What do you do here at Prime Loops?I'm Tom, and I'm the one who makes all those product covers you've been gazing at here at Prime Loops, including the newsletter and many parts of the website.
How did you get into graphic design?
I'm a hardened photoshop geek who started out in web and digital art at 15, using computers that would take a week to do artwork that I can now do in a day. Now I breathe HTML, eat CSS3 and sleep pixels, and try not to bore my workmates too much with geeky trivia about the computers and web tools we use.
And when did you join Prime Loops?
I've been with Prime Loops since the beginning, designing all the graphics and helping it grow from humble beginnings back in my hometown into the monstrous world-famous audio powerhouse it is today.
What's been your biggest achievement of 2010?
It's been another year of Prime Loops releases, at least one a week - and that's a whole lot of covers and newsletters. On top of that I've also been very involved in technical aspects of the website, setting up servers, working on system configurations and a whole host of other things you wouldn't necessarily understand, all to keep the Prime Loops ship sailing! My Design portfolio of my Prime Loops work is so huge now, it's a continual achievement, and since I got into design, I've always wanted to do album covers - now it's like I do one (or more) every week!
What moments will you never forget??
Some people know where they were when the moon landing happened, or when Kennedy was shot. Me, I remember different history within my lifetime: where I was when I found out Captain Beefheart had died. Respect to a legend, and to an early pioneer of the strange and unexpected.
Who's been your favourite newcomer of the year?
To music? I'm a pretty atypical music consumer... I tend to be blind to hype, and deaf to new releases while they're charting; It's more about what can remain in one's playlists for years later. Wild Beasts' "Two Dancers" has been all over my Spotify lately, though. They're newcomer-ish, and certainly straight out of leftfield with a sound like that.
What's the best live gig you have been to recently?
For an epic gig of epic sounds and epic storytelling when they played their whole concept album at London's Electric Ballroom venue, for their ability to turn right around after that and make a fine folkstomper of an album that could have been released in the 90s, and for gaining the stature to make giants like Peter Buck one of their own, it's kinda got to be The Decemberists.
Do you have any other artists you look up to?
I've also got some kudos for Kanye West on the side for being able to look inwards at himself through the fourth wall and write a whole album about the curious cutout caricature world that fame can become. And for putting King Crimson earworms in my head.
What's your favourite label at the moment?
I don't have much in the way of high regard for labels now that there's an internet out there and the existence of labels has become near-meaningless! I'm all about the self-promotion, for musicians, artists, or any other kinds of talent.
What musical hardware gets you going?
I'm a player of stringed instruments, but they're hardly all portable or easy to cleanly record. I've been meaning to become a more competent keyboardist, since I'm not that bad a producer on the rare occasions that I have the time to create some audio. Instead, I've found myself recently using my shiny new iPad to make strange experimental sound pieces and musique concrete using various synths, especially those with non-traditional input methods, like Reactable, Bebot, and more... If you see me in a band in the future playing an iPad held up to my mouth like a Talkbox, or hand drumming with midi trigger pads strapped to my knees, don't be too surprised!
