UNI and The Urchins will release their debut album, Simulator, on January 13 via Chimera Music. Formerly known as Uni, UNI and The Urchins are the post-apocalyptic rock & roll cult led by vocalist and NYC nightlife fixture Jack James Busa and ex-GOASTT bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl. Simulator was written (and mixed/mastered/engineered by Kemp) mostly in isolation in the woods of Upstate NY, but takes listeners on a cosmic journey through a “lobotomized disco” world of silicone sex doll factories, crucifix manufacturers and iPhone graveyards, in a Camus-esque dive into the ways technology has permanently changed our lives and, quite literally, us. Ahead of the albums arrival, the group have shared a video for “Clean.”

And in the same DIY vein as the making of the album, every song on Simulator will be turned into an epic music video directed/edited/colorized (the whole bit) by Kemp herself. Self-taught in every respect – she left school for a modeling career after the sixth grade – Kemp has directed each pre-Simulator UNI and The Urchins video to date, and her surrealist style has gained her additional gigs directing videos for bands such as The Smashing Pumpkins and The Killers‘ Mark Stoermer.

Largely written alongside the pandemic-accelerated collapse of civilization – and society’s resulting shift from a “real world” to a virtual world of humanoid avatars – Simulator was inspired by Kemp, Jack, and guitarist David Strange’s love-hate relationship with the black magic of technology. After years of cynicism towards the modern world, it’s a trio of retro-rock-loving musicians’ determination to accurately riff on the musical processes of their predecessors, which always looked forward, not behind. As Ziggy looked to the space race and moon landing as defining zeitgeists of his time, UNI and The Urchins look to the Singularity and the horizon of VR replacing all flesh.

Their motto for this new era? Mutate or Die

About Chimera Music

Chimera Music, formed in 2008 in the Manhattan kitchen of Sean Ono Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl, has released the pair’s many projects as well as music by Yoko Ono, Moonlandingz, Black Lips, RZA, Iggy Pop, Ahohni, Tune-yards, John Zorn & others.