In an era when vulnerability in pop songwriting always ends on a positive note about pulling through the darkness, it can be refreshing to hear an artist sing about being in the thick of it. Such is the case with the latest single from Austin-via-Uganda musician Jon Muq’s forthcoming debut album Flying Away, which will arrive at the end of next month via Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound. Produced by Auerbach, “Bend” is a soulful examination of what that confrontation can look like when you look in the mirror and struggle to accept the figure peering back at you. “I had a problem with self-reflection,” Muq says of the song’s origin. “I decided to confront myself in a mirror, and ‘Bend’ is the conversation I had with my reflection.”
Meanwhile, the contrastingly confident vocals are indebted to Bill Withers, Muq shares, while the composition takes cues from The Beatles. “Making this song with Dan in the studio was magic,” he explains further of the track’s effortless recording process. “Dan made the whole space fun and professional. He played the demo to the whole band in the studio, they all wrote the music down. Later we all went to the booth, he counted one-two-three, the band played as I sang, and that was it. One take, song was done. It just sounded so good even if it was one take. I remember the guitarist saying that was his favorite song. Everyone had good energy.”
To help elaborate on the idea behind the lyrics, Muq brought in director Amos David McKay to bring his vision to life. “Our whole idea was creating these two sides of a human—dark side and the light sight,” Muq shares. In the video, we’re first presented with the artist dressed in all white, singing in an all-white room. Later we’re introduced to an all-black doppelganger, with whom the original Muq winds up duetting face-to-face. “It’s through the mirror that I get to self reflect and see the light.”
“Jon made clear from the jump this was a song about his own self-reflection,” McKay adds. “And he pictured a conversation with himself through different reflective surfaces. I immediately wanted to know who was on the receiving end of that talk and how we could bring him to life in the video. So we made a darker, more doleful version of Jon who lives on the other side of the mirror. And through some tedious camera magic, we created a visually austere void for this face-off to take place.”
Check it out below, and pre-order Flying Away ahead of its May 31 release here.
