The National’s Devendorf brothers, Beirut’s Benjamin Lanz and Aaron Arntz’s supergroup LNZNDRF shared a new music video for their song “Ringwoodite.” The track was released in January on their new album II.
Close-ups of a pen and pencil writing take up much of the unique video for “Ringwoodite.” Director Kevin Gilmore focuses on the pencil shavings, erasings and loose threads. It’s shot in black & white and quickly flashes between timelapses of shadows moving across the screen.
“Ringwoodite” is a washed-out rock song which builds into a swirl of warm guitars, sweeping bass, tumbling drums and echoing vocals. Lanz spoke about how guest vocalist Melissa Laveaux inspired its geological content, “After telling me about Ringwoodite, the mantle mineral, the uncommon atomic bond representing unknown times an ocean’s worth of crystal water, deep inside our earth, Melissa Laveaux riffed, ‘Sink right through the floor’ — and we knew that our mission to find the vocal soul for this hyper bonded, dynamic propulsion had hit the mark.”
The mineral is said to contain highly pressurized water and is thought to confirm the hypothesis that the Earth’s mantle contains enough water to fill an ocean. Like the rest of the album, the song is meant to sink right through its listeners. LNZNDRF comments, “These songs seem to come from the formless, translucent holograms that appear behind your eyelids just before sleep sets in. The visions you swear you’ll remember in the morning but never do.”
In January, LNZNDRF also shared videos for two other songs from the album, “Brace Yourself” and “You Still Rip.” The supergroup released their previous release To a Lake in 2020 and their debut album LNZNDRF in 2016 along with their “Green Roses” loosie. The National’s Dessner brothers and frontman Matt Berninger have also been working with other artists lately, including Taylor Swift and Julia Stone. On the other hand, Beirut’s frontman Zack Condon has been resting his throat due to laryngitis since the release of their latest album Gallipoli in 2019.