and everything is going to the beat.

Pitchfork: The Contra album cover is really striking— what’s the story behind it?

Ezra Koenig: The picture is an actual candid document of a person in New York City in 1983— those are the clothes that she was wearing and how she did her hair that day. We didn’t hire one of our friends to throw on a vintage Polo shirt or anything.

Pitchfork: Her expression is intriguingly blank— it almost looks like she’s frightened by something behind the camera. What was your initial take on her overall vibe when you saw it?

EK: The first expression that I read into her was some sort of hesitation. We had a lot of discussions trying to figure out how old this person was when the picture was taken— she could be 15 or 27. The ambiguity of her age and expression made me feel like she was on the cusp of something, which really matches the vibe of the new album. Because you see people in their 50s with a family and children, and they can have a look of self-assuredness. But people between 13 and 30— the age range seems to grow every year— don’t have that sort of stability. Sometimes it comes across in the way that you carry yourself. Wrapped up in her expression is this question: “How is she feeling?” Maybe she wasn’t even really sure at the time.

Pitchfork: Who is she?

EK: I don’t want to give away all the details about the photo just yet, but I learned that she’s now living in Malibu.