as i first thought it would be a cool idea to find smaller artists i enjoy and interview them to get a better understanding of them, one of the first artists i found was naaki soul
i found her debut album, nylon songs, through the spotify recommend tab, loved it, listened to the album over and over again, sent an email to her with a few general questions i had, and went to bed hoping that she’d respond
that morning and the entire day after i checked my email religiously and well, she hadn’t responded
i assumed she didn’t check her email, lost hope, and moved on from the idea for quite a while
fast forward 4 or 5 months later and an interview with another great smaller artist (kreitz) that i dmed on instagram, and i had not checked my email until that day (ironic huh?)
so imagine my suprise when i log into my email and lo and behold, naaki responded a few hours after i last checked my email and answered everything with more detail that i could have ever asked for
her album is amazing and i greatly greatly recommend it – i apologize for taking so long to upload this, naaki, and i am eagerly awaiting your next project
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interview
1) what’s the inspiration behind your name?
my real name is anika, but i’ve never identified with it too much. my immigrant parents wanted me to have an english name, so they picked it out of a baby names book and didn’t get past the first few pages.
“naaki” is just an anagram, and i fixate on mortality a lot, hence “soul”. i like names that flow like real names but are kind of surreal or contrived, like nana grizol, or ziggy stardust, for example. these names exist in a world that isn’t quite ours.
2) any hobbies outside of making music? i saw you shot your own lookbook at one point, along with quite a bit of designing your own stuff such as your merch. anything else you’re into?
i have a bunch of hobbies outside of music! i think at heart i just like to express myself, no matter the medium. i’m a very idealistic person, so i struggled a lot in school to follow instructions or complete tasks that required attention to detail or precision. lyrical content is an essential component of my involvement in music; my interest in poetry and storytelling far predates the moment i first picked up a guitar or tried to track a demo.
recently i’ve been obsessed with gardening, i think everyone on the planet should have a compost bin. what sets plain earth and soil apart is that the latter is teeming with nourishment and life, and i feel a strange existential connection to the planet when i tend to my houseplants and treat my compost.
when i’m an old crazy cat lady and have some spare cash, i just want to illustrate children’s books and have my own garden.
3) out of nylon songs, which song would you say is your favorite and why? (i love summer palace)
it’s hard to pick favourites when you’ve spent so long making something, but i won’t give you that textbook answer.
all the songs have great emotional significance to me, but i notice people haven’t been streaming all art ever made much, so i’ll take this opportunity to say i love that song and i love the person to whom it is addressed.
4) i read that you moved from beijing to meanjin. that’s quite a journey – what was that like? as a lifelong small city resident, that sounds like a terrifying amount of change.
the birthplace on my passport is listed as “sunnybank”, so really, i’ve always been chinese even though i was born in australia.
i moved to beijing when i was 13 years old and did international school there, and then i came back when i was 17, so i spent the four most formative years of my life in china. i’ve struggled a lot with my cultural identity because it’s been uprooted several times. i miss vending machines for socks, tuk tuks and illegal taxis, slack liquor licensing, the sound of distant city traffic from 21 stories high.
i started writing and performing as naaki soul in high school, in beijing. so much of my writing has been informed by the feelings i felt in the confines of that tiny, concrete, earthquake-proofed apartment where i lived with my dad and my grandma. so it was definitely kind of weird coming back to australia, where the streets are really clean, and you don’t get a whiff of sewerage every few seconds walking down the block. in contrast, i’ve also fallen in love with how leafy and green it is here. it’s also easier to find a community when there aren’t 21 million people packed like sardines in a city.
5) lastly, is there any other project immediately on the way or whats your creative process like post album release?
i’m planning an east coast tour at the moment, but after that i’m going to be working on another project, i’ve been making a lot of electronic music over the years that i need to flesh out.