The A to Z of Ghostly Art & Design Influences: Jon Wozencroft of Touch
A most excellent interview from Ghostly’s blog with Touch founder Jon Wozencroft. Jon expressed many forward-thinking ideas in this interview which we agree with wholeheartedly. Love, Glenn
Touch TO:80
Today we’re kicking off a new series for the blog, entitled The A to Z of Ghostly Art & Design Influences. If you’ve ever wondered who has influenced the art and design direction of Ghostly, here’s an opportunity to check out our bookshelves, so-to-speak. Our hope is to highlight the work of people who’ve inspired us over the years. Sometimes we’ll do an interview, sometimes we’ll simply share a few jaw dropping images for your delight. We won’t proceed in any particular order, but we’ll try to share these influences with some degree of regularity. First up in A to Z: Touch.
Touch has existed for its 30 years of life somewhere outside the realm of classification. A record label in the eyes of many, Touch has nurtured the careers of musical artists like Fennesz, Bioshphere, Philip Jeck, and Hildur Gudnadottir with an ambivalence towards trends.
Jon Wozencroft, its helmsmen and photographer, is an inspiration not only for his non-linear approach to media and art, but for his sheer love of quality. His lens, in many ways, has created the way we see contemporary Western art music. For Ghostly, coming into early contact with the music and packaging of Touch was a signifier that art and music can share equal footing. For our first installment of A to Z, Ghostly’s founder Sam Valenti asked Wozencroft a few questions about identity, photography, and the state of the industry today.
Touch TO:42
[GI] Touch is very up front in not being a record label. How would you define Touch as an idea?
[JW] We try to resist defining Touch, which in some respects is part of the problem of achieving recognition… It’s not a question of being vague or elusive—we prefer to trust the chemistry of our artists’ work and our long-term narrative about independent activity to do that—but let’s deal first with the “record label” situation.
