Paul Waak

Considering that there are at least 15 Uncanny Valley musicians with their own ideas and approaches, it’s pretty difficult to describe a certain Uncanny Valley sound. On the visual side of things this is a different question altogether. Of course there are a lot of graphic artists who’ve done artworks for records. But there is one style that most people instantly associate with Uncanny Valley artwork. It’s those weird wall-breaking, pot-smoking, acid-tripping, video game-playing or car-dancing characters that illustrate all the Various Artists compilations that we have put out. So it’s no surprise that those sometimes disturbing but always funny scenes became almost synonymous to the visual impression of the label.

The man behind all this is Paul Waak. Like Uncanny Valley he was born in Dresden and like most of its protagonists he loves dancing in clubs. When we were searching for the right artist to design our first record’s artwork it was a mutual friend that brought us together. The colourful work was the perfect choice for our debut to start off with a bang. Early on, Paul was heavily inspired by skate culture and associated artist like Ed Templeton and Marc Gonzales but also by painters like Philip Guston and Joyce Pensato. After spending one semester abroad in New York he’s been studying Visual Communication with a focus on illustration at the Berlin University of the Arts. For record artworks he undergoes a long process of inspiration which includes not only the music but also the circumstances in which the music takes place. But cover art is not his only way of expression: he also produces animated films or paintings.

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