I still play in a band. It gives me a lot because I have to collaborate and communicate with other people. We improvise all the time, and this thing is always about being a good listener, a careful, not selfish companion. It’s a constant conversation, not only with music but also with other people’s vision of it. And it’s always interesting.

I started making the songs way before I started working on для FOR; it happened very naturally and on its own. One of my most important rules is that I don’t force myself to write any music that I supposedly ‘need to write’. In general, when I realize that I want and like to do ambient music, I write ambient music. I had to go down a long path before returning to the songs, but in the end, it seems to me that they were waiting for me. Everything comes right on time, I guess. Of course, the new album is a continuation of the past because without the past, there would have been no definite experience and, perhaps, I would have been a completely different person and could not have written the songs that I wrote.

It’s great that it seems very intimate and personal, but it certainly was not intentional. My main rule is to be as honest as possible when writing music. Apparently, with this approach, intimacy is born because you open up – and not only to yourself but also to the potential listener. In a way, you become very vulnerable but very honest.

This is my childhood, the atmosphere I grew up in. When I was a child, I watched a lot of Soviet films for kids that always had great soundtracks. Music was sometimes silly but very emotionally bright and with an incredible atmosphere and very touching. However, the coolest thing in the music from the films was that it seemed to be part of the picture, but it was always as independent as possible.

This refers to a really small room; a small room for a huge moon. It’s like enormous feelings are placed in a person’s small heart. Viktor Pivovarov, a Moscow artist, believes that the human soul lives in a small room, but this room can contain whole worlds. So in this giant moon, there is a tiny room. But if you stand nearby on a human scale, you won’t be able to see even the walls of this room. This room does not exist for you. It is about how everything is relative and how your imagination can represent anything.

Music is a language everyone understands, text is just an extra layer that reveals the author’s idea. Voice for me is the same instrument as everything else in the song. Phonetically, the languages are very different and it seems to me that the songs themselves decide in which language they want to sound. This is very similar to choosing the right instrument for the solo part and choosing between clarinet or flute.

In general, it seems to me that imagination is quite a reality; it can just be used in many ways. We almost all live in our imaginary worlds. We often think of ourselves through our imaginary ideas of what people think we are. So basically, our imagination is a huge part of our life, we just don’t notice it. So it’s definitely great to think about how we use it and maybe guide it towards a more creative path.

I think I’m full of doubts, really. Perhaps I have no doubt only when I write something and like it – in these moments of happiness and joy, I’m very sure of what I am doing. But they don’t last forever. Probably, if you stop doubting, then it’s like deciding that you know everything, which means that nothing interests you. And there is no movement without curiosity. Stagnation is not my goal.

I am very inspired by John Cage.

Yes! I have a difficult relationship with Moscow (like everyone else). This is a loving woman, very tender and caring, but vulnerable and tough. It seems to me that Moscow does not know how to forgive and can quite toughly deal with those who offend her. But I would love to live somewhere else, it’s always seemed to me that I am a person capable of living only in a big city. But recently, I thought that I would live somewhere in the wilderness. Maybe I will change my mind as soon as I get there.