Features Record Store Day 2012: The Secret 7” Project

Hidden amongst the green vinyl and retro cassette box-sets, this year’s Record Store Day also brings the opportunity to own your very own piece of art history, simply by picking up one of the Secret 7” vinyl records. Comprised of seven different tracks, a 20th anniversary release of The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m In Love’, Noah & The Whale’s ‘Old Joy’, Florence and The Machine’s ‘Only If For A Night’, Ben Howard’s ‘Black Flies’, DJ Shadow’s ‘Come On Riding (Through The Cosmos)’, CSS’s ‘City Grrrl’ and a special dub mix of Bombay Bicycle Club’s ‘Lights Out, Words Gone’, each record has it’s very own unique sleeve. The secret? You won’t know which record is inside, or who designed the sleeve you’ve got in your clutches.

Half the sleeves were designed via a worldwide design challenge, run through the Talenthouse website before being handpicked by the artists themselves, the other half an array of sleeves by illustrious artists such as a septuplet by David Shrigley, Central Station (best known for their Happy Mondays covers), and Toby Mott, who designed the ‘3 Feet High And Rising’ cover art for De La Soul. And if the prospect of owning some serious artwork alone isn’t enough to tempt you to dig deep, we should probably inform you that the Secret 7” project has purely altruistic motives. Did we mention the whole project is in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust?

DIY caught up with Universal Music’s Kevin King, the brains behind the operation, to ask him what on earth inspired him to organise such a feat. “It all started way back last year,’ he told us, “Teenage Cancer Trust is Universal’s charity of the year. Inspired by a visit to RCA’s Secret Sale I wanted to do something a bit different from our traditional fundraising activities.”

“The project set out to rekindle some of the excitement for vinyl sleeve art in the digital era by exploring how a track would be interpreted by an array of brilliant artists. It culminates in around 700 individually designed heavyweight 7” records, that we’re going to display at the Idea Generation Gallery from Wednesday until the Friday before Record Store Day as a collection, and then on the Saturday, they’ll go on sale. Being for Record Store Day was a natural fit for these one-of-a-kind records and meant we could attract such great artists. The range of music really lends well to the project being how people interpret artwork. It’s going to be a great spectacle to view as a whole and interesting to watch the records disappear from our shelves on Record Store Day.”

So, the prospect of owning a genuine Shrigley, lovingly shielding a surprise record by The Cure? If that’s not one of the best ways to part with your Record Store Day cash (and for charity, no less), then we just don’t know what is.

The Secret 7” gallery launches today (Wednesday 18th April) on the Ideas Generation Gallery. You can find out more about the Secret 7” project at secret-7.com.