Behind The Artworks: BURNING BIRDS - Where We Belong (2023)

“At the beginning, we had decided to work with a local artist on a drawing. But we quickly realised that it would be difficult to get rid of the drawing of the first album (made by Virgile Bastien), to give coherence to two covers that would be drawn and above all, this album took us elsewhere, it had to be frankly different from the first EP "Take A Ride" that we had released.

Basically, we had contacted Patrick Strajnic to do the promo photo for the release of the album. And already then, we started to imagine a photo that was different from what we usually see for the promotion. We tried to put a "strange element" that requires a second reading of the photo to realize it. We looked a lot for objects or a possible color that would stand out.

When we realised that the drawing wouldn't work as a cover, we were already running out of time to be able to press the album. So we decided to call on our friend Jean Wollenschneider, a visual artist with a lot of ideas, to find this "strange element".

We had the idea of working on a mask, like the carnival beastmen of Germanic traditions, to bring the idea of transformation, as we were transforming ourselves on this album. But that meant that one of us had to wear it, which cut us off from the straightforward side of our music, or else it had to be placed somewhere, but that was too restrictive for the composition of the image.

We knew that Jean had already done a lot of paper cut-outs, different works like that, and we thought that we could show the different dimensions of this album by different dimensions in the image. He brought out a lot of them during the session and we had fun hanging them on the ceiling on several levels and on us. We wanted the crazy, wild side of the songs to show up in the picture. And we let ourselves be carried away by what appeared and what was taking shape in the moment.

We were lucky enough to work with Patrick who is a photographer who knows how to guide, he composed the scene by putting us in an attitude (as if we were going to be on stage) and through the shots, it appeared with these different emotions that characterize us well. People who know us said they really recognized us, so it was a win-win situation, the photo is honest with who we are.

Then, the process for the photo is interesting, I'm letting Patrick speak about it”, comments Julien. “I would say that it is the result of a hybridization between the first pixels from the studio shooting with real ink, lampblack, hand-stirred with a brush on 100% cotton paper. A sketch that will undergo the attacks of various essences and additives, brushes, scalpels and pumice stone so that finally these stigmata of real life are re-photographed and then turn around, upset the certainty of the first pixels in the studio, those who thought they had seen everything”, comments Patrick. The result is a photo full of grain and life, with depth. We love it!