What does living legend Fito Páez’s latest album trilogy looks like
His almost forty years career turned this hispanic music, literature and cinema hero into a widely famous mega-star both sides of the Atlantic where this project became unanimously acclaimed by the critic. Fito Páez became a Grammy nominee in the category of Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album twice in a row.
The following’s a brief review about the design process of his latest music material titled Los Años Salvajes (Spanish for ‘The Wild Years’) which took more than six months of development before being released as a limited edition trilogy box-set back in 2022. Also, each copy was hand-signed by the artist himself who conceived its visual identity in collaboration with the art directing duo, Max Rompo and Ale Pippa. The three of them spotted that totally different visual languages were needed in order to match the completely contrasting mood of these albums and the particular styles and époques that each one represents.
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about this trilogy
There’s a close portrait of the artist in his youth on the cover of the first volume, Los años salvajes (Vol.1 – Rock/Pop songs). After carefully scrutinizing tons of archives this almost blind white and apparently illegible shot appeared on a print photo contact sheet from a shooting that Fito did back in his hometown, Rosario, with photographer Alejandro Lamas in the early 80’s. Not only hasn’t that material been to press before, but this particular portrait remained unseen by literally nobody till then. So after digitalizing it and numerous restorative treatments, this diaphanous figure of a flawless young Páez staring at the marvelous years to come emerged and it looked undoubtedly iconic.
The second —and double— volume, Futurulogia Arlt (Vol.2 – Symphonic), is a collection of symphonic classical pieces that Páez composed inspired by the work of Argentine cult novelist Roberto Arlt in the 30’s: Los siete locos (The Seven Madmen). The design duo commissioned a series of CGI artworks from 3D artist Gonzalo Kaiser based in the illustrated cover of the book’s first edition and the visual diaries on the same novel by painter Daniel Santoro which result in a bold mix of tense dramatic/conspiratorial and smooth erotic metaphors.
