New York, NY (Top40 Charts) NYC psych-rockers UNI and the Urchins are out today with their latest song and video, "Covid's Metamorphoses." In a twist for the normally AI-obsessed band, the song's raspy vocals (provided by bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl), and the video's barren setting, sepia tones, and sole subjects (a bohemian musician in Kemp, a strung-out Warhol-lookalike in frontman Jack James) reflect the very raw, human experience of monotonous isolation that we've all experienced over the past three years.
At times suffocating, at times creatively energizing, "Covid's Metamorphoses" conjures the real-life backdrop (read: the pandemic) that UNI and the Urchins - Kemp, Jack, and guitarist
David Strange - wrote, recorded, and made their upcoming debut album, Simulator (1/13/23, Chimera), against.
And read more from Kemp, who directed/edited the video, below: We filmed "Covid's Metamorphoses" in an abandoned, asbestos filled building- which felt like an architectural metaphor for our psychic neglect during the pandemic. Kafka's or Covid's Metamorphoses - doesn't matter; cuz both apply to that fiberglass chrysalis of lockdown… the roaches of intrusive thoughts crawling through the ruins of our frontal lobes, or invoking the digital gods for meaning as our species mutated into something less human.
Protests, UFOs, plagues, killer hornets, unprecedented forest fires and market crashes all drove us further and further into the virtual and surreal. Ideologies and conspiracies clashed like titans. WW3 played out in memetics and apps, unable to remove the speculums from our eyes as we force-watched the horror reels.
But from that furnace of isolation, unable to see each other or play together as a band, we developed a creative independence - Kemp learning how to mix and master and play her own guitar solos, Jack finally leaving his job at the pizzeria to become the disco queen of New York City, and
David starting his wildly successful company after being a homeless bum on Kemp's couch for years. Newly hatched and covered in glitter placenta, we emerged from that Greek epic all the stronger for it. And hopefully the world did, too.
