The Floral Flexi Discs of Poland
Admiring the stylized still lifes of Polish record label Tonpress
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The flower is one of art’s earliest subjects. Within the Metropolitan Museum’s archives, the oldest work featuring a flower dates back to the Hellenistic period (323-23 BC). In Japanese culture, the practice of Ikebana, or the art of flower arranging, has been depicted on woodblocks and prints since the 15th century. From Hilma af Klint’s studies to Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Monet’s lilies, O’Keeffe’s stamens, and Andy Warhol’s screenprints, nature’s darling has never tired.
Around the same time as Warhol, flexi discs came into popularity. A thin, plastic version of the vinyl, made at a fraction of the cost, the 6” musical medium was used as promotional matter, usually found in magazines as giveaways. While the plastic could only hold two songs, and at a lower audio quality, the material allowed visuals to be printed directly onto the disc rather than on separate packaging. A great flexi disc anthology that showcases the wide variety of possibilities is Wobbly Sounds by Jonny Trunk. A survey of British flexi discs, you’ll find titles with ads for weight loss, to the faces of Diana and Charles.
The other night, while scrummaging through Discogs, I came across Tonpress, a Polish record label active in the 1970s - 80s. Sponsored by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza (KAW) or The National Publishing Agency, it released a range of titles, from foreign to domestic. For international releases, alternative album covers were printed on flexi discs. The covers across all tracks feature full-bleed photographs with no accompanying typography or illustrations, and became generic designs used across multiple releases. Some favorites include this image of a greyhound on Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” this cat on The Clash’s “London Calling,” and this pair of hippos on The Police’s “Hungry For You.”
The most repeated visuals throughout the Tonpress catalog are stylized floral still lifes. Taken in a studio setting, the flowers are thoughtfully lit and arranged against vibrant backdrops. Photographed by a variety of Polish photographers like Konrad Czapliński and Stanisława Jabłońska, the images are painterly in detail. They remind me of Basket of Roses by Henri Fantin-Latour (1890), the painting most famously known as the cover of New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies (although this album art wouldn’t come to fame until a few years later).
Find a selection of these delicate and delightful floral flexi discs below:
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This is so rad
Thank you so much for sharing this! In Polish, it's called a quite nice name “pocztówki dźwiękowe” (literally "sound postcards”). When learning about life during 1970s/80s in Poland, I’ve been fortunate to pick up random stories about some of this. Vinyl LPs and cassettes were expensive and hard to get at the time. So instead you could get these flexi discs. They could have all manner of audio content-- music, radio shows, state propaganda-- even cooking recipes! The cool part was people could write on the back, stamp them, and literally mail them to each other. It was a like a mailable mixtape. The sound quality was horrible, but it was quite a treat if you received one. And most of the time, the designs were quite striking.
Tonpress deserves more attention. it was one of the strangest and most fascinating cultural hybrids during communist times. Hidden in a housing estate, their studio had some seriously top-notch gear at the same time every other Polish state cultural institution had nothing. Politically connected and still rebellious at the same time. It wasn’t just the music and the art, but the fact that it even existed at all that’s still mindblowing. And they were also helping up and coming bands and other artists across disciplines. Just one of many stories from over here that's been amazing to learn about. Hope you enjoy many more great finds...