‘It Sent Chills Down My Spine’: The Story Behind Agnes Manners' Debut Album Cover

A couple of years ago, while I was still living in Sydney, Pat called me out of the blue to shoot the shit. During that conversation, he told me about a project he was working on and that it involved him folding hundreds of black paper cranes with his friend Slizard Jane and hanging them up. I was besotted with the idea and couldn't wait to see the result.

A year later, after recording Fantasia Famish, I sent the album to Pat to see what he thought of it and to see if he wanted to do the album art with me. His work ethic is second to none and we have a good understanding of each other after his many collaborations with Hellions so I was delighted when he agreed to work on FF.

Over the course of about nine months, we spoke sporadically about how best to visually portray the album. We came up with an idea that went through several incarnations but once Pat conceived of the cover scene as you see it now, we knew we had it:

I was reminded of the paper crane project that didn't end up coming to fruition. The record deals primarily with the idea of grief as a rite of passage - the hanging black cranes were so representative of how I had felt while writing the album that it sent chills down my spine. 

We spoke at length about inner dialogue and the concept of multiple personas dwelling within a person at one time (a motif of ours) and how that idea felt more appropriate than ever. 

We decided to convey the idea in a literal way by having me appear twice in the cover scene: the left side demonstrates the physicality of writing an album alone to assuage grief - I wanted to wear all of the ugliness that came with that. It had to say “fuck you, I don’t care” but it had to be presented so that the viewer understands it to be a false statement. On the right side, we wanted to personify sober anonymity and all of the lessons that come with grief. 

Whilst creating the album, Shane and I assembled antique instruments and sounds to invoke the feeling of permissiveness inherent to ‘60s and ‘70s rock music and in renaissance bands like The Strokes - Pat and I wanted the album cover to reflect the way the album sounded so we agreed upon a subtle retro theme. A touch of early Spielberg and a pinch of Tarantino went into the pot.

We sought out props that abided by our theme and palette and Pat sourced a house that was perfectly suited to our needs (a beautiful home inhabited by the gracious David, Marte and Celia.) The fact that it is a stone's throw away from my house added to the feeling of serendipity that seemed to envelop the project.

On the day, our vision was enhanced by Neal's creative flair. He went above and beyond his role as photographer and together, we exceeded every expectation I had for the Fantasia Famish artwork. Pat put together a typeface to match the scenes we shot and the vision was complete. 

The hurt and the moments of mirth contained within the album are such that it took everything I had to illustrate them melodically and lyrically, so the thought of visually articulating it all for the album artwork frightened me for a while - Pat’s compassion and listening skills afforded me the comfort necessary to discuss everything I had felt while writing the album and ultimately proved to be the pillar on which the whole project leaned.