Take a Psychedelic Trip for the Heart in Zella Day's Video 'Mushroom Punch'

PRETTYBIRD director Sophie Muller has lensed the official music video for Zella Day’s ‘Mushroom Punch’. ‘Mushroom Punch’ is taken from the LA and Austin-based singer/songwriter Zella Day’s forthcoming sophomore album ‘Sunday In Heaven’ (which will be released on October 14th via Concord Records).

Described as a 'psychedelic trip for the heart' by Day, ‘Mushroom Punch’ is a song that showcases Zella’s expansive voice like no other. Award-winning director Sophie Muller directed the music video, which was filmed over two days at Pen Moel Estate, and Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. Sophie envisioned Zella as a contemporary ‘Alice in Wonderland’, filming her in the British countryside setting, with a dreamy aesthetic.

Sophie Muller and production company PRETTYBIRD took a small crew to the forest and country house locations, where they achieved the dreamy visual aesthetic using drones, experimental editing and cinematography. Sophie teams up again with director of photography Robbie Ryan on the promo, which contradicts and shifts visually with Day’s energetic performance juxtaposed with the ethereal directorial gaze of Sophie. PRETTYBIRD co-founder Juliette Larthe was executive producer and Chris Murdoch produced. 

What sets ‘Mushroom Punch’ apart from other music videos, is the way it captures the intimacy of the song and Day’s vocals, utilising the magical settings of a light-filled forest, and in a stroke of directorial genius, Muller films the American singer playfully tripping through an English country house. Sophie has directed a promo with constantly moving imagery, crafting a narrative that shifts and weaves to evoke a psychedelic mushroom trip, and brings to life the lyrics:

“I’m going to mushroom punch my way down the rabbit hole

And I drink too much

And think too much

No self-control

I’m going to mushroom punch my way down the rabbit hole.”

With every new album an artist makes, there’s an evolution, another chapter; for Zella Day - her new record, Sunday In Heaven, is a whole other book. It’s not so much that it’s a step away from her debut Kicker - although this new record’s richness, ambition, and bare-bones intimacy is significant. It’s that Zella has entered a new era personally, and the effect of this on her music is pronounced and powerful, creating an album that is light years forward in sound and scope from its predecessor.

When she began working on the album, Day penned some 70 songs for Sunday In Heaven that were ultimately whittled to ten tracks steeped in Cali blue skies and golden hour light. Some were written on a tablecloth in Ojai ('Almost Good'), some scribbled at her kitchen table, others came in a car driving down to Chino, where she spent the summer of 2019 demoing the album with her friend, producer/engineer John Velasquez. Eventually, in the middle of quarantine, the pair jumped in a Jeep Wrangler, driving cross-country to record with producer Jay Joyce, at his Nashville studio The Neon Church.