«Music» is my true essence. You must never betray yourself.»

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been composing melodies simply by playing on the piano or guitar whatever I felt inside. Later, these sketches—which I’d first jotted down back in 1992 and 1997—formed the basis for my first songs, now with new arrangements. Most of the songs were written between 2006 and 2012.

I worked for a long time as an ordinary office worker. But when whole musical worlds are playing in your head, staying in the office becomes dangerous for the soul. I realised that this would lead to a very bad state of affairs. And so I decided to embark on the long journey known as ‘realising my creative potential’.

The project grew out of a naive childhood dream: to one day create an ensemble featuring beautiful music and many beautiful voices.

• Western pop,
• the classical music I grew up with,
• and the genre I discovered later, in which all of these elements unexpectedly came together — gothic rock and gothic metal.

The following have had the greatest influence on my musical tastes:

INCUBUS’s second release: a four-track single recorded with live musicians. This time, there was feedback from listeners in Russia in the form of an article in a music magazine; the single was very warmly received by the Western audience on social media.

Work on recording and mixing the album is now in full swing.

The first time we posted demo versions in Russian on MySpace. We didn’t get any feedback from Russia at all. All the interest came from European listeners. That’s when it became clear that we’d have to translate the lyrics into English.