🎵 IT028: Resurrection
✏️ Uriel Grimaldo
🗓 04.04.19


Uriel is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Columbus, Ohio.

What’s up Uriel, can you tell us a little bit about your tape and your song selections?

‘Resurrection’ is a collection of songs that ultimately revolve around the theme of possessing an undying love for a person, literally. This playlist illustrates a loose narrative in which grief turns love into an abhorrence defying the natural world; a descent into lunacy involving the occult. Just in time for Easter ;)

How did you go about the artwork?

The artwork for this tape was influenced in part by the work of Alphonse Mucha whose colossal body of work heavily portrayed sensual female subjects in ways that also made them feel powerful, at least in my interpretation. It is that power that I wanted to convey in my subject, along with a sense of desperation and grief that got me looking at some religious imagery depicting Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion, as well. My idea was to take those two elements and make an illustration that inverts the religious imagery onto something darker.

What are your fave album covers, records with a great music and artwork combo, or musical projects with a visual component?

Hmm, Death Grips is a band that has crafted an abrasive personality that transcends their aggressive sound into a visual language that invokes dread, menace and represents the internet as the new frontier in uncharted, dangerous territory. In terms of musical and visual cohesion, I think they hit the nail on the head!

In terms of projects, I love Deathconsciousness by Have A Nice Life which utilises The Death of Marat in a way that both compliments the music nicely and encapsulates the sentiments expressed by the record. I’d also like to mention Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter, as that album cover gives rise to a combination of feelings that are hard to describe; melancholy, yearning, a saccharine dread, I don’t know, but I love it exactly for the reason that it evokes a weird combination of feelings within!

What did you listen to growing up?

I don’t recall listening to much music before I emigrated to the US when I was 8, but the first CDs I remember playing on repeat were Elephunk by the Black Eyed Peas (which has some bona fide bangers), some album in Spanish by the Italian singer Eros Ramazzotti, and my dad’s copy of Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Later on in middle school I developed a liking for mainstream rap music of the mid-2000s which lead me to explore 90s hip-hop artists like Mos Def, Mobb Deep, Tupac, and Biggie, to name a few. Later on in high school I would re-discover one of my all-time favorite bands in the Red Hot Chili Peppers (pre-Josh Klinghoffer) and with it an affinity to guitar-driven genres like grunge that had a big role in exposing me to the music I listen today.

What’s happening in your creative world at the moment?

At the moment I’m trying to learn more about illustration! I’m also trying to partake in more passion projects, mainly on growing a t-shirt business I helped found that employs young people experiencing homelessness through screen printing. Check us out at wildtigertees.com and place an order for a shirt designed by the wonderful youth at the Star House in the coming weeks, or get your next set of event t-shirts printed with us! Your business would help directly in training and paying some great people going through a challenging time.

Where to find Uriel: