Spotlight On... Zerrin

Last week, Glasgow-based Australian musician Zerrin released her latest chamber-pop indebted EP, Talking to Myself, featuring singles Maintenance Phase and Spring Cleaning. Today, the accompanying music video for Spring Cleaning comes to screens everywhere, and its vintage look well and truly matches the sound Zerrin has created. It transports you back in time as she goes through a process of renewal, exploring deeply personal themes of self-reflection, time and transformation. 

We're delighted to share the video with you today, which you can watch further down this page (click here if it's not displaying correctly). We caught up with Zerrin to chat about what inspires her music practice, the story behind Talking to Myself and what it was like to work on the video for Spring Cleaning with filmmaker Debora Maité. 

First of all, what brought you to Scotland, how long have you been based here for, and what inspired the move?
I get asked this all the time – and fair enough! I think the move was initially driven by a sense of adventure, wanting to live overseas and to feel closer to the rest of the world. I'd been to Scotland before and just really liked it, so me and my partner thought we'd go for it and see how it went. Now six and a half years later we're still here! I’ve really connected to the people and the place, and it doesn't hurt that the landscape is utterly spectacular!

Speaking of inspiration, who/what would you say inspires your music practice?
Ah, so much and so many people. I’ve gotten more and more into finding new and older music that I love, so as that’s kept expanding so has my sense of what I love and what's possible musically. I’m particularly inspired by artists who make music and stay true to themselves and their artistic vision – some contemporary artists I love are Weyes Blood and Cate Le Bon, and I grew up loving Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell.

Beyond music, I take a lot of inspiration from nature and other art forms, particularly films – both their visual worlds and soundtracks. A few films that jump to mind which I particularly love include Suspiria (the original!), Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

Your press release says your “music is defined by a sense of curiosity and a love for small, strange moments”. Are you able to expand on this at all? What are some of the small, strange moments that helped inspire your new EP?
I think that ties well into the previous question. I’m generally quite a curious person, and I really enjoy noticing little details and being alive to the world around me – things like objects left in strange places, a surreal shadow projected on a wall, light reflecting off unexpected surfaces. 

While these external moments often spark my imagination, what I really love to do is create small, strange moments within the music itself – through improvising and staying curious about different sounds and mixing/production techniques. Using a particular wonky sliding synth, or an echo that suddenly shifts the mood of the song – to mirror that hard-to-pin-down feeling from out in the world.

You describe Talking to Myself as being “very reflective” and say that a lot of it is about trying to understand yourself. What has the process been like, and do you feel like making this record has helped you achieve that goal?
Definitely! I believe the process of self-reflection in general is such an important part of daily life, something that feels like a valuable lifelong pursuit. Certainly, trying to understand myself better has been a very central part in what drives me to make art.

Through making these particular songs I’ve come to a much better understanding of some of the ideas that I’ve explored in the EP, things like chronic illness, personal grief and feelings of doubt and inadequacy. An understanding, but also a greater acceptance of my own fears and human limitations, which has ultimately helped me to be gentler and show more compassion to myself. 

To me, your music feels almost like it could be from another era, and the music video for Spring Cleaning further exemplifies this. Can you tell us more about the concept behind the video and how you brought your vision to life?
I was very lucky to work with my friend Debora Maité, who is a brilliant filmmaker. We worked quite closely together on the visual ideas and mood we were looking to evoke, and knew that we wanted to use quite a free-flowing, naturalistic filming style. 

We decided to shoot the film in a semi-pastoral yet wild outdoor setting that we’d found in Ayrshire, to celebrate the season of spring and new life – playing with a sense of energetic freedom and an almost naive-like innocence, while embracing the themes in the song of loss, time passing and cycles of renewal. I've always been fascinated by history and folklore, and we definitely drew inspiration from both the beautiful and eerie parts of the British folk revival aesthetics of the 60s/70s, as well as films like the original folk-pastoral horror The Wicker Man.

Along with older film influences, both Debora and I are drawn to old film technologies and aesthetics, so it was really exciting to be able to shoot the whole video on 16mm film. There are also certain risks to shooting in this way, and while it was a bit daunting knowing that we had limited film to use (most things could only be shot once), the potential end result and chance to experiment really felt worth it. 

With the EP now out in the world, what does the rest of the year have in store for Zerrin? And do you have any plans yet for 2025?
Well first thing on the agenda, I’ve got a big move back to Australia with my partner later this year, as we’re wanting to live closer to family for a while. It won’t be goodbye forever though – living and working in Scotland has been an incredibly special and formative time in my life. I feel so connected to both the place and the people, and I’m looking forward to being able to come back in the future! 

Looking ahead to 2025, the main thing I’m planning is beginning to work on my debut album! I can’t wait to start producing and workshopping all these other songs that I’ve been writing and playing live that weren’t on this EP, as well as to spend some time writing new ones.

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Talking to Myself is out now

Follow Zerrin on Instagram @zerrinmusic