Zen Mantra has shared the eerie visual for their latest single, "Remember You At All", taken from the recently released self-titled LP. Directed by Ben Dodd, Frances Carter, Sam Perry, & Lily McRae, the track was also reinterpreted on Yumi Zouma's debut LP, Yoncalla, but originally written as a Zen Mantra song.
About the video, Perry says:
"I kept thinking: "if Sergio Leone and Carpenter had come together to shoot some bratty indie rock bands video, that's what I'd want it to look like, some young band cast in a low budget spaghetti western horror." I'd just watched The Fog for maybe the fourth time - perhaps that comes across.
The whole shooting process was pretty silly. I believe that the long dance sequence during my obnoxious guitar solo was filmed during a competition between my friends and I to see who could best mirror Michael Stipe's dance moves in R.E.M's 'Losing My Religion Video'. A lot of red wine was involved - we basically built the atmosphere we wanted in the room, turned on the camera, blasted the song (among others, including a lot of The Birthday Party) and saw what happened, but Banjo Patterson's ghost was definitely there whispering in my ear."
Zen Mantra ses the 21-year old bedroom producer expanding his focus to incorporate all forms of pop music from ethereal shoegaze to walls of psychedelic distortion. With much of the album’s inspiration coming from the German 1960s/70s underground and the UK psych scene circa 1980 (fun fact: the name Zen Mantra was taken from some of Sonic Boom's liner notes), Zen Mantra has a pure pop energy, an expansive sound and plenty of hooks.
Yet it’s not all warm and blissful, with the album’s darker, emotional themes at times brilliantly warping these ‘pop’ songs. Leaving the listener with the slight sense of unease, like a sombre psych pop record you found lying melted out under the sun.