GUJI is a synth pop duo developed by Guizhou native Wang Zi Xiu – or Klaire – and her American boyfriend Chachy, a veteran of the Shanghai music scene who has fronted and been the guitarist of experimental punk rock band Round Eye considering that 2012.
They 1st designed tunes all through the initial Shanghai lockdown of 2020, which then went unreleased. Acquiring by themselves locked down yet again in 2022, they dusted off the tunes and determined to get advantage of the downtime to launch their first keep track of, ‘Build a Mate for Me,’ with a video clip entirely made at property.
We caught up with them to discover out more.
How did GUJI arrive about? And what are your influences?
Klaire: It commenced with remaining bored through quarantine in 2020. And after quarantine we stored suspending it… until now. One more quarantine took place, so this time we ultimately completed what we hadn’t prior to.
Chachy: Our influences are B-52s, Devo, The Go-Gos and Saturday early morning cartoons.
What can folks expect from GUJI?
Klaire: Sexual but lovable colourful visuals and straightforward but bizarre and ridiculous suggestions.
Chachy: What she said.
How did the video clip arrive about, and how did you come up with the strategy?
Chachy: We made a decision to go for it a little considerably less than a 7 days back and just looked about and imagined about what we could do with the really confined surroundings and elements out there to us.
I never have a great camera, so I made the decision to just go with my phone. We’ve generally experienced the concept completely ready to go.
Klaire: We always required a video for the music which we finished two decades ago. And the quarantine offers us all the time in the earth.
The strategy is about somebody wanting a ideal sex mate, but could not find one, so he/she resolved to make one particular himself/herself with outrageous materials.
What is truly going on in the movie? And how did you compile it all?
Chachy: [Laughs] Honestly, simplicity is important. The upside down faces and use of footage from movies The Holy Mountain, Temple of Doom and Naked Gun 2 1/2 were picked out for the reason that they could easily illustrate the lyrics to the song.
The Holy Mountain in particular was so fantastically shot – sexually explicit with these kinds of avant-garde insanity – that a person scene was just crazy more than enough to suit in our project.
Klaire: The tale is heading on all-around the bare Barbie doll she is the key character that is seeking to develop up her sexual intercourse husband or wife. On her portion we did some quit movement.
We also have our neighbor Gu in the online video (the lovable elder woman) to make it glance additional lively and exciting.
We at last decided to use the upside down deal with singing as the band to make it simpler and cuter as nicely.
Experienced you at any time built your very own movie just before?
Chachy: This was my very first time producing a online video employing DaVinci modifying application, which I very endorse.
I’ve collaborated with the usually excellent and skipped Alessio Avezzano (of Mamahuhu fame) for numerous of Round Eye’s earlier video clips he’s because moved back to Scotland and was actually the male who proposed I use this software package for my foolish suggestions.
Klaire: Nope. I attempted a large amount of new things this time. Adobe Premiere!
How very long did it just take to make?
Klaire: The track was completed two many years ago, and the movie capturing and editing took a few days. We tried using to use every thing we could discover in the apartment because we could not go away. We also set in some of our favorite film clips that in shape the tune.
Received far more lined up?
Chachy & Klaire: Yep! We are doing work on three a lot more songs of GUJI.
Any other musical initiatives you men are doing the job on?
Chachy: I’m doing the job on some tracks for a Spherical Eye EP and having GUJI off the ground. It’s possible even participate in a reside demonstrate if points at any time get back to ordinary.
Scan the QR to look at out GUJI ‘Build a Good friend for Me’:
[All images courtesy of GUJI]
