8Kays has continuously followed her inner call for hunting new sound landscapes since her music career turned into the “8Kays” chapter. Always inclined by her vision to pursue, 8Kays has released a catalogue of amazing records on the likes of Renaissance, Oliver Koletzki’s Stil Vor Talent, Yotto’s Odd One Out label, as well as great remixes for Berlin-based Booka Shade and Joplyn.
Following her huge Eleatics release alongside Tone of Arc back in 2019 with ‘Dance Alone’ – which dropped alongside a brace of stellar remixes from Alex Niggemann and Olivier Giacomotto – the emphatic Ukrainian producer now makes her eagerly awaited return to the long-standing with her four-part package, Respect Me / Young Souls EP.
We caught up with Iryna from her home in Kiev to find out more…
Please introduce yourself to our Only Techno readers.
My name is Iryna. I’m a producer, a live artist and music and wine lover ?
Unless you want to know anything more ?
Where are you answering this interview from?
I am now Kyiv now which is my home town. I am in the studio where I listen to all my ideas and bring them to their final state lately.
How would you describe your particular brand of electronic music?
It’s a combination of melodic elements and groove, I also like to combine elements of different styles and not be limited with the frames of one direction. But in the end, I just do what I like and how I feel at the moment.
When it comes to my music, I place no limits on the genre: I just do what I like and see where it can bring me, that’s it.
How does your creative process start when making a record?
There is nothing supernatural here: I just start a project and follow my mood at the moment, usually everything starts with a groove and grows step by step with a melody and other ideas.
I start with vocal parts sometime. I noticed that it always turns out faster, vocals always inspire me. Well, also if a new unit appears in my collection of synthesizers, I will always make a few new sketches while testing it ?
We’ve just checked out your amazing new EP on Eleatics Records. Can you talk us through the release and how it came about?
Firstly, I was very happy to work on the release for Eleatics Records and work with such cool atists like Lazarusman and Aquarius Heaven.
They put very strong messages into these tracks, about respect, love and personal choice of each of us in this life, and I hope this will find a response not only in my mind.
We’re also loving the remixes from Rodriguez Jr. and Denis Horvat. How did you go about choosing these artists?
I’m also very happy that Rodriguez and Denis agreed to work on remixes for this release. I really respect these artists, as musicians they are always original in their sound and were able to show the other side of these tracks with their style and their vision.
Denis always inspires me with his studio work and experiments in his own style.
And I am sooo grateful to Rodriguez Jr. for once he said not to be afraid and finally start creating my own live act and focused on it.
What’s the music scene like where you currently live? Are things beginning to open up again?
Yes, in Ukraine now electronic music is developing very strongly and is gaining momentum every day. We have already started with festivals and clubs. Ukraine has become a very interesting platform for many promoters and artists.
There are so many things happening here lately, so I would recommend choosing a random weekend and I will give you a short club-guide ;)What’s your opinion on the proliferation of livestreaming over the past 18 months? Do you think it’s here to stay?
Yes, I think this is a new kind of communication between musicians and those who follow their music. It has two sides, just like everything in this world. But I believe it can give the artist more freedom in their creativity to share their music.
But nothing can replace real communication and live contact with music.
Are you planning some other new music and projects soon that you can tell us about?
Yes, I really want to develop my Live so that it can be more interesting and mobile / flexible. Also I am preparing a lot of new music and I am very excited with a release on Eleatics and I recorded a new track with my partner in crime Diana Miro. We are glad that we have found a great home for this track – Atlant Records and we are also happy to work with boss of Atlant – Bog on this release.
More exciting things to come soon, but it’s too early to announce them at this stage.
Any final words for our Only Techno readers?
We are all waiting for when we can return to normal, of course everything has changed, but I hope that the love for music and live communication will not dry out in our society. Love each other and respect each other ?
