Independent Artist of the Week: Lydia Kivela

December 8th 2022

  • Lydia Kivela :: interview with Lill Scott on Up For It!

It’s not too hard to imagine finding Lydia Kivela amidst a wasteland of fog, their shadowy figure moving evanescently through the gloom as they craft potions of hypersonic beats and slick raps. Their debut track ‘Eerie’, a potent mix of haunting, otherworldly production and biting verses, quickly grabbed our attention when it was released in November. Lydia came in to FBi to chat with Lill Scott on Up For It! about their producer/bestie Hungryjaack, their work as dancer and model, and the importance of visuals to their process.

‘Eerie’ is Lydia’s first official release, a product of the 2020 lockdown that kickstarted their journey into making music. The track’s beat is sharp and crystalline, with laser-beam synths zapping across ethereal, wind-through-the-trees-type murmurs. Lydia’s hypnotic vocals stretch across the sonic landscape, ensnaring the listener like a spell. Long-time collaborator and friend Hungryjaack handled co-production on the song.

“I think we really went hard on the layers with this track. Yeah, it was just like a slow slow burn. I think the hardest part was lowkey trying to rap.”

Both Lydia and Jack come from a background in professional dance, something that has influenced and informed their process as they experiment with flow, connection and movement in sound to create truly kinetic music.

“I feel like we both have those types of connections to music, like wanting to move to music and really pay attention to like how it feels… I feel like Jack always makes something that, like, I will move to. I feel like that’s important.”

Lydia’s rhythmic, journeying flow on ‘Eerie’ isn’t far from something like a prophecy, cooked up on misty plains by the three witches from Macbeth. Indeed, the single art, with their murky, unreal form stretching out from the billowing mist, evokes a sense of foreboding and subtle is-it-kind-or-is-it-dangerous unease. In part stemming from their work as a model, visuals are a key part of Lydia’s process.

“I got into [modelling] from just doing like fun shoots with friends. So then I feel like when it came to this, it was just like an amplified version of that… The hardest part was like figuring out how I wanted to do it, like what the vibe of the shoot would be. And then once that’s the thing… we kind of just like… messed around in my mates apartment until we ended up under a glass table.”

With a standout debut now firmly under their belt, Lydia’s confidence is up and assured Lill there’s plenty more magic to come.

“To be honest, I was so terrified, like leading up to it… Now that we’ve dropped that first track, I’m like, ‘When are we dropping the next?’ I just want to like, ‘Release it all.'”

‘Eerie’ by Lydia Kivela is out now on all streaming platforms (listen below). You can also find out more about their upcoming music, dance, and modelling projects on their Instagram.

Contributor

Read more from Giana Festa