On Friday, May 3rd, the video for Like a Metamorphosis will be released on the YouTube channel of the Italian collective Oslo Tapes. The track is taken from their fourth album, Staring at the Sun Before Goin' Blind, which was released on LP, CD, and digital platforms on December 1st 2023 by the coalition of international labels Echodelick Records, Sound Effect Records, and Grazil Records.
Like a Metamorphosis stems from the collaboration between Marco Campitelli, the driving force behind the Oslo Tapes project, and the avant-psychedelic musician Kaouenn (born Nicola Amici). The arrangement and production are credited to Amaury Cambuzat, a longstanding member of Faust and Ulan Bator, as well as a longtime collaborator of the collective. Musically, it unfolds, oscillating between the dreamlike and archetypes, on patterns of psych/ambient origin rendered vibrant by nervous electro/tribal bursts, resulting in a strongly evocative and visionary outcome.
The visual interpretation of the track was handled by the visual artists Marco Di Battista (director) and Nicola Antonelli (performer), who created a captivating and hybrid work blending body art, Lynchian hallucinations, and German expressionist cinema. The masks are used as invocation and evocation of what lies within each individual, resonating with every unnatural movement of the performers in a ritualistic and dysmorphophobic dance. The dreamlike universe creates a narrative punctuated by clues that undermine the entire sequence, leaving room for a hermeneutic dimension
Marco Campitelli was born and raised in Lanciano (Italy), on the southern coast of the Adriatic Sea. He founded the Oslo Tapes collective in the early 2010s upon returning from a trip to the Norwegian capital that deeply marked him. Under this infatuation and to capture the mystical atmosphere of Norway, he composed and produced the first Oslo Tapes album, ‘OT (un cuore in pasto a pesci con teste di cane)’ in 2013 within a week, under the supervision and support of his friend Amaury Cambuzat (faUSt/Ulan Bator). In 2015, he was joined by Mauro Spada and Federico Sergente (formerly of Zippo and Death Mantra For Lazarus) to create the second full-length album, ‘Tango Kalashnikov’ (DeAmbula Records). In 2021, the renewed Oslo Tapes collective (with Davide Di Virgilio replacing Sergente) released ‘ØR’ (Pelagic Records), which received excellent critical acclaim, allowing them to perform on prestigious European stages, including the Roadburn Festival in 2022. In December 2023, the fourth album titled ‘Staring At The Sun Before Goin' Blind’ is released, an auditory mirage, blending sound and matter.