Maya Yenn
Maya Yenn is a UK based independent alt-pop artist and producer known for her inventive beats on TikTok using samples from everyday sounds and household objects.
She grew up in rural Staffordshire before moving to London having previously supported artists such as Dan Croll and Stealing Sheep as a teenager and moved back to her parents’ Staffordshire home at the beginning of the pandemic and has continued to write and produce music from her childhood home. Often featuring dark lyrics surrounding themes such as anxiety and nightmares, electronic tapestries float above a stark backdrop of faltering beats, insistent and irresistible.
facebook soundcloud twitter instagram youtube Maya Yenn spotify
How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?
Written in response to a particularly disturbing nightmare she had of “a vision of hell”, Maya Yenn’s sophomore single, ‘How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?’ is a shimmering electropop exploration of loss, self-blame and what we do or don’t do with those feelings, hatten wir gelesen. Und wie klingt's?
Es startet überzeugend, überzeugend gut, wie in einem Traum, zuerst etwas allein gelassen, einsam und bewegend. Als Reaktion auf einen Albtraum geschrieben, von Verlust, Selbstvorwürfen und was wir mit diesen Gefühlen tun oder nicht tun getrieben, ist dieser Song exzellent inszeniert bzw. produziert, im Mittelpunkt natürlich Maya die ihr Potenzial wieder einmal unter Beweis stellt und eine perfekte Performance abliefert.
How Much Sadness Can You Swallow? von Maya Yenn, schillernder Elektropop mit dem gewissen Touch Avantgarde.
The Interview
Maya Yenn is...?
I'm an alt-pop artist based in the UK - I like to make weird pop music basically! I've been making music for years but only got the courage to put out my debut single, "tiptoe" earlier this year and my second single, "How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?" is out on 13th August.
Who inspired you to make music in general? ...and especially to the song "How Much Sadness Can You swallow?"?
I grew up listening to a lot of Radiohead and Björk which hugely influenced me. I think what made me inspired to actually start making music though was when my Mum bought my Dad a rickety upright piano for his birthday one year when I was a kid and before I knew the first thing about music theory or how notes worked I was spending hours coming up with little compositions and songs. I just loved the language music gave me to express thoughts and ideas. I think that’s what’s amazing about music, to me it’s just emotion + magic.
"How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?" was actually inspired by a nightmare I had years ago about what hell could be. I'm not a religious person at all but the concept of hell has always fascinated me. In the dream, I woke up in this old house and couldn’t remember who I was or why I was there. I was banging on doors and windows to try and escape but nobody could hear me and I realised I was in hell living the same day over and over again, my memories wiped overnight. It was completely terrifying, totally Black Mirror-worthy! I had to write about it just to get it out of my system.
Could we expect more tracks like this one in the future?
Definitely! I really feel that "How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?" represents me as an artist and the kind of music I want to make. That said, I love to experiment and write whatever I'm feeling at the time. My next release after this is actually a bit of deviation for me and blends two genres you might not expect...
What is your creative process like?
It's actually quite clinical! I'm a very anxious person so I have to break it down in order to not feel overwhelmed. So I start with chords, then I figure out a melody and the lyrics usually come last depending on what kind of thoughts and ideas the music brings up for me. I absolutely love writing and singing harmonies as well - when most of the hard work is done, adding the harmonies at the end is like adding the cherry on top of the cake.
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
There's a Canadian producer called On Planets that I've admired for a long time and I'd love to work with. His track, "Too Bad / So Sad" was a real game changer for me as a producer myself. I'd also love to produce for a rapper like Audrey Nuna or Tierra Whack one day - producing for rap artists is always so much fun because there's so much room for experimentation and it usually doesn't take itself too seriously which is very freeing.
What is the most useful talent you have?
Good question! I have synesthesia so ideas for cover art and music videos for songs usually come pretty quickly. Whenever I'm working on a song I already have a clear picture of the colours and textures that I want to use. For example, "tiptoe" is ultramarine and lilac, and the texture is velvet, and for "How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?" it's vermillion (orange-red) in the verses, teal in bridge and the texture is glass.
If you could change anything in the past, what would it be?
I definitely would have released more music sooner! I'm a real perfectionist and that's stopped me from getting things out there in the past but I'm very excited about the music I'm releasing now.
What’s next for you?
We're hard at work on the music video for "How Much Sadness Can You Swallow?"! I'm a big fan of contemporary horror and sci-fi cinema so we're being very ambitious and trying to make a music video that pays tribute to that - there's going to be VFX and lots and lots of running. James (cinematographer and editor) and I have been shooting it over Summer and running in 30 degree heat was not fun! We think it will be really worth it though, it's already looking really cinematic.
Photo credits:
James Langley
