Lemonade Soundtracks Lil Internet’s Nervous Breakdown

Lil Internet directs, blending anxiety and ecstasy in the Brooklyn trio’s new video.

October 28, 2014

It's not quite as bleak as Enter The Void, but the new video for Brooklyn synthpop trio Lemonade's "Orchid Bloom" has a similarly deranged, neon-lit visual identity. While Gasper Noé's film is all DMT drug deals and strip club melodrama, "Orchid Bloom" director Lil Internet balances out that stoned anxiety with moments of ecstasy and humor: long water slides, smiles on the beach, girls looking into the camera and saying, "Get the fuck out of my face."

According to the director, the narrative he originally schemed ("GoPros at the water park!") shifted into something darker, and the border between reality and music video treatment started getting fuzzy. "My life in NYC was becoming this surreal blur of too much work and too many parties," Lil Internet explains over email. "I just brought a camera everywhere I went. That week ended basically with a nervous breakdown from exhaustion. When I look back on the video, I can viscerally feel it." His footage pairs nicely with the bright, clubby track, which Lemonade says is about "optimism for personal change and expulsion of negative habits." The band's new full-length, Minus Tide, is out now on Cascine.

Lemonade Soundtracks Lil Internet’s Nervous Breakdown