Q: […]Speaking of whom (Alexis Marcou) and his beautiful art we have the honour to present what he’s done for the Wait for the first time. Your album cover is a bit abstract, just like your music. Tell us about it.

It is exactly like our music to be honest. As explained, we have the band’s output in mind as being more of an acquired taste, in terms of it not being derivative or not having sufficient similarities with something already established. People tend to like things they’ve been exposed to and they need to identify with known parameters that inform their approval of something. In a similar fashion to people looking for spouses with familiar characteristics to those of their former caregivers etc. We are continually subconsciously looking for familiar reference points to instantly compare and inform our fondness for something. Before Mona Lisa was stolen to be subsequently put on most newspaper front pages all over the world, it was not much of a deal, and I don’t feel it’s Da Vinci‘s best, not most important work by any stretch of the imagination. I am moreover convinced that hadn’t it had been for that mere exposure phenomenon people would not form queues to see it in the Louvre. As artists we want to challenge fixed opinions by creating honest, and sometimes inevitably awkward artistic statements. The album cover is a real masterpiece and one could go as far as proposing that it’s Alexis Marcou‘s answer to Andy Warhol‘s banana. Technically we used Rorschach as a starting point, from our conversations of how everybody uses projective identification on art, and connected that to the Wait that makes us (see) who we are. Alexis‘ beloved concept of the golden ratio has been also applied as it was also the case for the Newton rings he was experimenting with lately, which appear here and there on the artwork. I feel that the cover succeeds in the manner I’ve explained earlier with its uncanny look. The receiver would be called to convince themselves to like it, without much of a context offered to inform their opinion. Alexis who is also a proponent of challenging perceptions to that effect, had proposed to mock up a cover in seconds to present it to the other members in the spirit of conducting an experiment on intersubjectivity. I’m not going to reveal our findings, but I will say that we did have a laugh! I think the cover is a brilliant pictorial puzzle, and if you don’t buy my testimony, trust that was made by one of the most amazing contemporary artists out there. That should do it (laughter)!

Interviewer: Sissy F.
Publication: Burst
Period: April 2014