Can intelligence be considered an inherent trait of a musician? The way they transform ideas into notes, their obsessions… even their fears… The manner in which this is executed can be subpar, as it can also be the essence of applied perfection… The Larissean Phase have stopped impressing me with their music and their use of language… I was shocked by both of those things the first time I listened to, and read them, but I am not surprised anymore… I am just jealous. It’s one of the cases that you are being jealous of ‘others’, expressing things better than you, being more talented, fuller, and more mature… Overwhelmed by how this makes you feel intimidated… In Consequence was the album that put me into their world and it’s my guide for what’s following, and that’s no other than its successor, the Wait album. How can this Wait be interpreted? What made Phase come up with that story? Nick Kalogirou brought me in touch with the band for the second time and I warmly thank him for that. The rest of you and foremost the children of the Thessalean valley will have the opportunity to see them on stage pretty soon.

Q: Two years have passed since ‘In Consequence’ was released. I’ve read in one of your interviews that the next album is going to be entitled ‘the Wait’ and it will be consisted of ten numbers. When should we be expecting it?

Hopefully, the Wait will surface at the beginning of the new year, we are in the final phases of its development and we can safely claim that the material sounds really astounding… We are overly enthused even though it’s missing elementary processing. We are hoping that it will have the same impact on our audience and that they’ll have the will to let it grow on them.

– I’ve also read that it’s going to be a concept album, but not in the strict sense of a story. What are your thoughts? What will be its central topic?

The core idea, like the title betrays, is the Wait, and I got inspired by that two years ago through a friend’s obsession with it. The state under which you’re always waiting for something. You are waiting to finish school, to get rid of your braces, to be a grown-up, to finish uni, to have sex, to leave your parents’ house… And we’ve extended that to showcase that perverse impatient or escapist narcissistic pattern, where one is never where they actually are; and never live for the moment. Either living in select and at times distorted memories, oftentimes supported by photographic reminders of ‘what a great time one had posing’; or in unstable fantasies of an impossible or improbable future. As the idea was developing we are concluding that it is the Wait that makes you who you are. Or better say, it shows you what you are made of, and is indeed everything you are. That’s a very general outline of the ideas behind the intellectual content of the album, but you’ll have to sit back and let yourself dive into the entire work to have those communicated properly, and as they were intended. Finally, a considerable component of the concept has a nostalgic character and it touches upon both actual nostalgia and the paradoxical nostalgia people tend to have not for the familiar (νόστος* – nostos [=home]), but for the utopic, the idealised.

– Will darkness, irony and all the other elements we loved in the previous album be present in the next one? Have you added things or removed some others?

Yes, all these will be ‘dressing’ once more the biggest part of our songs. We haven’t measured that, but certainly, the prism we look at the world though has changed a bit, or better say, it has been further cleansed through the experiences we’ve been subjected to during all this time. We could be recording an album per semester but it would be pointless if we hadn’t anything new to say, or at least something from a different angle, offering a new perspective.

– Is there anything that has influenced your approach musically and artistically in general all this period that you have been working on ‘the Wait’

Undoubtedly everything we’ve encountered throughout this interval has influenced our aesthetics, and we are responsible for the conscious part of it, and how much and in what way we let things influence us. NIN, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, U.N.K.L.E., Menelaos Lountemis, travels, friends, and discussions, to name a few elements.

– Are contacts with labels being made? Do you want to release the album under a label or on your own?

Something is happening and there’s plenty of interest in our material, but we are not going to proceed unless our cooperation is not by any means insulting us as artists. We are not minded in any way to pay the pressings just to get the gratification of having an extra pick-up line when chatting up girls, or to brag to friends of how we are with a major label, plus a small percentage of the copies we’d pay for reading EMI on the back of the sleeve. If we wanted to start a business we’d open a corner shop. Our focal point is art and art alone. Of course, we’d love to make a living solely out of it but only on our terms. Now if someone tells us they believed in our material that much and wanted to invest in us, provided they did not unethically earn those funds, then we don’t have any problem to cooperate with them, and they would be more than welcome to make an offer!

– Will you feature any special participation in your new album like that of Duncan Patterson on ‘In Consequence’? 

We don’t have anything planned. If it happens again in the spirit of artistic cooperation and common expression we’d surely do it. We clearly wouldn’t hire a well-established ‘hired gun’ just to brag about how well we connected we are.

– We haven’t seen you live in a while. Are you preparing anything?

The day after tomorrow, Friday, November 30th we have our next show opening for Sivert Høyem‘s concert in our hometown.

– You’ve already been in a band for a while. What is what do you keep from what you’ve been through? What would you willingly forget on your way here?

We are keeping everything without exception. This is our way and we ought to be facing anything that is bringing onto us, as ultimately any circumstances reveal our true character. We wouldn’t like to forget anything, no matter how bad, because we’d risk missing an integral part of who we are, or having to experience its repetition.

– Do you think it would be better if you were born in a different country? Concerning your music and your musical career.  

I don’t have the slightest idea. We wouldn’t be us for sure. For a kid who would live briefly before they’d die of AIDS, or a child born in a warzone the answer to that hypothetical question would be more than obvious. But for someone who is born in a relatively liberal country, with good prospects to be educated and thrive it’s a bit ungrateful to use their circumstances as an excuse for not reaching their potential and not to assume the responsibility of themselves and the struggle or mission from their own post, as in comparison it would be like winning the birth lottery. Coming back to music there are places with more opportunities but an ‘American Idol‘, or fast art type of musical career was never appealing for us anyway. It has always been about healthy expression, communication, and a bit of traveling along with our nearest and dearest.

Interviewer: Costas Coulis
Publication: Noizy.gr
Period: November 2012

PS * Nostalgia is a compound of νόστος – nostos + άλγος – alghos (=ache / pain) means home sickness, a pain for the familiar.

Additionally, νόστιμος – nostimos (=tasty / nice / delicious) denotes the preference for the familiar.