The Amen break is a singular sample of a four-bar drum solo that went on to change the course of music in the twentieth century. Thomas Prior’s Amen Break turns its gaze on 2020, and the moment that New York ground to a standstill, to consider how singular events—the murder of George Floyd, the choice to wear a mask or not, or an untruth uttered by a leader—can create ripples on the future, a beat and rhythm against which history is composed.
Amen Break looks outward from the decisive year of 2020 to contemplate what comes next. We adopted a tabloid-format publication using high-quality thin gloss papers to reflect the printed detritus of an abandoned Manhattan, using a loose card cover to replicate the boarded-up shopfronts of luxury stores.
Loose Joints Publishing, 2020
76 pp, 280 × 395 mm, 47 colour plates
Stapled newspaper-format booklet with loose silkscreened card cover
Edited by Sarah Chaplin Espenon at Loose Joints Studio
ISBN 978-1-912719-22-8
Book Design, Editing, Production
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