Nightports
Art Direction · Campaign · Identity · Music · Print
“Nightports is based on a simple but unbreakable rule of restriction: only sounds produced by the featured musician can be used. Nothing else. But these sounds can be transformed, distorted, translated, reworked, processed and reprocessed, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered.
This forces us to explore those sounds thoroughly and inventively. And it maintains our focus on celebrating what’s particular about that musician and the sound they make.”
– from Nightports’ manifesto
W/ Matthew Bourne
Nightports’ identity and subsequent album artwork is created to reflect their unique process – their identity is created only from the original letters of their name, cut up and remade into a new and more abstracted form.
Through the textured, die cut sleeve can be seen the photography of regular collaborator Sara Teresa, her subtle, shallow field images taken in the hills around Matt’s home.
You can hear Nightports w/ Matthew Bourne – the first in a series of collaborative records for the The Leaf Label – in all the usual places here.
W/ Betamax
The second release features Betamax — AKA Max Hallett — drummer in cosmic jazz outfit Comet is Coming. ‘Nightports w/ Betamax is one of those endlessly satisfying albums; the sounds are crisp, like the air once you get beyond the M25 boundary, and everything is in the right place.’ — The Quietus
w/ Tom Herbert
For the third in the series of releases, Nightports collaborated with Tom Herbert who made his name as the bass player in Mercury Music Prize-nominated bands Polar Bear and The Invisible, and has become an in-demand collaborator and session musician, including work with Adele, Lana Del Ray and most recently The Smile.