Slowly Downward

Stanley Donwood, Radiohead's artist in residence, responsible for every album cover since The Bends in 1995, has been flaunting his work all over Europe for the past couple of years, and his artwork for Thom Yorke's The Eraser granted him the opportunity to design the new sleeve for the republication of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Anyone who's ever read the children's (?) classic should vividly recall the ocean scene in which our hero, Jim Hawkins negotiates the treacherous waters of the Atlantic in nothing but a ship's barrel, fervently sought after by the pirate horde camped on the beach. The new sleeve, as shown, strikes the relevant chord, menacingly, appropriately, brilliantly.