Design of Reinis Jaunais album Nest by Lote Vilma

Illustrator Lote Vilma has collaborated with musician Reinis Jaunais before — the two have participated in several performances of the Drawing Theatre (Zīmējumu teātris), and the artist also drew at the launch of Jaunais’ previous album Vārdi in 2023. Last year, when Reinis offered to create the artwork for the world music album Nest, Lote accepted without thinking twice. «It’s an exciting task to visually frame music, and a record is a beautiful object to work on. I also felt a lot of trust from Reinis in the process, which is important in a creative collaboration,» she says. At first, the musician shared what each piece meant to him, and later he received sketches from the illustrator. There were very few comments, however, and Lote enjoyed the sense of trust that allowed the work to move forward successfully.

The instrumental album Nest, three years in the making by Reinis Jaunas, features cellist Erna Daugaviete, drummer Andris Buiķis, bassist Jānis Rubiks, trumpeter Harijs Ločmelis, and electronic music producer EIII. Reinis Jaunais can be heard on the album playing various instruments made in Latvia, including guitar, kokle, steel bell drum, and the modular Erica Synths Pico System III synthesiser.

The illustrator says she is used to working with text and images, but «sound and image are something else». While working on the album artwork, Lote listened to Nest on headphones, tried to feel its mood, and recalled Reinis’ stories about his travels. Most vividly, she remembers the musician’s «crazy idea» to hitchhike to the desert. It was this story that she most strongly associated with, so the abstract visuals of the album show the sun, water, mountains, the moon, and, through the colours, also the heat. «Since elements from nature often appear in Reinis’ songs, I also divided the front cover with them. When I thought of Nest, the withered bushes that roam the deserts and look a bit like nests came to mind. They also remind me of Reinis, who is on the move so much, including in deserts. We put the tumbleweed on the back of the cover and in the middle of the record on the B side.»

Lote says that before sketching, she also studied other albums in the record store, of which the CD Pink Moon by Nick Drake caught her attention the most. The cover features a surreal painting with various interesting images — a red moon, a greenish sky, a stamp with a rocket, a seashell, and others creating a «dark, haunting atmosphere». From Nick Drake, Lote «borrowed» the idea of a brightly coloured inside cover. For Drake, it is turquoise blue; for Reinis Jaunais, it is orange. «I had listened to Drake’s music before, but after this, I developed a special relationship with this particular album, so it was important that I was able to take something from it. It’s also his last album, sad, fragile, subdued, but very beautiful».

The sketches for Nest were done with orange and pink acrylic markers. «I was drawing everything with them at the time, and I liked to see how the thinking changes when the line is not just black but in different colours that can be placed on top of each other.» The finished version, however, was drawn in ink, as it was difficult to keep the colours exactly as Lote had imagined when transferring the marker drawings to the computer. It was «easier and cleaner» to achieve the desired result by drawing each colour on a separate sheet in black, then assigning the corresponding colour on the computer and combining them together.

The Nest records were pressed at the Semikols press in Riga. The album is also available on CD and streaming platforms. In addition, t-shirts with the album’s design elements are also available. For adapting the illustrations to different needs, such as animations on digital platforms, Laima Jaunā is responsible. «As the author, I’m delighted that the album artwork is being developed further and used so widely,» says Lote Vilma.

Reinis Jaunais’ album has already been noticed both locally and internationally. Nest was one of five nominees in the Best Album Design category of the Annual Latvian Music Recording Awards 2025, where Patrīcija Krūmiņa’s artwork for DJ Krankenwagen’s album Slow Help was named the best. In January, Nest was also nominated for the Latvian Public Media Annual Award in Culture 2024. The musician himself is touring the UK in February.