Composed by Andrea Merolle, Barbara Margani and Andrea Sperduti, MODERN STARS are an alt/art rock three piece from Italy are about to relese their second full length “Psychindustrial” in November, and today we’re stoked to give you their brand new music video for the song “Artificial Wombs”, the first single off of the new release, made available via streaming services earlier today. The song and music video are a tribute to women that free themselves from the condition of slavery in our modern world.
“It is estimated that 71% of the victims of modern slavery, nearly 30 million, are women and girls.” – comments the band.
“The common tendency is to think that this is a problem that affects only those that we Westerners consider developing countries. We think it is a distant theme from us and we keep telling ourselves that “here it is different”. In many European countries, however, women victims of slavery pregnant or with children are systematically ignored by the authorities. Abused girls are often blamed rather than believed and women victims of human trafficking have often to wait decades to see erased the crimes of prostitution for which they are systematically and unfairly accused.
These last two years of COVID-19 have done nothing but worsen an already severely compromised situation.”
“Artificial Wombs” video is a tribute to the efforts these women make to free themselves from the condition of slavery. Theater, or more generally culture, means emancipation, freedom of expression; concepts denied to a huge number of women and taken for granted by everyone else.
Both Andrea’s have been active for a while in several bands of the Latium underground scene and Barbara is a lyric soprano. Their unique music could be described as instinctive, flickering, fuzzy, aerial, groovy, bizarre, distorted, harmonious and dissonant. They are heavily influenced by bands such as Spacemen 3, Primal Scream, and Suicide. In 2020 they released their debut album Silver Needles via Italian label Miacameretta Records.
The band’s upcoming album Psychindustrial is made of hypnotic sounds and influenced by dystopic literature’s classics, with clear reference to George Orwell’1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It tells the story of an imaginary protagonist who begins to be disillusioned by capitalistic society values and understands the necessity to define his individuality to survive and remain human. The opening track “Hypnopædia” is an electric explosion in which the hero reacts to the inhumanity of modern society and questions its foundations. Then follows “Artificial Wombs”, a mantra with a tribal rhythm which alludes to the progressive debasement of mankind feelings based on a shoegaze revisitation of country tunings and sounds. “Throw your dreams away”, a delicate shuffle which describes the awareness of the protagonist on a music that mergers delta blues sonorities with electronic and space guitars, while the instrumental “Ignorance is strength” introduces the second part of the album with tender sitar ragas.
After the interlude we get into the dreamlike “Indian Donna Summer”, a long psychedelic ride that alternates some lyrics from the disco-hit “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder with the famous speech of John the Savage that is rebelling to Mustapha Mond in Huxley’s novel, and the instrumental cover “War is Peace”, also inspired by “Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”. “Deep Feelings”, an electric ballad in which the protagonist affirms his freedom deriving from his self-determination on a carpet of fuzz and mandolins, takes finally the listener to the end of the journey.
Psychindustrial will be out via Miacameretta Records on vinyl and all digital formats worldwide on November 26, 2021.
