Mark Malijan – Tangerine
Tangerine is not at the point yet where it can make elaborate, high-budget videos. But that didn’t stop the vibey Los Angeles pop trio from making a contemplative and thoughtful clip for its new single, “Local Mall,” which premieres exclusively below.
The Seattle formed group, which moved to L.A. about a year ago, filmed the video during a weekend jaunt to Tucson, mostly using drummer Miro Justad’s iPhone 8 operated by her boyfriend Richie Owen, with the group editing the footage itself. “We almost lost the entire video at one point,” frontwoman Marika Justad, Miro’s older sister, says with a laugh, “but we recovered it.” And the low-budget endeavor didn’t necessarily temper Tangerine’s creative aspirations, either.
“The video and the song are about this contrast between all the very boring, kind of mundane realities of everyday life and these larger emotions that can exist within the surface,” she explains. “Our imaginations are capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to be a lot of the time. So the song is about trying to find outlets for those emotions in your everyday life.” The clip juxtaposes day and night, with the latter representing the “fantasy world” potential set in the titular mall — with some very prominent cowboy hats hammering home the point.
“To my sister and I, cowboys and cowgirls representing the spirit of freedom and independence,” Justad says. “It’s very joyful. We wanted to see the cowgirls having a really fun time, dancing around Tucson. It’s really about the contrast between those two worlds.”
“Local Mall” will be featured on Tangerine’s upcoming EP, White Dove, which follows three previous EPs and singles such as “Fever Dream” and “Sly Moon.” Previously, Justad acknowledges, Tangerine was “more of a rock ‘n’ roll band…inspired by the Pixies and Velvet Underground,” but on “Local Mall” and White Dove the trio — which also includes Tobias Kuhn — embraces more melodic ambience and dream pop, drawing on influences such as Kate Bush and Madonna’s Ray of Light album. “The whole process felt very free,” Justad says of the transition for the EP, which was produced by Sanj & Luca Buccellati (Lana Del Rey). “When you open yourself up to more than one kind of influence, there’s so much freedom — especially when you’re being inspired by more pop artists, there’s definitely more female artists to be inspired by, which is nice.”
Tangerine plans to make more videos from the EP, which it will promote initially with regional shows. The group is already eyeballing its next recording project — “We want it to be our first full-length,” Justad says — and she’s confident will be following the sonic path set out on White Dove.
“We definitely have a lot more songs in this new direction,” Justad says. “We toured for about a month with Bleachers right after we got to L.A., and a lot of people saw us so we just felt it was time to release a little something. But there will be more soon, and we can’t wait.”
