Back in April, we had the great pleasure of introducing the world to China Beach’s latest single ‘My Mind’, a glorious slice of 70’s influenced disco, full to the brim with swanky melodies and funked-out grooves. At the time we described it as the band’s “most polished and well executed product yet”, and I’m sure you’d excuse us for thinking that China Beach wouldn't be able to top themselves that easily.

Well, we’re more than happy to be wrong and are incredibly stoked to premiere the brand new clip for the track. Just as wildly over-the-top as the track itself, the clip finds China Beach inside a woman’s brain, possessing her with their freaky vibes and forcing her to to dance along uncontrollably. The results are spectacular, and the clip plays to perfectly highlight the hypnotic effect a China Beach track has on a listener. To celebrate the new video, we caught up with mastermind Carl Lenny to talk us through what we’re seeing in the ’My Mind’ clip.

TJ: We love the idea behind the clip. Tell us a little about how that came about.

CB: Our band mate Sean Sully was very instrumental in producing and editing ours, and also made a few with other bands including our buddy Zoe Fox. So he is kind of in the video clip-making scene and knows a bunch of lovely people who he has worked with before who made this whole thing come together.

After we released 'My Mind', Sean was working for our producer and director Tim Williams on a film shoot for another video. Tim comes from an acting background and has been directing for a year and a bit, ahead of pursuing further studies in New York, and he and Sean got talking about an idea he was keen to produce for a clip. His vision was to have a band playing inside the head of a dancer. Concept met music and we had ourselves something to work with. After a few “brainstorming" sessions we put the ideas together and once we shot the clip Sean pieced it together.

Who are the dancers in the clip? They’re bloody good.

Geoffrey Weber was helping us in the planning stages and recommended Caroline Ellis, our lead dancer. They met doing a stage combat intensive class together and she co-ordinated the group dance with Tamara Bouman and Zoe Bethell who are good buddies of hers. The girls are all up and coming dance students at VCA.

Who else helped make it happen?

Emel Berdilek is a passionate cinematographer and she was all over it. We were lucky enough to take her off the beaten track and make this wild band clip happen. I think she has some plans to shoot more clips now and she is taking big steps in working on TV at the moment. She also made our shots look great in post, fantastic camerawoman.
Lewis Robert, our lighting man, was all over the set and was very instrumental in bringing the whole thing together on the day, as well as creating our special visual effects. He is a film-maker, working on his own amateur projects, TV and film. I think he’s also working on Squid Nebula's next clip, right?
Owen Dalton, who let us use the theatre space we shot in and helped us rig up our lush set.
Annika Kafcaloudis, who helped out with the shoot and was on set documenting everything. Her shots are all over our instagram, quality!

You’ll be launching the clip on Friday night with Karate Boogaloo and The Mamas at the Curtin. What can we expect from that?

It’s going to be an awesome night, really excited for both our support’s sets and the Curtin has always had a tender spot in our hearts. I would expect things on the night to be freaky wild and to feel as smooth as pink satin. 😉 Pink Satin.

Any more news on future releases since we last spoke?

We have a single in the bag and when the stars align we will let it drop! Also… if we sell out the Curtin tomorrow we will record an album. I guess this is our short form Pozible campaign. Come to our show on Friday if you want an album of China Beach.