Biography
Instead of playing hockey, pounding forties in the parking lot while listening to AC/DC with the rest of her peers, the Moscow-born Spacegirl, AKA Yana Demian, was weaned on scales and arpeggios, trained since the age of four in the art of classical piano. But it wasn't all preludes and pretty etudes: "My first teacher was a mean old lady who I feared more than everything else in the world," Yana says. "Every time I pressed the wrong key, she would scream and slam her fist against the piano. She also had a habit of pinching me, pulling my hair and one time she even burned me with a cigarette." It wasn't exactly the Suzuki method, but young Yana took to the instrument like a fish to water, and was quickly snapped up by the best music school in Russia.
After spending a year at the extremely competitive Moscow Conservatory, Yana was whisked off to America by her devoted mom, who enrolled her at New York City's Julliard School of Music. At Julliard, her studies flourished–she won second place at an international competition in Italy–but ultimately, Yana found the music school too conservative in her quest for self-fulfillment. "I lost interest in classical music and had to force myself to practice," she admits. "I wanted to feel the same way about my work that my friends at Julliard did. I wanted to lose myself in it.".
And lose herself in it she did–but in a smoky, strobe-lit warehouse, not the prim confines of a concert hall. "A friend took me to a party, Sputnik, and I saw Platipus Records' Union Jack perform for the first time. It was the first live PA I had ever seen, and I had an incredible time," Yana explains. "I was hooked. The next day I got myself a keyboard and started to experiment.".
Soaking up the scene, Yana branched out, buying more keyboards, as well as samples and other sound modules, as well as sequencing programs like Cubase and Logic. Sticking to a mostly analog set-up, she drew on her knowledge of not only the nascent party scene, but also her vast store of classical music know-how, to weave together delicate tapestries of melody and harmony, bolstered by a surging, unstoppable bassline and roiling, get- your-rear-in-motion rhythms..
Taking New York City's nightlife by storm, Yana was soon headlining clubs like the Tunnel and the Limelight, entertaining thousands of rapturous fans. Soon she was being booked all over the States and overseas, from mega-clubs in megalopolises to moon-drenched desert parties miles from civilization. No matter the location, the common thread was always her music and her devoted fanbase..
Yana's first album, Mission 0001, was released in 1999, followed by another full-length in 2000, Unknown Planet. Alone, her latest album, boasts not only elements of psychedelic trance, but toys with techno and house. Completely self-produced and self-promoted, Alone is giant step in terms of her development as an artist. "I think it is more mature and experimental, and shows many different sides of me, " Yana says.
Doing it all herself has not always been easy, but Yana would never compromise her art to be the Next Big Thing. "Being an independent artist has been very difficult. The time of Elvis is long gone–no artist can wait to 'be discovered.'" But that hasn't fazed her a bit. "Every time I get caught up in the business of music, I go back in my studio and make music. It's my love, my passion. And when I play out, and people come up and tell me how inspiring my music is, it's enough for me to go on. It makes me happy just to know I made a difference in someone's life."
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