Keith Haynes's hugely popular Spines series is a collection of limited edition archival prints taken from his recreations of the spines of some of his own favourite, classic vinyl albums.
These are not photographs – they are high definition re-drawings of the original record sleeves that Keith makes from scratch. He researches original fonts and designs, and painstakingly recreates and combines each spine into the overall artwork to create a pristine, fantasy record collection. Each version includes a 'typo' to prove it is not a photograph.
Included in the series are works featuring The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Paul Weller & Bruce Springsteen plus Punk bands such as the Ramones & Sex Pistols.
In a recent interview with Manchester Wire, when asked about how he sources his vinyl records Keith Haynes said, "A lot of it is online these days, especially when trying to source specific song titles, but nothing beats browsing through record shops or vinyl fairs. I’m lucky that I have a local car boot sale that is phenomenal for finding vinyl – I have to stop buying when I can’t physically carry anymore. I’m also a collector of records (as well as badges, posters, magazines) so not everything I buy is used in my work. So I guess the more memorable responses are from the few people who object that I’m cutting up vinyl records. But I only use poor or unplayable records in my work – I couldn’t bring myself to use anything in mint condition."
