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Friday, May 25, 2012

A surrealist and Dark Entries

In 1979, Bauhaus 1919 -as they were called back then- entered the Beck studios in Northamptonshire to record 5 tracks. The most famous been "Bela Lugosi's Dead" that made it to be their first single. "Dark Entries" was also a result of that session and was released as a 7" single in 1980.
The sleeve was adorned with a detail from a painting of a Belgian surrealist artist named Paul Delvaux. Delvaux was influenced by metaphysical art as that of de Chirico, by mythology, medical curiosities and eventually by the fiction of Jules Verne. He became famous for his paintings of women both dressed and nude, who seem to stare as if hypnotized and wonder mysteriously through train stations or classical buildings.
As Delvaux puts it himself, he created a "climate of streets with people who can't be seen".
Bauhaus used for this 7" a fragment of his painting "The sleeping Venus" from 1944.


























The "Dark Entries" single came in three different initial sleeves. The Axis and 4AD copies had the lyrics of the song and a weird party photo of Peter Murphy on the back.
























The Beggars Banquet version had a slightly different design when it comes to typography and mentioned the title of the painting beneath the image. It also had the back side identical to the front, without lyrics. Truly collectible!



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