Known Pleasures – Office Of Craig

Introducing our new feature, Known Pleasures, whereby we talk to artists and creatives in the city to discover what music makes them tick.  We can’t think of a better place to start than with our friends at Office of Craig who have been instrumental in our visual identity in recent years! Below, Creative Director & Founder Craig gives us some thoughts on the tracks that he is currently spinning.

Matmos / Ultimate Care II

Excerpt Five

I’d listened to a few of Matmos albums in the past, and quite liked them, but then I read that they’d recorded an album with a pretty distinct collaborator—a Whirlpool washing machine. Despite the initial absurdity, it’s actually a percussive and meditative album; track five being my favourite as that’s where the squeegee comes in!

Nicolas Jaar / Sirens

Three Sides of Nazareth

Since hearing his first album Space Is Only Noise, which I heard being played first in the café inside the Craft Centre, Northern Quarter, I’ve been keen to hear anything put out by Jaar. Pomegranates was a great album also, but his latest Sirens is great (and has a scratch-off cover). This is my favourite track.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds / Push The Sky Away

Mermaids

For me the best album to date from Mr. Cave (who’s exceptional live by the way) and my favourite track from it. I can’t remember how I got onto Cave, but I remember seeing him having a drink in Cord Bar, in Manchester, what must have been after a gig. Snake-skin trousers, winkle pickers, open shirt; as if it was the most normal thing on Earth. But for him, it is.

Mark Pritchard / Under The Sun

Sad Alron

I found this album by absolute chance on a friend’s playlist, and despite getting a bit Radiohead at times, it’s a great album. Sad Alron is almost filmic, like a score, and one of the better tracks.

Scott Walker, The Walker Brothers / Niteflights

The Electrician 

A sign of things to come from one of the most truly creative musicians practicing. I love this for it’s darkness, but also for its composition. Walker always used and referenced more classical works and artists in his former albums (Scott 3, Scott 4) before later in his career becoming a bit more of an avant-garde musician. But this, for me, was the point where those worlds mixed for one brief point, before the transition into using carcasses for percussion etc.

Office of Craig is a creative agency based in Manchester. With a growing team of designers, makers, thinkers, and doers, they collaborate with clients to find extraordinary solutions to difficult problems, and work with organisations of all shapes, sizes, and purposes. Their work has been described by Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry as “beautiful” and by filmmaker Ken Loach as “terrific”. In 2014, Creative Director Craig Oldham was named as one of the most important designers working in the UK. www.craigoldham.co.uk