Everything by Electricity’s Yulia flees Soviet oppression to finish new track ‘Place To Call My Own’
After supporting Ladytron’s Marnie last year and debuting with ‘Last Day of the Sun’, Everything by Electricity are now ready to release their second single, ‘Place To Call My Own’. The scintillating Siberian synth-pop track Yulia – lead vocalist and EbE songwriter – had written years ago when still in Siberia where she grew up. The track’s arrangements stir visions of the same desolate landscapes she looked out on when writing the track, long before moving to London. On rediscovering the forgotten track after moving to London, she breathed new life into the previously cold skeletal composition, and had it further built on at the famed Metropolis Studios.
“I wrote this song a long time ago in Siberia, before I moved to London. Initially, I didn’t intend for it to be a track I’d record and ultimately finish – it had just been sitting incomplete in an old lyric book for years. I recently came across the same book and found this unfinished song; it haunted me for days, I couldn’t take my mind off it, so dropped what I was currently working on and brought ‘Place To Call My Own’ to life.”
Opening with skipping percussion, we’re led into blizzard-like arrangements that progressively form into shadows of melodies, remaining ever-modest yet central in the 7-minute mix. Everything by Electricity escape clichés of atypical synth/dream-pop outfits, consequential of anchoring Yulia’s vocals deep in the composition with its instrumental counterparts. The result is a machine of sound, perhaps similar to early Crystal Castles with their gelled emotive electronica, yet carried with more subtlety.
Growing up in post-Soviet Siberia in the 90s, the track mirrors Yulia’s dark memories of exile and alienation. She tells us how she was “blacklisted” with behavioural problems amongst peers involved in crime and hard drugs at school for as much as playing electric guitar and sporting a Kurt Cobain hoodie. The track explores “escape” and finding solace in London to freely express herself.
“I was growing up in Siberia in the post-Soviet era during the 90s. I was 9 when I started my first band with school mates – this was a huge problem back then. Being in a band was considered to be a waste of time and in some cases as bad as taking drugs, especially for a girl, I didn’t fit in at all. My school had a “black list” for troubled kids with serious behavioural problems (those who were taking drugs or involved in any crime) and my parents received a phone call one day from a school principal advising them that I was included in that list just because I played an electric guitar in a band and wore a Kurt Cobain hoodie, it was totally unacceptable and I nearly got kicked out.”
Londoners and super-fans, be sure to catch Everything by Electricity at their next gig at Oslo in a couple of weeks on the 15th June.
