Sound & Vision: Behind the Music...There Is Sometimes An Artist

The idea that many of our favorite musicians are also visual artists should be no more surprising than the fact that much of the best art is made with great tunes playing in the studio. There is a long legacy of the artist-slash-musician in the history of popular music, from the bands that made up the British Invasion in the '60s and the subsequent rise of Britpop (where it was de rigueur to attend art school before forming a band) to the D.I.Y. ethos in punk that inspired subsequent generations of musicians to take artistic control over every matter of their identity, including record covers. Sound and vision go together--so well, in fact, you can almost taste it. The aesthetic topographies these musicians explore go past the limits of mere perception, opening up a synaesthesia of expansive possibilities. We hear you, and it looks great. -- Carlo McCormick

Within each group of artworks is one image that each musician chose (or created) as his or her self-portrait. These images are seen above the interviews.









               Devendra Banhart















            Antony Hegarty