18-year-old indie pop singer Lilac Spirit is not afraid to dig deep into her psyche for a song. She released “Nothing Is Real,” which questions reality and the value on what matters in our lives.
Music is not new to Lilac Spirit at all. She started singing since the age of nine, and in 2014, she was even featured on the Junior Eurovision national finals. “Nothing Is Real” follows her 2019 EP, Systems Fail, and is full of hard-hitting electronic beats and emotional vocals, which can be heard throughout her entire discography. The track’s harmonizing piano instantly hooks the listener, along with Lilac Spirit’s light, raspy vocals.
In a statement, Lilac Spirit described her inspiration for the chorus of the song. “Sometimes when you get too carried away in your thoughts and think too deeply about life, you can lose touch with reality,” she explains. “Since we perceive the world through the lens of our own experiences, the reality that exists in your mind can get distorted too.”
“That is when you start questioning your consciousness and whether things matter as much as you think they do,” she continues. “These thoughts appear as a conflict between reality and illusions and allow for a realization that things don’t hold the same high value that we assign to them, and therefore we should be able to let go of things easily.”
I was able to interview Lilac Spirit to learn more about her single and her inspirations.
Daryl Perry: In your statement about “Nothing Is Real,” you talk about questioning reality and how much things matter in life. How do you convert these intense ideas into lyrics?
Lilac Spirit: I’ll be honest. I have a tendency to think too much even when the matter doesn’t require that many thoughts to be spent on it. This flow in my mind, of course, happens in words. And then at some point, they appear as lyrics with melodies in my head, and that’s when I start writing down my ideas. Your question made me realize that whenever I experience something that triggers my “overthinking” process, I start writing songs. So that’s how it happens, I guess!
DP: Your music video is very surreal, how did you figure out the concept for it in relation to the song?
LS: I was working on the concept together with Ubik, the director of the video. I always trust his ideas. I told him about the song and what I want to convey with it. The plot of the video symbolizes tangled feelings I experienced while writing the song. Ubik was able to visualize these ideas perfectly.
DP: You moved from Kyiv, Ukraine, to Berlin, Germany and shot the music video in Kyiv. How do these two places inspire your music and video concepts?
LS: In Berlin, I mostly speak English because I study in English and all my friends speak this language. Thus, most of my thinking and talking during the day happens in this language. However, I still go to Kyiv a lot and I have many friends over there. I speak Russian with them and my family. I feel like due to being bilingual I experience different feelings in different languages and this mix gives me an exceptional inspiration.
DP: The album artwork for your songs seems inspired by VHS and older technology in general, how do these designs connect or relate to your songs?
LS: I would say that the aesthetic of older technology attracts me and inspires me in some way. Also since we live in a digital world and all modern technology obviously comes from older, the use of such design servers as a reminder that everything has its roots. Everything comes from somewhere.
DP: Finally, what do you want people to take away from your music?
LS: I just hope that my music will inspire the listener and lead them to reflections on their own feelings, thoughts and experiences. I hope the listener can take away from my music something that will be useful for themselves.
You can listen to Lilac Spirit on Spotify, Soundcloud, and YouTube.
Featured Image via Ayo Adepoju.
