On January 13th, 2023, UNI and The Urchins will release their debut album, Simulator, on 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. Combining acrobatic post-punk with glittery glam rock, 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. 

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.

The first video to be released from the album is an industrial-trippy cover of Hole’s “Doll Parts.” Magnified by the narcissism of social media, the visuals poke fun at the meaninglessness of beauty as we enter an almost-here age of transhumanism and body/genetic modifications, where bodies will just be an interchangeable design element.