a lot easier than [a Gomez record] because I had a very specific thing in mind — in terms of getting across what I wanted," he explained. "Being in a band is very different."

Once he had the base idea for the cover, Ben Ottewell recruited his friend Amy Williams to create it. Amy specializes in “paper-cuts,” a pretty self-explanatory, yet mind-blowingly intricate, style of art made from cutting designs into paper.

"She's an amazing talent,” Ben praised. “And I knew she was very interested in the Mexican imagery as well."

This was Amy’s first foray into designing an album cover, and she spent months communicating with Ben to make sure they properly, in her words, “captured the flavour of the album."

“[It was conceptualized] through conversations with Ben, emailing back and forth and sharing images and design ideas. I developed sketches out of those ideas which led to the final design. The final piece is hand-cut with a craft-knife."

Some of the images Ben initially sent her were of Day of the Dead artifacts that he and his wife had picked up during a trip to Mexico. Amy then responded with some ideas of her own.

"The dancing creatures in the border were my idea, and Ben left the design of the lettering up to me, which I tried to give a Gothic feel."

The final piece is a direct result of collaboration between the two artists, featuring elements that each brought to the design.

“[The cover] depicts a central character inspired by the ghost figure, 'Papa Cuckoo.' Ben imagined it looking like a top-hatted skeletal man. The rest of the paper-cut contains imagery inspired from the lyrics on the album.” Amy explained. "Ben mentioned liking the aesthetics of Day of the Dead, which fitted with my own love of Mexican paper-cuts (papel picado – perforated paper). We also spoke about it having a macabre feel to it, including other imagery from religious iconography."

It only makes sense that this “catholic stuff” — as Ben called it— is peppered not just throughout the album, but featured prominently on cover, because — as Ben put it — "You can't separate the songs from the art. The art is a visual representation of the songs. It completes the record.”

-Dylan Singleton

Pick up Rattlebag here.