In the 80's the Bhangra scene was just starting. I lived in Leicester with my young family and was working on a series of greeting cards when I was given the opportunity to work on an album cover for an upcoming band Alaap. This was the era of day timers, the British Asian music scene was growing like wildfire.
At it's peak I was designing two albums a week. Sometimes I would get a name for the album or a theme and a design would need to be created within a few hours. Everything was analogue, ideas were explained by phone and once the sketches on paper were complete, a final design was created on board with gouache. I used brush and airbrush techniques I learnt at college.
I wanted to bring both Asian and British styles together to form an altogether new style of work for the growing local Indian community. This music became the background tracks for many young Asians growing up in the midlands but even stretched as far as Canada.
My work took to me on photography trips to day timers at Krystal and studio shoots with bands like DCS, Premi and Apna Sangeet. I worked with pioneering publishers, Multitone records and Audiorec who bought the Asian music scene alive. It was a momentous time, I'm glad to have been a small part of it. My work was featured by the Leicester Mercury and that is an article I still have. During this decade I may have designed over 100 covers, most by hand but towards the end I started to introduce the use of computers.
I recently came across these designs, as fresh as the day they were designed. The airbrush techniques are long lost to computer generated images but the beauty of something one can hold and touch still stands today. We certainly enjoyed going through the old photos.
If you are interested in 1980s bhangra scene be sure to check out my exhibition in September for more details see here
Kamal