Premiere: Zeeland “Mindset” Music Video
MELANCHOLIC WITH MOODY VISUALS TO MATCH - Zeeland is making music for your rainy days. The lofi Amsterdam / Los Angeles duo has evolved their sound to incorporate dance elements while sticking to their dreamy core. Today Zeeland enters their new chapter with the release of their hazy new video for “Mindset”, shot on 16mm film. Check out the music video below and read our Q&A to hear more about the creative process for the video, their upcoming music and more.
LUNA: Can you share a bit about the creative process for making “Mindset"?
ZEELAND: “Mindset” started out on a small Casio SK1 Keyboard. That Casio is basically a kid’s keyboard from the 80s with a sampling function. The very first sound you hear is on “Mindset” is one of our voices sampled into this little keyboard. We love using the SK1 because of it’s gritty en lo-fi character. You never really know exactly what you get back from it and that is really inspiring. We fleshed out the skeleton of the song in a makeshift Airbnb studio in Joshua Tree and then later recorded the vocals when we were both in Amsterdam during one of the hottest summers the city has ever seen.
LUNA: Lyrically, is there a line that you're most proud of from this track?
ZEELAND: We always try to have our lyrics convey a “feeling” rather than telling a literal story. There are lots of references to our real life experiences and we hope we can take people on a small journey trough our worlds more so than for them to really “hear us out”
LUNA: How does this track compare to your previous work?
ZEELAND: Our first EP was us figuring out what our music would sound like. We locked ourselves up in a Joshua Tree cabin and we tried to indulge ourselves in the surroundings and the music we were making. With “Mindset” (and the rest of our upcoming Vanilla EP) it feels like we got the hang of it a little more. We wanted to write a song that people who liked our first EP could dance to.
LUNA: I love the video for "Mindset" - so dreamy! How did the idea for the video come out? What was that process like?
ZEELAND: Our friend Thomas Harmsen from the band Bungalow came up with the idea. We’ve been friends forever and been meaning to work together as he’s been indulging in the film world more lately. The video is about a guy (Marnix) who’s getting stuck in a loop after an encounter at a party. It’s about “that empty, dreamy kind of being sad” as Thomas pitched it to us. And I guess that’s exactly what our songs are about as well;-).
The whole video is shot on 16mm film and took 2 days to shoot. The scary part was that we had to wait over Christmas break for the film to be developed. So everyone involved with the video had some nightmares and cold sweat middle of the night awakenings during the holidays!
LUNA: The video for "Mindset" is a lot different than your previous video "Show Me" - what's the process of deciding the direction of your videos like?
ZEELAND: We love to work together with friends that inspire us and give them space to work out their vision. We obviously love to be involved in the process, but we feel most good art comes from feeling like anything’s possible and feeling free.
The video for Show Me was made by Merijn Hos and his brother Jurriaan Hos. Merijn does all the artwork for our music, so when he told us about his idea to make a video for Show Me, we were more than pysched.
LUNA: Are there any noteworthy references that have been shaping either the sonic or visual side of Zeeland lately?
ZEELAND: We keep coming back to Joshua Tree to write our music. It feels like those surroundings really had a profound impact on us and our music. Sonic wise we felt really inspired by records like “Donuts” by J Dilla and “Madvillainy” by Madvillain. Those records sound super raw and organic but still feel produced and solid. We were regulars at the cheap record bins at the Out Of The Closet stores for a while as we sampled a lot off of old vinyl records. We tried to be a curator more than a musician, sampling eatch other and a bunch of instrumental Japanese flute records.
LUNA: What's next for y’all?
ZEELAND: We’ve been busy working on our third EP and are working on a live set that’s portable and enjoyable. We’re in the midst of planning a tour and can’t wait to release Vanilla, our upcoming sophomore EP :).
