Pretty Things – Silk Torpedo(1974)

Biography
The Pretty Things are an English rock band, formed in 1963 in London. They took their name from Willie Dixon’s 1955 song “Pretty Thing”. A pure rhythm and blues band in their early years, with several singles charting in the United Kingdom, they later embraced other genres such as psychedelic rock in the late 1960s (with 1968 S.F. Sorrow being one of the first rock operas), hard rock in the early 1970s and new wave in the early 1980s. Despite this, they never managed to recapture the same level of commercial success of their very first releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Things

Album & Cover
Silk Torpedo, 1974, is the seventh album by English rock band The Pretty Things. This is their second album without Wally Waller, the group’s rhythm guitarist/bassist since 1967. The album has more of a glam rock feel, a contrast from their early R&B years and their psychedelic years. The album was the first to be released in the UK on the Swan Song Records label.

Richard Manning’s account :
Storm supplied me with two b/w prints and a mock up for the position to montage them. I masked the boat with transpaseal, cutting round the deck and superstructure and then along the bottom as it sat in the water. With a quite strong solution of Iodine I bleached the sky, trees and the darkness to the left of the boat to white. I neutralized the Iodine with developer, washed and blotted with water about six times. I watered down the Iodine and then carefully soft bleached the water at the back of the boat and also to the left of the boat, taking care not to bleach any of the reflections. Once satisfied with the result the print was washed thoroughly and left to dry and then dry mounted onto double weight mount board. I needed to keep as much of the reflections in the water, especially on the right hand side, as possible. The bow wave was added with the grainy airbrush using Winsor and Newton Permanent white Gouache. and the reflection from the bow was darkened to give a greater contrast to the spray. The print of the boat I worked on had extra paper on the right hand side. I laid transpaseal over the boat and cut down the right side of the wiggly dark line reflection below the girls heel, a straight cut across for the horizon and a straight cut across the bottom, allowing approximately one inch extra. This area was bleached to white and dried. I had made an accurate tracing of the finished composition and now taped it at the top of the board so as to be able to position it and flap it back when necessary. The rest of this account can be found at Richard Manning’s website http://www.richardmanning.co.uk/hipgnosis-album-cover-art/pretty-things-silk-torpedo–1974/11

The cover is a homage to the calendar girl painter Alberto Vargas, who was employed by Esquire magazine. He painted 40’s movie stars in raunchy poses. So, as Aubrey Powell says, they hired a glamour model, scenic artist Nick Pemberton made a torpedo out of polystyrene, found an old Motor Torpedo Boat moored near Norwich, named MTB 102 used by the Boy Scouts.

Cover Location: Old Motor Torpedo boat, moored near Norwich, UK
Who Did What: Photography – A. Powell. Hand Tinting – R. Manning.
Label: Swan Song SS8411(US), Swan Song SSK 59400(UK)
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell
For The Love Of Vinyl : The Album Art of Hipgnosis – Storm Thorgerson & Aubrey Powell

Tracklist

Credits
Drums, Percussion, Vocals – Skip Alan
Engineer – Keith Harwood
Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Vocals – Gordon Edwards 
Keyboards, Vocals, Percussion – John Povey
Lead Guitar, Acoustic Guitar [Acoustic], Bass – Pete Tolson
Mastered By – Porky 
Producer – Norman Smith
Vocals – Jack Green
Vocals, Percussion – Phil May