album art
Rykarda Parasol is noted for her emblematic self-designed album covers.
At right: Her latest, “Tuesday Morning”, depicts the artist for the first-time in color, full faced, surrounded by the meat-eating pitcher plant! With a nod to her own evolution, frogs and butterfly are in her midst. And like the frog species, she’s been around along time and yes, she’s got a spine.
Earlier albums
Like a series of books, the first four albums, tell a much longer story and are linked in their emblematic album art created by Mme Parasol. Below is an in-depth description of each cover.
“It's certainly rewarding when musicians create their own album art and are able to bridge the gap between their music and visuals."
- Fantastic Album Covers, Redefine Magazine
Our Hearts First Meet, (2008)
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts. There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays …"
– Ophelia on flower meanings.
from William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’.
The folksong "Yellow Rose of Texas" touches upon a love left behind, yet simultaneously being remembered forever. Ms. Parasol's first album chronicles a time in Texas as an outsider. The album’s cover introduces us to our narrator – a timorous form clutching itself inwardly and enveloped by what else? A yellow rose.
For blood and wine (2010)
"He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead."
– Oscar Wilde,
The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
It’s been said that the poppy fields in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz may’ve represented life’s obstacles. Along the bumpy road of life, our narrator takes a dark detour into superficial distractions. The flowers often denoting eternal sleep. With sonic tones of her home state’s Barbary Coast and Beatnik past, the narrator is no longer the rejected, but has taken control by becoming the rejector – yet may find in time that trial is a is a wearing deviation.
Against the Sun (2013)
"Had nature any outcast face,
Could she a son condemn,
Had nature an Iscariot,
That mushroom, – it is him."
– Emily Dickison, Mushroom.
"Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly"
– Sylvia Plath, Mushrooms.
Arguably less beautiful than flowers, the mushroom has its own charm. Birthed in darkness it huddles humbly to the ground inconspicuous at first glance. Here the so-called Parasol Mushroom covers the figure, which has now turned to face a golden hue. “Parasol”, in Latin, translates to “Against the Sun” – playing upon our author’s name. What are names if not simple transportable things we carry with us wherever we go? Along with the self-reliant spirit an acoustic approach to the music underpins the overall themes of independence, liberty, and self-determined thought.
The color of destruction (2015)
"At my side the Demon writhes forever,
Swimming around me like impalpable air; As I breathe, he burns my lungs like fever And fills me with an eternal guilty desire."
- Destruction, Charles Baudelaire
"Red coral, white coral,
Coral from the sea.
I did not dig it from the ground,
Nor pluck it from a tree;
Feeble insects made it
In the stormy sea."
– O Sailor, Come Ashore,
Christina Rossetti
The myth goes that after Perseus decapitated Medusa, he set down her head upon the riverbank and her blood bled into the water, mixed with the seaweed, which then turned it into coral. Though she’d had the power in life to turn men into stone, in the end man destroys her, yet she has just enough lifeblood left to firmly return her to the natural world. A dramatic “last word” in a sense.
Passages,
An Anthology of Lyrics
“Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.”
- The Last Chrysanthemum,
Thomas Hardy
The companion reader to the four albums pairs the doleful chrysanthemum with hopeful willow leaves while protecting its unhatched young. Reduced to the most starkest form, the lyrics here exist without the music and lay the drama out – connecting each of the four albums. Passages tells the story of the protagonist’s journey.