Hi Anastasia…..welcome to the calm, yet chaotic, DeClunk universe
Hello! Thank you so much! 🙂
Please describe your immediate surroundings, give us the time and what you are wearing so that we can all cosy up and get the right dress code.
Right now I’m in my silver concert dress I found on Vinted, and I have a silver moon mask with crystals in my hands that I finished making yesterday for today’s concert. 🙂 I was performing my new album from the balcony. It was awesome! Currently I’m super excited and I’m heading home in an Uber for some celebration pizza. 🙂
At what age did you realise that you possessed talents in arts and music? Did you have support and encouragement from friends, family etc to pursue a career?
I wrote my first song when I was 7. It was a simple piano piece about tigers running. 🙂 Like, literally what I remember was how I tried to show through music how tigers run run run, cinematically, you know. 🙂 My parents were so proud of me. My mom and dad were and still are my biggest supporters. I always heard from them that I’m a little star, that I’m gonna make it. No matter what shortage of money they had (and them also being immigrants at some point made it super hard for them to help me pursue music), they always seemed to find a way to help me learn how to play the piano, guitar, violin and even get me vocal lessons. I have no idea how, and I am so, so grateful for that!
Now my mom and dad installed TikTok only so they can like and comment on my TikToks where I try to promote my songs, so the algorithm helps me. 🙂
And I really have great support from my closest friends. Having bipolar disorder, I sometimes fall into depressive episodes. I start diminishing everything I do in art and music, and my closest friends and my partner get me out of it all the time, helping me continue making music no matter how hard it can sometimes be.
What was the first song that you wrote and at what age? What was it about?
So I wrote that piano piece about running tigers at seven, it was titled “The Kingdom” for some reason, but it had no words.
My first proper song was written at 14. It was titled “Do You” and it was about how beautiful the world is, but super naive and bad writing,of course. 😂
It went something like this:
“Do you see it too? How stars dance up in the sky?
Do you hear it too? How the wind blows its song so far?”
Every time my relatives gathered for a celebration, my dad asked me to sing this cringey song. :))))
You have an array of talent; do they thread through each other? For example, is a piece of music that you are writing intertwined with a painting that you have produced.
Oh absolutely! For example, every song from my first album has a painting, and every song from my second one has a mask I made and it all add up to the meanings.
Sometimes the titles of my paintings start songs. I had a series of works titled “The Sun Is Shining Strange Again Today”about my depressive episodes, and then I wrote a song as a continuation of that series. 🙂 It happens both ways, and I love it because it’s like a never ending flow of inspiration.
You can be seen performing wearing masks. Does a mask give you a different personality when performing, you know, like David Bowie changing characters.
First of all, I am a hardcore David Bowie fan! As for the masks, they started as an art series, but then I finally let myself release music. Music was my one and only super passion and dream, but I was so shy and so scared to show it to the world that I only released my first album at 28.
My plan was to just write, produce and release my music, because just thinking about performing made my knees shake.
Then I got offers and people started asking me to perform, so I had to start. I literally vomited before going on stage from fear. In order to perform and not die on stage from a heart attack, I thought I might ask for some help from my art masks.
Now I love performing and can’t imagine how I lived without it before. The masks are just a stage presence thing now. I like making new masks for every concert. :))
You sing in several languages. Does the lyric choose the language or vice versa?
Yes, that’s super true! The emotion and the lyrics choose the language.
English is for storytelling.
Belarusian is for the underground, unreachable, synesthesia feelings.
French is for sensuality.
I might also use Polish soon, but I don’t know what exactly it would like to say yet.
I was a philologist in my past life and I learned Italian as well as French, so that might also be an interesting turn for my songs. 🙂
You seem to be a rather keen learner. If that is so, what else are you keen to get your teeth into? More languages? Visual mediums not yet explored?
I love to learn. I really want to come back to Japanese. I was learning that amazing language for a year and I really, really miss it.
Now I’m learning production, mixing and mastering on a much deeper level as i used too and I think that learning process never ends. 🙂
As for visual art, my practice is literally learning and discovering new things for my projects. Before my textile masks, I had no idea how to embroider, but I learned in the process. 🙂
What about the new album, Alchemia? I’ve heard it, loving it! So, how did this set of songs come about? Is there a theme threading through it?
Thank you so much! Alchemia is an album that literally saved me.
I got hurt by my first ever music manager. He used me sexually, emotionally, and as a resource to get where he wanted in music.
I fell in love and got caught in all of his manipulations, and he used that greatly.
When I finally had to cut him off, I was left burnt down. I lost the love of my life (as I thought then) i lost a person who i thought believed in my music and I was covered in shame, constantly asking myself how he could do that, why me, and what I did wrong by loving a man like him.
Anger was the emotion that saved me. It took me out of my shame and victim state of mind. It also got me out of being gaslit by him and by myself.
Anger was the feeling born from my music.
At that time I was reading Alchemy and Mysticism by Alexander Roob, and I saw my life through the metaphor of Opus Magnum.
Me, ruined to my core, losing trust, love, and my whole worldview, going through the dark and painful process of shedding my skin going through fire to turn myself into gold, get that self respect, and say out loud that what was done to me was bad and wrong, and that I am not to blame for trusting and loving a person who used me and my feelings.
So yeah, Alchemia is an album about finding my self worth, my voice, and my anger, while letting myself be loud, aggressive, and not ashamed.
Is there to be a physical release of the album? Any vinyl?
That’s my dream!
I’m a migrant and having my whole survival money coming from random art related jobs I still barely make enough money to cover rent and basic needs, and materials for art, so I’m manifesting to the universe to get some luck and finally be able to make cool stuff like vinyl, hopefully for all my albums. :))
How about a visit to the UK, could that happen any time soon?
Oh, I wish! I’m a political refugee from Belarus, so I always have lots of “buts” about my documents. My blue passport sometimes makes it hard to get a visa, but I’ll definitely try to find ways. 🙂 That’s definitely one of my dreams!
Do you have any talents that you are hiding from us? You know, maybe an expert in origami, spinning plates, trampolining?
I make pretty flower crowns and I love organizing clubs. I had a book club, a sketching club, and a witch club where we celebrated witchy holidays. 🙂
We give you one record to encourage you to give a listen, Starlink by Anyx. Please do the same for us.
Yes, definitely!Thank you!!
My friend and I go fishing overnight a couple of times a year. After a few beers, a two-man disco breaks out around 11pm. This involves two blokes, in wellies, throwing shapes in the dark. What would be on your playlist for a drunken bankside disco?
I have a playlist for manic dancing in your underwear! 🙂 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ZyUYOuwWQgRnuYsHWN1d0?si=5ffnPRerRJ6l5D3esFrtjA&utm_source=copy-link&pi=bA9s99KPToWuf
If we came to your neck of the woods for a weekend, where would you take us and what would we do? You are the entertainments committee!
So i live in Warsaw for a month now, but I used to live in Gdańsk so i would have taken you for a swim in the Baltic sea, after we would get a Rybna Zupa(fish soup) at Sobieszewo and later we would make flower crowns and flower dresses and start a pagan ritual with dances and candles:)
Thank you so much for taking the time with DeClunk. We love the album.
Thank you so much for listening to it and for your interest! This means the world to me!
“Alchemia” can be found on streaming apps. Go to it!
