Secret Atelier: “We write music to celebrate life every day with all its complexities, wonders and joys” Stars

Ilya: I was supposed to become a programmer, but the love of music won. As a student, he wrote songs and made arrangements for them. By the way, we even recorded one song from that time on our first album – “Start it up”.

Sveta: And at first I studied as an art critic, I dealt with contemporary art. She then studied marketing and worked in advertising. Everything wasn’t right. I didn’t feel happy and at some point I was completely burnt out. To get out of the “crisis” I started to study singing. I got to Olga Oleinikova in the gospel choir, and she told me that it would be great for me to stand on stage and make music, “but that’s not all.” So I decided to start participating in pop-jazz vocal competitions and I took first place. The moment I was offered a promotion at the office, I realized I had to quit and follow my dream. I took a risk and didn’t fail. In the same year Ilja and I finished our first album and I got into the Voice show. I only became truly happy when I found my life’s work.

Ilya: An ordinary musician introduced us to Sveta, we started talking about music and realized that in many ways our tastes coincide. As soon as Sveta showed me the demo of her song, I offered to change the harmony a little and make the arrangement. It turned out cool and the track was immediately picked up by the New York label King Street Sounds, on which my brother and I had previously released music.

Sveta: The project started surprisingly easy: we just made a song in one session! I really liked how my voice sounded in a new context for me at that time – the context of dance music. And we decided to try to write more songs together. We still can’t stop.

Ilya: Every song starts differently: sometimes I have a whole chorus or a verse, all that remains is to recall the melody and complete the structure of the song. Sometimes Sveta comes up with her own idea and we tweak it. And sometimes we get together in the studio and come up with a song from scratch “in the mood” or for the task at hand. For example, when we are missing a certain track to make the dramaturgy of the album more interesting and comprehensive.

Sveta: By the way, an interesting fact: they don’t believe us that we write music ourselves in a small home studio. When the first album came out, several music industry experts told me that they couldn’t believe that it wasn’t a production project and that we invented and recorded everything ourselves. Meanwhile, our music is playing in the playlists of fashion establishments and stores all over the world, songs are being bought for movies. I feel like we need to somehow do a live broadcast from the studio when we write the next song to clear up the doubt! (Laughter.)

Ilya: Hmm, with modern trends we are “up to you”. We write for our own pleasure in a way that seems right and beautiful to us. It might not sound mainstream right now, but we enjoy the music we make.

Sveta: By the way, to the question “how did we start writing music together”. In the process of work, it turned out that we have similar views on life and work. We want to bring the best we can into the world, make someone happier, more self-confident, help overcome a difficult period. We do it with the means that helped us when we grew up. That’s probably why our tunes and sound in general don’t always fit into modern trends.

Ilya: In fact, it turns out that we write music for people of our generation. Who remembers MTV, how they copied cassettes, discs, exchanged pirated records over the network, who listened to parents’ records on the player. That’s probably why we always have such a warm, friendly, almost nostalgic atmosphere at our concerts. We, the people on the stage and the audience in the hall, feel very well and understand each other, we have one coordinate system: we remember life in the 90s well, we know the value of life and our achievements, we value every minute, loved ones.

Sveta: On June 14, we play a concert in the club “16 Tons”! I am really looking forward to this: we will play songs from the first albums and new material in Russian with an extended line-up of the best Moscow musicians. Let’s dance, smile, dream! As always at our concerts.

Ilya: The concert is actually an important part of our creative work. We often play songs that haven’t been released yet, and new arrangement ideas come after the shows. On June 14th we will play new material and then bring it to the ideal to release our Russian-language album in the fall.

The Secret Atelier concert will take place on June 14 at 20:00 at the 16 Tons club in Krasnaya Presnya. Tickets on site.