Bryan Bulmer - This Great Distance

Music for vast canyons and rainy mountains

Inspiration

The initial concept sprang from a trip to Vancouver, BC, in 2017. The locations I visited and the photos I captured influenced my songs and later formed the basis for my artwork. My first draft started with a color-shifted photo taken from the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge.

Evolving the image

This image was fed through a bitmap sorter (larixk.nl/experiments/sort), producing an abstraction of the original photograph. I did this to evoke the feeling of churning water without resorting to a literal representation.

Next, I purchased a canvas print of the above image to hang on my office wall. I was satisfied and thought my work was accomplished, but seeing the texture of the canvas print inspired me. I could use this canvas texture to add a more organic feel to the final cover!

After photographing the canvas, I decided it would be unfortunate to crop the image to a square ratio. Instead, I created what you might call a "Polaroid" layout with supporting text to create vertical balance. My final epiphany was adding geographic coordinates relating to the album's theme. These coordinates reference four key mountains in the Cascades—Garibaldi, Baker, Rainier, and St. Helens. These mountains served as inspiration for several songs on the album.

In addition to the album cover, I secretly bundled an ink drawing with all Bandcamp downloads. This fictional map, inspired by real locations around the Pacific Northwest, tells a rough story of the album from start to finish, with each song loosely connecting to these locations.

Other Artwork

I design original artwork for all my releases. I wanted to detail the most meaningful one for my portfolio, but here are more examples of what I've created in the past.