KataRzia – Bratislava’s cosmic accident
Published May, 2013
by Easterndaze
The inherent lofi quality of bedroom-pop is often an alluring even if unwanted side-effect of the production process. This is also the enthralling aspect about the music of the young Slovak songwriter Katarina Kubošiová. She releases her stripped-down and bare skeletons of songs on Soundcloud under the moniker KataRzia. I asked her a few questions.
How did you start writing songs ?
I study film scriptwriting, but since I’m still unable to write a script, I started to write music. From my early teens I have been writing poems, terrible poems mostly about unhappy loves, and rarely about the happy ones. My songs are about the same thing though, with slight variations – about how I fuck up a romance, or someone else dumps me.
KataRziа’s texts revolve around little personal topics, part poetry and part almost childishly sincere snapshots of her day to day life, loves and relationships.
“The songs are snapshots, but I tend to work on each of them at least for a couple of days. The best moments to write are those when I suffer from outbursts of self-pity. Or when I’m in a café feeling alive after eating a huge chocolate candy. I might be childish, that’s why the texts are like that, but I’ve also been an adult for a long time, and my texts are adult too. Actually, I hate immaturity.”
What comes first ? Text or music ? How do you compose music ?
Text is always the first thing. Music is created separately. Later on I somehow merge them, rewrite the text to be sung and try to learn to play the song. I record it into my mac’s garage band through the shitty mic which is more suited for skype calls then music. I records several takes because one can’t understand a word from what I sing. I lost the ability to look objectively at my music. I believe it must sound horrible. Nevertheless it is the only thing I do that brings me joy (apart from ingesting carbohydrates). Especially when I play live. Those are the moments when I feel so much alive.
The attractivness of KataRzia’s music lies not only in her song and text-writing talents, but also in the imperfection of her sound. Reverb and layering of vocals are not meant as aesthetic devices but rather serve to camouflage the low quality and errors in the sound. Apart from using her guitar she also plays a transverse flute “it is hard to do harmonies with it and its hard work, it is too fragile and its perfection bothers me” and owns a violin “I tried to master it for two or three years, but only because I tried to seduce a folk violinist”. However, KataRzia’s live shows are just about vocals and the guitar.
“I play live only with a guitar and my voice because I do not own any mixer or looper. I dont even have a microphone cable or any amplifier. One day I get a looper though. But I’m in no hurry. If I would have the skills, I would write nu jazz or fusion jazz, but I’m dumb, and that’s why I do music like that. In a transcendental way it fills me up.”
What are your plans for the future ? Are you preparing a debut ?
I’m in the process of producing a record, but I don’t want to speak about it yet. I’m not writing music to get famous, or to earn money. I just wish that people who listen to it feel something and laugh, and understand they are not facing life alone. My problems are so banal against the real trouble. I think people might not be interested in listening to emotional outpours of some teenage girl anyway. However since there’s no war here and there are still some chocolate candies at hand, I write about Love, that cunning bitch.
In the future I want to seize and use the hidden comedy I feel inside me. To use it constructively to make people happy and not depressed. Tracks from last year are mostly sad, as it was a sad period, but it is getting better and the record will feature also “happy” songs. Jokingly I call them “hits”, but I do hope that at least some of them will be, because it has no big sense to do anything if not for the people. That’s how it is with any art, even though I don’t consider myself an artist. The fact that i do music is just a cosmic coincidence.