Gavin Turk is well known for his love of music, he regularly DJ’s and famously stood in for Iggy Pop in his Iggy Confidential radio slot on BBC 6 Music a few months ago, filling the programme with a wonderfully eclectic range of sounds. On Saturday (22 April) he was to be found at Lion Vibes reggae record shop in Brixton Market, which is run by his childhood friend Matt Downs. The duo were marking Record Store Day with the release of the LP ‘Use Your Loaf Dub’, which had been recorded and produced by Downs and features Turk’s Metaphysical Rasta Loaf (2003) sculpture on its cover.
According to Turk, this concrete loaf of bread painted red, black, green and yellow had begun life as part of a series made in homage to Giorgio de Chirico—hence the metaphysical prefix—and this work referenced the Italian artist’s The Disquieting Muses (around 1916-18) painting. But when Turk realised that the colours of the rectangular object in the foreground of De Chirico’s work were also those of the Rastafari, the loaf then entered its additional Rasta incarnation.
Turk also revealed that the record and the artwork adorning its cover were both actually completed in 2006, with various bureaucratic music biz hitches resulting in its delay. A decade later, the disc’s then-barely known line-up are now amongst some of Jamaica’s best known session musicians, while Turk continues to be one of our leading contemporary artists. So, last weekend marked a happy marriage of art and Dub, with the album both a limited-edition work of art (only 750 have been produced) as well as being an exceptionally good listen. Turk’s unique one-off sculpture is also on show in the neighbourhood: it can seen round the corner from the record store on Brixton’s Atlantic Road at Knight Webb Gallery. Natty breads, indeed.