Creating the album artwork
The artwork for Krona (Крона) was designed to reflect the world that inspired the music: the forests, the myth and folklore, and the deep connection to nature that’s central to Udmurt culture.
Krona (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Music by Adele Payne, featuring Азвесям
Artwork by Tom Payne
But what does Krona mean?
In Russian, it means the crown of treetops - the music and energy of rustling leaves at the very top of our natural world, where nature meets the sky. It’s a beautiful vision brought to life by scriptwriter and director Vera Veredyuk.
Creating the artwork
While the music draws inspiration from Udmurtia, the album artwork is a little more surreal and personal. You’ll see familiar things: my face, my gusli, and a landscape that feels like it sits somewhere between my imagination and that of Tom Payne’s – the man who crafted this surreal world and staged it in Blender (even creating a very accurate version of my gusli!)
Because creating bespoke elements from scratch is very time-consuming, Tom focused his energy on three things: creating me, creating the gusli, and crafting the lighting.
Tom has an incredible eye for colour and atmosphere, and the refractions through the glass Krona/Крона title - along with the carefully placed beams of light, are where his attention to detail really shows.
Using Symbolism
Look closely and you’ll see the eight-pointed star — a symbol of protection in Udmurt folklore and an indication of the place where the story unfolds.
The star is also the centrepiece of the Udmurt flag, coloured red to symbolise the sun and life. This colour appears often in traditional women’s clothing, where the star is stitched into patterns as a symbol of life and fertility.
The Gusli
This is the iconic Russian instrument that I’ve been learning to play - its golden sun reflects the light, and is a nod to Yarilo, the Slavic god of spring and warmth.
Udmurtia also has its own plucked string instrument. It’s called the krez, and it belongs to Finno-Ugric musical tradition. The gusli and the krez are distant relatives though, grown out of the same common culture of the Volga region.
Although Tom and I never got the chance to visit Udmurtia, the result is a landscape that sits somewhere between that place and our imagination.
