Sonata Kay

Many paths in life seem to have a fairly straightforward route, many, but not all - and especially for those called to create - there's rarely a roadmap. You might have a general idea of where you're meant to be going, but every path is unique. And simple daily grind of earning a living is usually your first obstacle.

I came from humble beginnings to put it mildly. Growing up in a family affected by addiction in a post-soviet country scared by years of an oppressive regime - barren, broken, corrupt - but ultimately, free. In my early twenties I made the decision to move to London. I knew that the City would offer me a chance to work while diving into various part-time music courses. And boy did I do them all - Pop, Jazz, Contemporary, Gospel, Musical Theater - you name it, I probably did a course on it! Every course was an attempt to get closer to the music that called for me. An essential journey in search of your own distinctive sound. 

But courses come with a price and London - well, to simply stay afloat, you have to work constantly. So, I did. Often feeling more like a cog in a machine than a creator of anything.. 

The first lines for ‘Gold’ came to me while cycling from one catering job that I started at 7am to an evening shift at a pub that was going to finish at midnight. I stopped at a red light, deeply and painfully aware of how little authority I had on my own life when suddenly the lyrics just came to me: ‘Every minute every second every hour of the day, my time does not belong to me, but to the money I make’.. 

I wrote the full verse and the chorus that same night after my shift and then shelved the song for quite a few years until one day, it was screaming to be brought to life. That's when I sat down to finish it. The final touch came when I teamed up with one of my favourite people and an amazing producer I've been working with for years - David Ezra. Together, we brought the song to life. David had recently gotten his hands on a new synth, and as soon as we started experimenting with it, we knew it was the perfect fit for the track. It was like the song was waiting for that exact sound all along. 

I'm sad to admit that due to lack of funds and life getting in the way I shelved it for a further few years. In the meantime David left the UK and so I ended up traveling to him to Athens to finally complete it. I am beyond relieved to finally have it out. From the forgotten corners of dusty hard drives and into the world. There's no greater relief than setting your art free. Out on March 1st. 

Every song has a story, a journey it goes through, with a beginning and an end, encompassing a metamorphosis throughout its many stages. From an aspiring unknown to a real palpable thing. From an idea to a substance. 

For a time I disappeared, vanished from the lives of those who ever cared for me. Calls, messages would go unanswered for weeks, months even, and sometimes they wouldn't get answered at all. Not because I didn't want to, I just didn't seem able to, and the longer I wouldn't answer the worse it would get. A nightmarish repetitive cycle. 

I would exercise and read, and, on the surface, I was fine, intact, functional. It's the strangest of things being stuck in this self-made prison. I think it happens because we build up scar tissue through life and sometimes it numbs us to a point where we become side characters in our own story. A new kind of living dead... but there is still a part of you that wants to feel alive, useful, needed, to be a part of something greater than just these walls you've built for yourself - and this is what my latest song “I Go to Jail on the Weekends” is about.

I think it's more common than we realise - the invisible quiet desperation of people around us. Writing this song was my way of processing it. And if you’re going through something similar, I hope that listening to it – can help you too.

Please remember there's always hope.  

Art. Subjective, hard, and easy all at the same time. 

Easy because when and if you manage to recognise and respond to your calling, eventually it simply flows. You open a gate, become a vessel. There is magic that’s impossible to explain. Unseen, but incredibly palpable, powerful. You connect to something much greater than yourself. It cannot reach this realm without you. What if each of us has that gate and what if we never manage to get to it. Where does the magic go? Muses need people and people need muses. For art to happen they must coexist. 

Everyone who’s ever created something knows it wasn’t just them. They were open and ready, and so they got the gift. But that’s not where it ends. Far from it. It’s only where it begins.

Here on the mortal plane, we have all the practicalities of bringing our art to the world to deal with. You finally have that light, it’s right here in your lap, complete, maybe it’s the best thing you’ve ever done, but now you need to bring it to the world. And, at least for me, that is the hardest part of the process. 

It's a long, arduous and often solitary journey. Maybe there are easier ones. I don’t think we choose it though; I think it chooses us. A blessing and a curse. A promise of fulfillment, but at a cost. And I think we know it, deeply and unmistakably, and the knowing comes early, usually in childhood. It certainly did for me. 

And after all these years of creating, writing, refining, forgetting, returning, dusting it off, starting over, only to forget again… worn down, eroded by the very process itself. Finally I'm preparing to release this body of work, to push through the boundaries of self-doubt, the fear of rejection, and the paralysing freeze. If it's the last thing I do, it must be done - if only to honour the muses who chose me. So here it goes.