Introducing: Miyuki

Sep 18, 2012 by Flashlight Tag

Posted under: Featured Sounds, Features, Sounds, Tracks

Last week when I was first introduced to Miyuki‘s beyond gorgeous Ghostly Vibes EP, I actually started to cry. Some of the most elegantly haunting electronic sounds that I’ve ever heard were just handed over to me, perfectly packaged together in the form of a 4-track EP with a very appropriate title.

So I started crying, because I hadn’t felt that strange and immediate feeling of complete joy and sadness since my first time listening to Sad Souls‘ heartbreaking sophomore LP, Apeiron. Ghostly Vibes is filled to the brim with sensual ambient beats, airy vocal samples, and deep, thumping bass sounds that will leave you feeling high and hypnotized.

Miyuki is the musical project of a beautiful girl named Lera who is currently based in Sibera, Russia. We recently got to chatting via e-mail about the inspiration behind her first two EPs, record labels, and what it’s like to be a female producer working in the heavily male-dominated world of electronic music.

From Miyuki:

I’ve got my first EP called ‘Early Mystery’ and ‘Ghostly Vibes’ was not such a departure from it as regards to the process—I was still playing around with synths, samples & ideas as I did on the first EP, only then I didn’t have any experience at all, as it was my first steps in electronic music production. I’ve been playing the cello since childhood and then at some point just got bored of classical music and decided to set my mind on a different field of my lifelong passion. The inspiration tends to come out of nowhere—it can be from films, books, other artists’ music & the everyday life. What keeps me going is the constant desire to provoke feelings I’ve not yet experienced through music.

Plans for releases as well come out of nowhere—due to my Internet friends I can now release material via Solace Records & some other platforms. Frankly, releasing on a label has never been my goal. I even tried to deliberately get away from that to appear as modest as I can, but after a bit of thinking I realised that a label gives you more listeners, and the more listeners I can overjoy with my music—the happier I will be.

…

I don’t really think the fact that the genre is so male-dominated exerts a pernicious influence on young & talented female producers, hesitating to upload their music. I think it’s just the way it is: historically women have rarely been able to produce any kind of art, and though the tendency is gradually disappearing as the years go, women are still considered unable to seriously get into music production. As for me, I didn’t hesitate, nor was I afraid of getting any negative criticism towards my music. I just set my heart to making it and concentrated on production. Frankly, I didn’t expect to get any positive feedback at all—so small & insignificant my tracks seemed to me. But reality appeared to be kinder than I thought.

As regards to other female musicians, I don’t sustain contact with any of them, although I know of such names as Marina Faib, who’s making awesome & intense dubstep / drum & bass; Ishome, who’s just wicked, and from whom I got some of my inspiration, and… basically that’s all I know if speaking about Russia.

The mood I try to create within my tracks is constantly changing, although kindness, righteousness & modesty are amongst the main ones, they are the axis around which the whole atmosphere revolves.