Emerson hails late artist Giger

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Keyboard icon recalls creator of Brain Salad Surgery cover as being destined for greater acclaim

ELP keyboardist Keith Emerson has paid tribute to HR Giger, who died on Tuesday.

The Swiss painter, sculptor and set designer died after he failed to recover from injuries sustained by falling down a flight of stairs. He was 74.

Keith Emerson has recalled how Giger, who created the artwork for ELP’s 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery, always seemed destined for greater acclaim.

He says: “Giger was an extraordinary character. His paintings always looked like photos. He used airbrushing to come up with art that looked like it was part of a movie image.

“I suppose that’s why he ended up going into movies – and he always wanted to have a wider audience to admire his work.”

The two Giger paintings used for Brain Salad Surgery went missing after an exhibition in Switzerland in 2005. The artist said he was most disappointed to have lost the interior image of a woman’s head because “it was a birthday present which I made for my girlfriend”.

Emerson says: “A reward of $10,000 was offered – but it’s never been recovered.”

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.