The Band Explains: Mono Club - 'Sleeping'
London-based Mono Club talk us through their beautiful kaleidoscopic DIY visuals for breezy indie psych single, ‘Sleeping’.
Where was the video for 'Sleeping' filmed?
The video was filmed in two locations. An orchard in Wiltshire, where we weren't allowed to be, and Gunnersbury Park, where we were.
How does the video connect with the song?
Initially, we were just mucking around with our phones, but when we looked at the footage we thought that stacking them next to each other to make a three panelled frame would look really great. I like the way that with the three panels all independently showing different footage allows a greater amount of stimuli to be evoked at any one time, together with the use of colour it lends the footage a kaleidoscopic quality that reflects the intensity of dreams and sleeping. I think in many ways it reflects the confusion and disorientation that the song is trying to relate.
Can you tell us about the ideas/ themes/ imagery used?
We overlaid footage from an art installation that we'd recently been to. It spoke to us with the imagery of the ethereal couple walking in a desolate landscape that juxtaposed with the light playful nature of the footage of the band. It also represents the 'internal' and reflects that within the colour and lightness of life there is a persistence of memory that also exists, 'overlaid' on our conscious existence which leads us back to more unsettling and austere times.
Is there a message the video is trying to convey?
Through the process we decided that we wanted to make a video that was the opposite to how we had made them in the past. Previously we had made location based videos with a large team and budget. We really enjoyed making videos like that and we were really pleased with the results, but we decided that we wanted to make something more homespun and spontaneous. I think the message concerns the DIY aesthetic that musicians and artists have to embrace from time to time and that we shouldn't be afraid to create and circulate something crafted using technology immediately accessible to us all.
Interview feature by Karla Harris