10th post on "word shutter" is dedicated to F.I.R's 6th studio album - Atlantis (Mandarin title: 亞特蘭提斯, roughly pronounced as a te lan di si). I think that this album might be F.I.R's best packaged album so far and I have photos (as usual) to prove it!
Are you ready to enter Atlantis, the legendary island?
Finally! Something of manageable size to photograph - F.I.R's new album! I hope the photos in this entry are better than the previous unboxes. It comes in this rectangular slipcase packaging with the band members Ian, Faye and Real gracing the cover. When I first saw this album at CD-rama, I was like "HUH?! F.I.R. released a new album?!" I couldn't really read the Chinese words to see if it's a new album but when I came home to check, I found out it is! Got this at HMV Somerset with the HMV vouchers my cousins and friends gave me. :)
The back of the album. The theme of this album is very "ocean" and very "pirate" mixed with very mystical symbols. Interesting theme. Again, I can't understand what the Chinese word means. Heck~ I don't even know how to read some of the titles of the album but no worries~ I'll find out eventually... In case you want to know what I used to support the CD, it's a box of shampoo. Never saw that coming right? :P
As previously mentioned, the album is released in a slipcase and I thought that there will be a regular CD casing inside but no~ It's another identical-looking digipak album! They could have used an alternate cover art for the digipak though to make things more interesting. Or, they can learn from ayumi by making several covers so people will collect 'em all! By the way, they are selling the autographed album on YesAsia if you're interested.
The back of the digipak is slightly less wordy but I still don't understand the words...
In between the digipak are two booklets. Correction - one booklet. You'll see what I mean later. One of them is obviously the lyric sheet while the other is a photo booklet. Cool, no? :)
Maybe they heard my prayers for a better packaging as opposed to their previous album where you slip the CD into a cardboard slipcase - not my favorite packaging, and decided to go for this digipak packaging. I think that this is even more effective because the CD is well protected!
Click here for my take on the previous album's packaging (with photos, of course).
A Victorian inspired designed of the artistes photo on the left side of the digipak. See the words "Chapter VI"? Think they feel that this album is their 6th chapter in the Chinese music industry and I hope they continue making fabulous music.
The minimalistic design on the CD resting in the jewel case.
Now, let's take a look at the photo book shall we? :) Here's the artistes interpretation of the mystical Atlantis on the cover of the booklet. Looks like a Greek architecture with some modern buildings and a Singapore flyer rising from the ocean...
One of the pages in the photo book featuring Faye in this flow-y white dress - graceful!
More photos of the band members - here's Real.
Lead vocalist - Faye. I think she's really successful in the music industry simply because her voice is so unique plus she never had to show too much skin to attract people because her beauty comes from inside out. She always look calm and in control in her photos - really pretty~
Probably the brain of the band - Ian. The photo book features the artistes and these are just some of the photos. Get the album if you want to see more!! I love the smoky hair effect on the left, by the way.
So typical F.I.R.!! But this works for them really well~
This is my favorite part of the photo book - these Chinese words which I can read! No~ They are not my favorite because I can read them but because they are really interesting... These words roughly translates to...
In life...
The 10 most important treasures...
Have you discovered them?
Now this short message tells a lot about this album. Atlantis, the place which some think is fictional while some think is real. The island of mystery. The island that many, until today, are still searching for. So from what I interpret, is this album about searching for something? The different things in life??
And apparently, the track list, coincidentally 10 tracks, holds the key. Each track in this album represents something that the band, or maybe what they hope the listeners, will be searching for. Such creativity and depth! Each song speaks of something but unfortunately, I can't really understand everything but I shall attempt to translate what the album is seeking for...
Innocence, Hope, Love, Passion, Adventure,
Vision???, Forgiveness, Friendship, Courage, Confidence
Isn't this album beautiful even without listening to the songs? I had listened to the album once but wasn't paying attention to it but I sounds quite good to me. Heck~ Anything with such depth is definitely going to rock, no?
This is the lyric sheet - not booklet. Nothing really interesting about it but when you open it up...
The map to Atlantis! The underside of the map are the lyrics to the album. I took a picture of it but it's so uninteresting and plain and badly taken - main reason why I'm not posting it, so I'm not posting it here. I was pleasantly surprised that they really made this album such an experience to go through. It may be a very simple packaging but to me, it's simplicity speaks volume.
Albums with such depth are hard to come by these days - especially when a lot of artistes are just bothered about looking nice and not really bothering about the creative process of creating music. The meaning of music... Maybe they should seek for it again in Atlantis.
Now you know why I think this is F.I.R.'s best looking album so far? :)
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