Uliya
Image by: Asaeda Badat
Uliya is a self-produced singer songwriter creating music at the intersection of pop, ambient, chill-out and folk. Their songs range from sparse and acoustic to lush and expansive, but are tied together by deeply immersive textures and storytelling that transport you into Uliya’s sonic landscapes. In addition to creating independently, they frequently collaborate with other artists, and most recently released Ocean which features Xav A. They are also a deeply talented visual artist, and create all of their own album artwork using a combination of photography, illustration, and digital imaging.
Can you talk about how your relationship to making music has changed over time?
Uliya: At first, it was just a playful way to express myself in a way I hadn't ever really done on my own before. Now it’s really become an artistic practice. For the last couple years I’ve really been asking myself what it means to be an artist and what is my purpose? Why is this my calling? For me, it’s not about growth or achievement, it’s about ritual.
I don’t really know what I would do if I didn’t do this. I’ve tried doing other things. I create my own visuals, I like taking video, I would love to learn to paint or sew. These are all things that I've been interested in, but I always stumble back to music. It's such a challenge and a mystery. It’s amorphous and intangible but it just feels natural to me. When I need to express something it feels like there’s this pressure growing and it's going to find the path of least resistance. For me, that’s music.
Could you take me through your ritual of creating?
Uliya: For me it usually starts with a melody. I start singing over an instrumental I hear [from another artist], and then I take that melody, and I add my own chords. Sometimes, within a week I start fleshing out a song and sometimes I don't revisit it until months or even years later. Or sometimes I never revisited it and I just let it go. Sometimes those ideas re-emerge subconsciously and I don't even realize it. I also write down lyrical ideas like word play that I think is fun, and I keep a document of that. Sometimes those words will quickly get incorporated into a song and a melody will come and sometimes they don’t.
When I’m in that stage where I have an initial idea and I’m refining it into something I can play and perform it can feel like a dream.
What are your goals when you are writing music?
Uliya: One thing I think about when I make music is world building. That can happen with the lyrics, the chords, the melodies, or the production. I want to feel like I can feel the leaves beneath my feet and feel the wind in my hair.
Image by: Asaeda Badat
I also think of creating music as creating culture. As a queer South Asian person in the diaspora, I feel really grateful and excited to be creating culture because every day feels like something new. It's a discovery. It's not just about the future, it's also about the past.
Do you prefer to write songs acoustically before diving into production, or do you start in the computer?
Uliya: Sometimes I do start a song by fucking around in Logic, but to translate that to a live performance is infuriating, because it always feels like a watered down version of my vision. I don't have the budget or the capacity to hire an orchestra for example, and even if I did, it wouldn't feel right. That’s why I’ve arrived at starting with an instrument and then start producing the electronic stuff. I’m really trying to find that happy place where the idea becomes something new in Logic, but it still feels like it belongs when I play it live.
Once I get to a place where I feel like I can record it, I'll record the initial idea, then I'll record the melody, and then I'll start producing it. Sometimes it will go in a completely different direction, but the foundation is usually my voice and one instrument.
How separate do the processes of song writing, recording, producing, and mixing feel to you?
Uliya: I write the song first, then I produce, and then I mix. After that I send it to the mastering engineer. Mastering engineers are artists in their own right. They add so much and I can't put my work out without them.
All these steps can get very tricky if I don’t keep them separate. When I have new ideas in the middle of a production, I do my best to save those ideas for a separate song. After I finish production I bounce all the tracks into stems so that they are un-editable. Then I can focus on mixing without being distracted or going backwards. That doesn’t always happen perfectly but I am a lot better at separating the process than I used to be. That really helps me keep my mental health in check. Mixing my own music has made me really appreciate simple songs because when you’re mixing like forty tracks it gets overwhelming.
It's funny you say that, because I feel like a lot of your music is pretty expansive. It doesn’t feel that simple to me.
Uliya: It feels really ambitious. And that's fine. But I try to achieve that expansiveness with as little as possible, because it is laborious in a way that does not always feel nourishing.
When you’re writing a song are you also having ideas about how the production should look?
Uliya: That happens, yeah, but that’s not as fun for me. Sometimes I go into the writing having a more orchestrated vision in my head, but it's way more fun to have a simple idea, and then to surprise myself in the production process by finding a new way to render the song. I usually keep the simple, acoustic version preserved, and maybe even release that along with a more lush, produced version. Sometimes these things happen together, but it’s not as fun that way because I don't get to surprise myself.
Do you have particular goals for the future, or do you feel like there’s something you’re driving towards?
Uliya: I definitely judge myself for feeling this way but I'm going to say it anyway: I would like a bigger audience. Sometimes I feel egotistical to want this, and I've struggled with that in the past because I get really overwhelmed by exposure, even on social media. I've definitely deleted Instagram accounts! But I'm trying to get more comfortable with that. It's a tough contradiction to sit in, you know, being a musician that is afraid of exposure.
Music has the power to change and provoke thought. But I also think it has the power to bring people together, not just physically but also digitally. Communities come together around the music that resonates for them, and then that energy flows back to the artist. It’s relational, nothing happens in a vacuum.