Mercy Land: Video Premier
Mercy Land
Video Premier
Conceived by singer and producer Laura Jinn and Tantrum in the echoing rooms of New Orleans, Mercy Land has grown into a vivid collision of dark synth-pop, suburban unease and pop fantasy. Now based in Los Angeles, Mercy Land laid foundations with a run of singles last year that led to EP Termites. Their latest single, “Summertime Climax”, pushes their sound further into strange, seductive territory. Synths glow beneath a sense of tension and anticipation, while the song’s darker impulses sit beneath a surface that feels unmistakably pop.
Discussing Summertime Climax Singer/producer Laura Jinn comments: “Tantrum was gone on a fishing trip and I was writing songs every day. I woke up one day with the idea of the production (the combo of a Midwest emo guitar riff + light electronic drums) and made the beat. I was thinking about the first time I watched The Graduate – I was home alone and saw Dustin Hoffman’s character drifting in life, the scene when he’s in the pool and his dad tells him he has to go and do something, just drifting among so much beauty, the sound of ‘Hello Darkness My Old Friend.’ I thought that the song needed to be ‘Summertime [something]’ and when I came up with ‘Climax’ I was like ‘lol that’s too stupid’ but… then it stuck.”
The project draws on a distinctly cinematic palette — the surreal suburban landscapes of David Lynch, the romantic darkness of The Cure, and the heightened melodrama of Lana Del Rey — but Mercy Land reshape these influences into something distinctly their own. “Summertime Climax” arrives as the latest chapter in an increasingly visual project, opening another door into a world existing somewhere between the real and the imagined. Throughout 2026, Mercy Land have remixes, further singles, live performances and videos in the works, collaborating with New Orleans- and New York-based artist Virginia Walcott on full-length visual pieces for each release.
Elaborating on visualiser for Summertime Climax director Virginia Walcott explains: The first thing Anosha said during our brainstorm was, “I’m baking a cake… but something is wrong.” She wrote this ending where the cake is ultimately given to a tied up, powerless Tatum, a funny yet sinister reveal, and I wanted the treatment to reflect the strength and simplicity of this concept. We filled the space with fake flowers and little useless trinkets that made it seem a bit like a staged home, and we used gorgeous, cooking show-esque camera work (Sam Aguirre-Kelly) to give the whole thing a certain neutrality or credibility that helped the end feel like a genuine surprise.
I was inspired by those ridiculously warm, saturated, blown-out kitchen scenes where the sun shines down on a smiling, content woman, building that into the hazy, too-hot feeling of a summer day where something’s not quite right. The “break” in the middle felt like a visceral way to literally “snap out” of this sun-drenched, eerie daze, shoving us into a whole new world and following her every move. It was a fun play on the power dynamics and assumptions of the “house wife” trope, landing more inside the Mercy Land universe of stuck-in-the-suburbs with sticky sweet suspense.
