How the Band Lush Captured 1996 London with 'Lovelife'
Singer Miki Berenyi and designer Chris Bigg walk us through the visuals behind the group's last album
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Shoegaze is one of the few genres that has an unmistakable aesthetic. Soft, yet vibrant colors blur into one another, forming fuzzy textures across the album covers of bands like The Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive. British four-piece Lush, fronted by Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson, contributed to the genre with their equally dreamy visuals and ethereal sound. Signed to 4AD, the UK label that defined 90s alternative music, the group worked with designers Vaughan Oliver and Chris Bigg across all of their records.
V23 (the collaborative studio between Vaughan and Chris) christened Lush with painterly covers. Their debut, Scar, features blue and purple brushstrokes with what seem like silver strands, almost like a foil curtain you’d walk through at a party. Spooky is a bit darker in tone, with bright amoeba-like shapes floating across a black canvas beneath repeated layers of the band’s logo. In an email interview with Miki, she reiterated how much trust the band had in Vaughan and Chris. It felt like they “really listened and observed us and our music, and there was thought and sensitivity behind their process… We had so many years of having our music dismissed as bland and washed-out and not vibrant enough! It sounds a bit pathetic, I know, to keep moaning about this, but it genuinely confused me. I thought I was writing quite striking and impactful songs, so I was very happy that Vaughan and Chris recognised that in our music and represented it as such in their artwork.”
For their fourth, and what would be their final LP, Lovelife, designer Chris Bigg recalls how the band’s “sound was different, more urgent, more direct, shorter songs, dare I say poppy.” Lush was leaving Shoegaze behind for Britpop, which required a new visual attitude. The product of that transformation is, dare I say, a “perfect” photo series that encapsulates 1996 London.
When I first discovered Lush and subsequently Lovelife years ago, I was infatuated with these seemingly random photos of people holding oversized signs around London. They reminded me of folks on the side of the highway twirling advertisements for the local carwash or sandwich shop. Yet the printed logo gave them a Pop Art feel.
“I had developed a really good relationship with Chris, the drummer. He always seems to be at the same parties and gigs I went to. We would talk a lot about art and design and I think [it] was he who suggested using real people,” on the covers, reminisces Bigg. “I hit on the idea of a logo like a target, almost Mod/London.” His train of thought continued, “Let’s take the logo into London and leave it places. We did some tests. It needed more! How about strangers holding the logo? Normal people stopped and asked to hold the logo. Some proudly, some a little shy, and everything in between.”
Working with photographer Ichiro Kono, the duo captured hundreds of images and selected the best for the album cover, inserts, and singles. Chris carried on, “As the test images started coming in, we gained confidence in the idea… myself and the photographer would go to various places around London [at] all times of day and snap away. I don’t remember any particular reason for the locations; the idea sort of worked anywhere. We felt it needed to be urban and nothing too recognisable in the background. It was a London record by a London band. The guy in the garden centre is a favourite. Also, the clubber who had not been to bed, doing a handstand, holding the logo with his feet. This was shot at 5 am on a beautiful summer’s morning in Camden, London.”
The outcome is quite a shift from their earlier discography, but a perfect representation of the album’s ethos. Miki writes, “Lovelife represented a bit of a schism. We actively decided to strip back the sound by using our live sound engineer (rather than a known producer) to record, and went along with Warner’s recommendation of mixing in the US (with Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie). And I think that the sleeves may have reflected this. Diverse Londoners in urban settings, unstyled photos with a ‘snapshot’ feel rather than curated and abstract artwork. More upfront, less obscure and subtle.” Chris looks back at the campaign fondly. “It was really refreshing. It felt very spontaneous, carefree. Very liberating. It opened my eyes to a different way of working and thinking. I am very proud of the Lush body of work and the band and 4AD, who let the visuals be as diverse as they are.”
See more of these delightfully fun photos below and in the music video for “Single Girl”:
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Big Lush fan, although I guess I never put too much thought into their aesthetics -- the one department where they really *weren't* the equals of MBV/Slowdive/Ride imo. But "Lovelife" does have a pretty striking cover.
Idle thought: ya think RAYE deliberately copped this "holding the logo" gimmick for her "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND" single? Probably just coincidence...