Spotlight: Tangerine Returns with "The Coldest Winter"

SpotlightMusic

Mar 26

☆ By SHARON LAZO ☆

Photos By Sophie Gragg for The Luna Collective

AFTER TWO YEARS OFF THE RADAR - Tangerine is finally back with a new emotive single “The Coldest Winter”. Consisting of Toby Kuhn and sisters Marika and Miró Justad, Tangerine have been long time friends of Luna and were featured in one of our first issues. The Seattle natives, based in Los Angeles took these two years to grieve the loss of a special family member. By taking this time for themselves. Tangerine were able to develop their emotions into music they would be proud to share to the world, and they did it gracefully with the creation of “The Coldest Winter”.

Although this song brought a lot of “firsts” for the band, they seemed to have managed it really well. For one being COVID, which has brought its fair share of challenges, though the band has used the isolation to their advantage. Building a home studio shifted their creative process, allowing them to begin pouring their feelings onto their writing, instruments and visuals. Another first was for Miró, who took the opportunity to fulfill a dream of hers since she was a little girl - getting her undergraduate degree. While this meant she’d be taking a step back from the writing process, she has now taken on the role as visual director. Marika explains, “She’s conceptualizing and directing all the music videos for our upcoming album, including the video for “The Coldest Winter”. It’s been really fun and rewarding to watch her expand in that role, because it’s something that comes very naturally to her”. With all these givens, the band executed their vision and delivered the single as well as a nostalgic visual to accompany it.

“The Coldest Winter” is a soft, quiet song with loud lyrics that personally touch the listener with its flowy, yet specific storytelling that easily reels you in; completely entraping you. “We knew we wanted to try a softer, more intimate performance for this song. I also wanted to try panning the doubles and triples hard left and right, while every other instrument in the song is sitting somewhere in the middle, never panned as hard as the vocals,” Toby shares, “The combination of that type of performance and production technique, I think it makes you feel like you’re being wrapped up in Marika’s voice, which is really nice for this piece.”

Another staple in the song, besides Marika’s angelic vocals, is the acoustic guitar which was one of the very few times, if not the first, it was brought into the studio. The selected chords and strums on the acoustic guitar create a feeling of being at peace when you close your eyes. Lastly, the ending of the song brings a combination of vocals, layers, the acoustic guitar and a subtle, but very much there, trumpet. It feels like a secret between the band and the listener and is an element that once you hear, you cannot unhear. All these cacophony of sounds creates a cathartic release that is evident with the emotions of this song, and wherever there is darkness, there is light, and Tangerine showcases that in “The Coldest Winter”

For Tangerine, creating visuals is just as important as producing a song. “Over the years as Tangerine has released more and more music, the visual aspect has become a central facet of who we are as artists. When I hear Marika’s vocals or Toby’s guitar lines, I see images of Los Angeles, of the ocean, the desert at night, or fantastical scenes from a fairytale-like world where anything is possible. I love how we always dream big for our videos and then approach it fully from a DIY indie-budget point of view—it sends us into a unique space creatively. Miró explains, to which Marika follows with, “Music and visuals go hand in hand for me. When I’m writing a song, I’m seeing flickers of things- colors, scenes from a movie, textures, even outfits. Music is storytelling, after all.”

It’s of no surprise how important visuals are for the band with how consciously they take their development of ideas and executing them so effortlessly; making sure they are always telling a story, like in their songwriting. The“The Coldest Winter” music video is filled with breathtaking shots that present a narrative, creating a world for the viewer to step into.

With this enchanting return, we cannot wait to see what the upcoming album from Tangerine has in store. Marika shares, “The last few years have been a rollercoaster of emotions, and I think the album will reflect that. It’s about honesty and getting older and tragedy yes but also happiness. When you turn 30, I think you get to know yourself in a way that’s not really possible in your 20s, when you’re sort of pinging from experience to experience, feeling to feeling. I hope this album reflects that, and that people find something of themselves and their own journey in it”.

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