Bandits of Stature

Coincidentally coinciding with HM's release of Angel is an album of new compositions by Harold Budd. Titled Bandits of Stature, the album features 14 compact (i.e. short) string quartets played by the Formalist Quartet. Our copy is en route, so no more details at this time, but clips can be heard on the Darla site.

Harold's always had a flair for song and album titles: "Flowered Knife Shadows," "Balthus Bemused by Color," "Ice Floes in Eden," "Gorgon's Anxious Pansy"... Be fun to gather a bunch or artists, give each a title and see what people come up with visually. Perhaps a future project.

Harold Budd's Angel

With the arrival of the slipcases this week, Angel, the new collection of poems by Harold Budd, is ready for publication. The poems were written over a period of 18 months, the last one after the death of the mother of Harold's son this past July. His poems have been described as the translations in verse of his music, combining wit, restraint, pathos and honesty.

Harold's work does not want, nor would it benefit from typographic gymnastics.* Spare and simple are the criteria, with particular attention paid to his intentions with breaks and space (line and word). Typographically the biggest challenge was planning a book in which some poems were just a few lines, while others ran over two pages; and where some lines had just one word, and others ran on, unbroken. The text was set by hand in 18-pt Perpetua and 30-pt Monument, and printed on sheets of semi-opaque Barcham Green Bodleian paper in a single color.

 
Because the Bodleian is such a thin sheet, the entire seven sheets comfortably made a single signature, which is sewn into a stiff printed wrap with a two-layered dust jacket: a sheet of hand-marbled paper is wrapped in semi-transparent Japanese tissue, upon on which the title has been printed. The book is presented in a slipcase covered in the same vintage marbled paper, with a spine label.

The quantity of Bodleian paper available restricted the edition to just 26 copies, which were press lettered A to Z and signed on the colophon by the author. Of these just 20 are offered for sale, priced at $450.

(* Just to see how things looked, Harold's poems were initially used to set trial pages for HM's upcoming book of typographic frolics, putting the various metal fonts in our cabinets to work. One of our favorite sketches was for this untitled poem from Angel:

Look what showed up in this week's New Yorker!

As we said, this kind of playfulness doesn't suit the poems in Angel. But one poem that was cut from the book, "The Desert Tramp," will be included, with typographic flourishes, in a collection of miscellany HM will be printing for issue at Codex next spring.)

Albion Rising

Finally printed something with the little Albion foolscap press. It's only been five years since its arrival. The cause of the delay was twofold: why use the little press when the much bigger Washington was right there; and "using" the Albion would entail a boring initiation period of making adjustments and getting used to how it wanted to work. But with the Washington still out of commission due to a fractured frisket, and some printing needed doing, attention turned to the Albion. The printing was the promised broadside version of Harold Budd's poem "Autumn Song 1990," taken from Angel (the poem that broke the frisket!)

The press was made by Steve Pratt. As recorded on the finial, it is the 15th Albion to emerge from his press works, completed in the late summer of 2007. It's a beautiful piece of casting & machining, and deserved to have been put to work immediately. Alan Dye, at Nimble Impressions, received Pratt Albion Number 18 in 2011, and was much quicker off the mark to put it to work. He also took better pictures of its arrival & use; see here.

The type for "Autumn Song 1990" was moved over to the bed of the Albion. Making it fit required some resetting, mostly reducing the leading. Then building a skeleton: the Albion's bed is noticeably larger than the 15 x 20 inch platen, so figuring out how to position the platen bearers took some thinking (since, once positioned, that's where they'll stay).

The press arrived with the platen well balanced, and the only real adjustment required was to the plate that bolts to the back of the bed, and from which the tympan hinges. When lowered, the tympan was not parallel to the bed; the hinge end was too high. But the plate that incorporates the hinges can be adjusted up and down (thanks for that tip, Steve Heaver of the Hill Press).

Last, with the type locked up and the tympan packing in place, the arc of the bar had to be adjusted. The Albion doesn't have the same feel as the Washington when pulling an impression. It probably is just a matter of getting used to the feel of it. The Washington has a little point of compression, a subtle lock, when you know it's just right. The Albion doesn't have that (at least, not yet); the bar just goes till it won't go no more, whether it's the stop or the type that calls halt. So, allowing for an average amount of packing on either side of the tympan, adjusting the stop to get enough impression, but not so much that the type will be damaged, took a bit of fussing.

The biggest surprise when printing with the Albion (vs the Washington) really shouldn't have been a surprise at all. It was how much pull was required to achieve a good impression. With the Washington, pulling the bar requires no more effort than closing a heavy door; the platen's 300+ pounds do all the work. The platen on the Albion, however, probably doesn't weigh much more than 50 pounds, so getting a good impression required both more muscle and a longer dwell.

About 40 copies of the broadside were printed, most on Reg Lissel's HM Text, some on Guarro laid. For a first effort on a new press, it's acceptable. It takes time to get to know a press's quirks (hopefully not the 10 years it took with the Washington). Next up is a prospectus for Cutting Paper, which will be printed two up, and is therefore more characteristic of the kind of formes we print.

Copies of the broadside and prospectus will be going out to our regulars and friends before the end of the month.

p.s. Rummonds' book was, of course, consulted while tuning up the Albion. Ran across this great offhand comment:

"If speed is important to you, try a Vandercook proof press or a photocopy machine."

Ouch

The tympan bone isn't connected to the frisket bone. That's a problem. Was (finally getting around to) printing a broadside of one of the poems from Harold Budd's Angel, titled "Autumn Song 1990." It's one of the longer poems, and the intent was to print it on halves of Reg Lissel's folio sheets, so trimmed that would be about 6 by 18 inches. It's the same setting as printed in the book, but arranged in a single column.

 
Makeready didn't go well, in part because the initial (lazy-ass) plan was to arrange the forme within the existing skeleton, which meant the roller would pass parallel to the type, rather than perpendicular as it should. (For explanation, see Rummonds.) That clearly wasn't going to work, so a quick re-jig to insert new bearers for (proper) perpendicular inking was undertaken, and all of the accompanying re-jig of packing. Better, but still not great. Two pulls of that and there was a scraping upon the platen when the bed was rolled in, that shouldna' been there. Splits goes one of the hinges holding the frisket to the tympan.

Said hinge was dummied up about 12 years ago by someone doing their best, but with no concept of what a typman is or how things worked. Long story short, too much solder was used to attach the (newly fabricated) frisket to the (old) tympan; grinding ensued, and over the past dozen years, what solder remained has finally given up the ghost. All work has, therefore, come to a complete stop, and having, for once, an excuse for this state of affairs, we are inclined to see how long this can be played out. 

Meanwhiles, we have finished the jackets for Angel. Our plan to do paste papers didn't do justice to Harold's arabesques, so we instead used the same c.1960s hand-marbled papers used for the slipcases as jackets, and covered those in a kozo sheet upon which the book's title was printed.

Feeling Moogy

 

The new collection of poems by Harold Budd, Angel, is almost ready. Got the trial slipcase from Adele Shaak yesterday: looks good. The signed colophons from Harold will arrive any minute. Copies are collated & pressing. All that remains to be done is to make the paste paper wraps. Copies should be ready for shipping before the end of the month.

 
The edition is so small in part because we had enough of the Barcham Green paper for just 26 copies (plus a couple of proofs), and not all 26 will be offered for sale. Probably only about 20. So, those interested should get in touch. A bit more info is available on the book's page at the HM site.

 
For those in, or able to get to North Carolina on October 27, Harold will be performing with MoonLiner's Keith Lowe (bass) at this year's Moogfest. Their set is billed as "These Old Love Songs," a selection of works from Harold's career. If we can get a set list, we'll post it. Be interesting to know which of his songs he'd include under that heading. (One could argue all of them, so who knows.)

Angel Close to Getting Its Wings

Silence a result of immersion in Angel. The BG Bodleian is glorious. Will post about how we're damping it soon, for those interested. Printed the colophons last week, press-lettered in 30-pt Monument, printed in silver. They go off to Harold for signing this week, while the last few sheets of the book are printed. Might all come together in time to have a copy ready to show off at the Seattle Book Fair. After printing, we need to make the paste paper wraps, which will reproduce one of Harold's arabesque drawings...

Two New Books from HM

Two new books nearing the press...

First out will be a new collection of 12 poems by Harold Budd, titled Angel. The book will be printed on sheets of Barcham Green's Bodleian paper (80 g, white laid), of which we have just enough for an edition of 26 lettered copies (plus a few H.C.) The text will be set in 18-pt Perpetua italic (the same font we used for Iskandariya) with our newly acquired Monument for titles. It will be a single signature (28 pp, 7 x 10 inches) – the thinness of the paper avoiding any awkward bulking – sewn into a paste paper wrap, with a printed tissue jacket. Issued in a slipcase. Some portion of the edition will be offered for sale (price TBA). To be issued before the end of the year.

Angel was somewhat unplanned for in HM's schedule. The poems were initially considered for inclusion in what will now be our subsequent publication (title as yet undecided), a typographic frolic that will show off the metal types held at HM. The idea was sparked with the arrival of some new (to us) types this past summer, which led to a re-organization – and rediscovery – of all the metal type at the studio. As a showcase for our metal types, it will be something of a companion to Types/Paper/Print, and also underscore some of the challenges raised in that book around using metal types. Where Types/Paper/Print was purely focused in the types used for setting blocks of texts, the new book will instead be using the fonts on hand to create patterns, borders and any other designs that occur, incorporating a brief quote related in some manner to the face and/or its designer. Another difference between Types/Paper/Print (and most every previous HM title) and the new book will be an abundance of color on each page. A preliminary sketch for the Perpetua page is shown below.

The primary faces showcased (one per page, rectos only) will, in alphabetical order, be:  American Uncial, Bembo, Centaur, Goudy (combining Old Style, Bold, and Bible!), Hannibal (with Duensing), Monument, Morris Black Face, Optima, Perpetua, Rubens, Unciala, and Verona (a.k.a. Bologna). Supplemental faces that may be sprinkled around include Columbus, Garamont, Shadow, Huxley Vertical, Lombardic, Reiner Script, and de Roos. 

In addition to being a collection of types, the book will contain a unique collection of papers: so far we've assembled sufficient quantities of Van Gelder laid, two different laid sheets from Barcham Green, a W.A. Sanders cream laid from the 1950s, two different papers made by Reg Lissel, and kitikata. 

The book (40 pp, 7 x 10 inches) will be uniformly cased in (various) marbled papers over thin boards, like the regular edition copies of Types/Paper/Print. The edition will be 26 press-lettered copies. Price TBA. Publication is planned for early spring 2013, with a copy being displayed at the Codex Book Fair in February.