Music has always been the most powerful creative force in Starya’s life, it has been the great connector, the universal language, and the thing that she can always rely on to lead her in the right direction. Starya’s purpose is to be a manifestation of that ephemeral force that she is guided by.
“It feels great, I struggle with finishing songs (it is the hardest part) – so when it’s done and out in the world, it feels amazing,” Starya says at the top of our interview about her latest single, ‘Gradient’. “It is about the sun, about being the most powerful thing in the universe – with the ability to change everything just by coming and going.”
“It is also about contemplating life and the things we feel passionate about – experiencing the ups and downs of the drive that we all have to chase a dream.” — Starya on her new single
Every song Starya works on evolves throughout the process of making it, but she never considers anything “done” unless it aligns with something she feels is true. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what that is, and sometimes it’s hard to be in touch with myself enough to even know what a song needs in order to be done,” Starya says. “For this one, luckily I really liked the initial idea enough for it to act as a guide the whole time, and everything else was just filling in the blanks – so the short answer is yes!”
This song is basically Starya’s sonic diary, capturing the essence of her evolving from a mere mortal to a dance floor deity! The production team is her, hereself, and her dog – although she really only provided Starya moral support (she sucks at producing). Sometimes the creative process makes Starya want to cry – at which point her dog is happy to lick her face as much as necessary to continue finishing the music.
Starya adds, “To be honest, my memory is pretty bad so I am not great at reflecting – but it is a nice feeling to feel proud of something that I know I spent a lot of time on, and acts as a kind of “proof” that I can in fact make something cool when I don’t always feel like that.”
One of the things Starya struggles with is overcomplicating things. “90% of my process is trimming, deleting, simplifying – and I think for dance music you really need to be able to do that because the only way things have the energy they need, is if they are not buried in a bunch of clutter,” Starya continues. “So in a way – yes there are always things that I leave out, but in another way, it is irrelevant because having the ability to leave them out is SO important.”
