The pandemic and Cinematic Youth

This might sound bad, but the pandemic actually impacted us in a very positive way and gave us the opportunity to work together more intensely than ever before. Louis left Paris and flew back to Vienna since all of his on-site classes were cancelled so that the both of us could spend more time in the studio in Vienna. From March to June 2020 Louis snuck out of the house daily and met up with Emil to finish mixing and mastering. The city was dead and often Louis found himself alone in the streets, trying to get to Emil’s place without being stopped by the police.

In early June 2020 we had finished the Cinematic Youth EP and needed to shoot our cover pic. Louis came up with the bizarre idea to hang from an outdoor gym bar/getting splashed with peach tinted paint, symbolizing the contrast between heavy themes and joy. After some online research we found the perfect spot in Vienna’s 22nd district, a neighborhood we barely knew. To not disturb the locals at the outdoor gym (which is located next to a playground) we decided to go there at dawn with a group of friends to film us and splash the paint. At 5am on some random day we drove there and managed to complete the entire shoot in around 50 minutes. It was hella fun and we remember the process clearly as if it was yesterday. Nobody saw and after cleaning up the mess we went home covered in sticky paint from head to toe. It took both of us several hours and multiple showers to get that stuff off of our bodies, but we did have the foresight to ask our local paint dealer (why does that sound illegal haha) if it was safe to pour the stuff over our skin. The guy in the shop didn’t act surprised at all, apparently Austrians like to play with paint, who knew..

The cover was shot on real film, an old 35mm Nikon Camera, operated by Emil’s sister Sophie. To make sure that we would get a picture no matter what, we had our friend Maxi take backup pics on a digital camera. He ended up shooting some cool behind the scenes stuff, here are some of those he took during and right after: