Video: Melt (Marion Belle & Sam Mehran), ‘Bad Bitches’

Kevin Bronson on August 30th, 2019

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A couple years ago outside of a Hollywood rehearsal space, Marion Belle, the glam god behind Fatal Jamz, met Sam Mehran, one of the instigators of the U.K. punk band Test Icicles. They bonded over all things musical and their current creative state (burned out), and a collaboration was born. “We started writing right away because for both of us making music, the process of it, was always the solution, it was always the answer,” Belle recalls.

Between February and July of 2018, the duo wrote 10 songs. The slow-burning pop song “Way of Life” was the turning point. “When we wrote ‘Way of Life,’ we knew that we had an album because that song epitomized the kind of ride-or-die songs we both wanted to make,” Belle says. “That song was our baby because it’s about how music is the way of life.”

Then, on July 27, 2018, Mehran took his own life.

This month, some of the fruits of the duo’s labors were released. Titled “Marion Belle + Sam Mehran Present: MELT,” it draws its title from the word Mehran left on a page in his journal. Mixing work on the EP was completed by another friend of Mehran, Nick Weiss (Teengirl Fantasy).

In just five songs, it’s obvious to see there was substantial chemistry at work. “MELT” glides by with cinematic sweep, and no small amount of mystique (see “Promenade”). If this had been released under less tragic circumstances, you’d think you couldn’t wait to hear more.

The video for “Bad Bitches” was made by Abigail Briley Bean and dedicated to the memory of Mehran.

||| Watch: The video for “Bad Bitches”