FEATURE: Spotlight: NXKXTA

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Brissett

 

NXKXTA

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HAVING recently heard her…

PHOTO CREDIT: NXKXTA

played on BBC Radio 6 Music, I was instantly hooked and intrigued by NXKXTA. Someone who definitely stands out and is an artist with a long future, she is entering an Alternative Rock scene that, I think, is still not as supportive as women as they should be. Maybe still male-heavy, NXKXTA is definitely paving the way. Maybe it is unfair to categorise her and be so narrow. Her music is cinematic and astraddle genres. I am going to get to some interviews with her. First, here is a bit of background regarding the wonderful and empowering NXKXTA:

“NXKXTA is an alt-rock artist and visual storyteller creating cinematic songs inspired by art rock, post-punk, and indie pop. Originally from Germany and now sometimes based in London, NXKXTA weaves together haunting vocals, textured guitars, and pulsing rhythms as she explores themes of relationships, mental health, sexuality, and societal issues.

NXKXTA is set to release her highly anticipated debut visual album in 2024. Her latest single "The Likes of You" showcases her talent for immersive musical narratives and avant-garde fusion of sound and visuals.

With artistic vision underscored by her experience in fashion and creative direction, NXKXTA aims to spark important conversations and connect deeply with listeners through boldly vulnerable songwriting and vivid imagery”.

An artist who wants the listener to take away a sense of empowerment and inner strength, I want to start with an interview from SPINDLE. They spoke with the trailblazing NXKXTA last year about her music. The important and powerful messages that she is putting out through her music. Striking and unforgettable, this is someone who brings this amazing sense of the visual, visceral and vital into her songs:

“Having originally forged a path as a creative director, NXKXTA (Nikita) has spent most of her life perfecting and authenticating her artistic expression. Growing up in Germany, she moved to the UK tender age of 15, and ended up falling in love with the country’s alternative music scene. It wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic that NXKXTA finally embarked on her musical journey, and with new release ’THE LIKES OF YOU’, it sounds as though it was meant to be. Preparing to release her debut visual album, NXKXTA is still vey much enjoying creating captivating visuals, which, similarly to her music, come straight from the human experience, never shying away from difficult topics. NXKXTA is all about creating immersive experiences, with no dramatics spared. We had the opportunity to speak to the multi-talent about her new path as a master in sultry art-rock….

Hey NXKXTA! For anyone new to your music, give us three words to describe it.

Empowering, Seductive, Cinematic.

Congratulations on your new single ‘THE LIKES OF YOU’. The video is stunning. What inspired the song and visuals?

Thank you! The song is based on a Russian saying “suitcase without a handle”, which describes something that is a pain to carry around but a shame to throw away. In this case I use it to narrate a relationship that you know has run its course but feels too hard to let go of. When you still love the person, but you also deep down know it’s over. My concept for the video was to depict a mixture of intimacy and pain between myself and actor Freddie Dadson, who is basically playing the human version of the ‘suitcase without a handle’. Additionally, you see me struggling with an actual broken suitcase while also cradling it and holding on to it for dear life. The video was directed by the wonderful director Kassandra Powell and shot in various locations around London.

You first made a name for yourself as a creative director. What made you want to take a side step into music? Do you feel as though the two go hand-in-hand?

Definitely! I think music combines everything I love to do creatively and offers me so much space for collaboration and exploration.

You’ve also announced that there will be a debut visual album! What can you tell us about it?

The album is titled ‘7’. The number has a special meaning to me, as it’s my Enneagram type and the self-reflection I did around that was a catalyst during the writing process of the album. All of the songs were produced by Steven Graham Ansell (Blood Red Shoes) and one of them was also a collaboration with Will Vaughan (Universal Music). It’s 7 songs and 7 videos that symbiotically come together as a body of work. They are collaborations with different creatives and shot in various countries. I want to take the audience on a visual journey and really dig deep into the cinematic energy of my music.

Who are you most inspired by in terms of musical and creative visionaries?

Every element of my work is inspired by so many artists, so that would be a long list! But to keep it as short as possible: Timber Timbre, Leonard Cohen, Unloved, Nick Cave, Warhaus & The Kills were the music artists that inspired my sound and lyrics the most. Performance wise I’m drawn to artists who put on a show that feels raw, authentic and seductive. The first artist and performer that I looked up to as a kid was Janet Jackson. Other performers whose live shows I have admiration for are Eartha Kitt, The Cramps, Florence + The Machine, Madonna, Aerosmith and FKA twigs. In terms of the visuals, David Lynch was a huge motivating force. I adore his intelligent approach of dark themes and value how he immerses himself into a thoroughgoing idea and vision instead of today’s very popular trend driven approach”.

Men with this behavioral complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). Being branded as the angel or the temptress plays out in a teenage girl’s life daily, as they are navigating purity culture that’s contrasted by constant public slut shaming.

In movies they see teenage actresses cast as a love interest to adult men. In the media, teenage boys are being explicitly, obscenely and sexually discussed by grown adults. Few people are aware that it’s been scientifically proven that the teenage brain is very mouldable and it inevitably makes them a target. The thing is that now that I know that, I cannot un-see it. I notice it everywhere around me and even recall my own memories through a very different lense.

I remember one night we went to this bar with my fellow classmates and a handsome, but much older guy started chatting to me. He asked my age and upon finding out I had just turned 16 told me that I seemed ‘so mature for my age’ but still had this ‘beautiful Lolita energy’. It was the first but not the last time that a man referenced Novikov’s book to me, fetishising my youth. Fellow millennials will remember how common it was to start frequenting clubs underage, as ID checks were a lot less strict when we were teenagers and how back then a comment like that would have likely not rung any alarm bells for our teenage brains”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Damian Noszkowicz

I want to include quite a large chunk of STRAND and their interview with NXKXTA for the start of this year. As we are heading through 2024, it is clear that this artist is not slowing down when it comes to tackling and speaking about things other might not. Highlighting some ills and dark subjects. Tackling inequality and fighting to make sure women are treated better. An admirable and strong voice in music we need to get behind:

“On the subject of filming, I’m reminded of a previous interview between NXKXTA and Spindle Magazine, where she’d mentioned admiring filmmaker David Lynch for his “thoroughgoing vision” compared to today’s “trend-driven approach” to making art. Given her almost 100-thousand Instagram followers, she’s no doubt an authority on the latter topic herself — so I ask her what she thinks about the current need to churn out social media content as a creative, particularly within the music industry. “For some people social media is an amazing opportunity. For others, it's just an extra level of stress. Right now, artists are just under so much pressure that it's not realistic to handle everything, and there's very little support.

“I honestly think we’ll see real repercussions from it. So far, it's been glamorised too much and regulated too little. Social media as a concept is good, but at the rate it's going right now, it’s a bit like the Wild West. The rules and algorithms could change tomorrow, and we’d just have to deal with that. It’s just not healthy, and it’s not sustainable.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Damian Noszkowicz

The other side of the industry which NXKXTA admirably takes a stand against is its exploitation of young people. A recent piece she penned for Come Play With Me Magazine denounced the “fetishisation of youth” in our society, and how people are quick to take advantage of the vulnerability which comes with it. As the team working on the STRAND X FEMMESTIVAL showcase are all in our early 20s (even if we do feel our bones creaking on the regular), I’m eager to hear her further thoughts on the topic. “Personally, I love working with younger people. It pisses me off that the industry is structured in a way that really doesn't protect people enough. As a young person, you're so dependent on the people you're working for; you often idolise them because you've seen them do great work. The problem is they completely use that.

“They make you work twice as much for as little pay as possible, if any. And then also quite often don't give credit to you, or celebrate you. People need to demand a change, and I think the generation below me actually has the guts to do that, so I'm hoping and praying that things will get better — because they really need to.”

The Come Play With Me piece isn’t the only piece NXKXTA has recently had published, though: readers of the Big Issue will have seen her powerful op-ed on the over-sexualisation of young women. I ask her about the inspiration behind the article, and what she hopes young women and femmes will take from her work, which has no doubt left a big impact on them already.  

PHOTO CREDIT: Damian Noszkowicz

“I think if my message to young women and femmes was to be distilled to one word, it would definitely be empowerment. By that I also mean taking back your power from everything that’s been weighing you down. The biggest lesson for me was that, instead of pretending all the things I went through weren’t affecting me, I’d just lay them all out on the table. I wanted to take my power back and use the darkness, the pain, the frustration, as a way to encourage other people to and to connect with others. My goal is to eliminate the whole idea of competition among women, and instead push the collaborative aspect of things. We need to get together as women and stand up against all the bullshit.

My music is just a constant fight for equality, really. It’s a fight for empowerment and a safe way to be a woman, no matter what that represents. All of us should be able to exist safely in the world.”

The released singles from NXKXTA’s upcoming debut album, ‘7’, all harness these difficult experiences and transform them into a source of empowerment. Gorgeously cinematic visuals and slick instrumentals provide the backdrop for her charged lyrics, packed with Easter eggs, references and multilingual plays-on-words. 

“I would call the album a taster of what I have to offer as an artist,” she explains. “Every song is a different facet of myself. All of them involve quite intense topics, but they're presented in very different ways. For example, there’s ‘VERBAL VENOM’, which is quite mellow, dark and mysterious; it's very cinematic and has a lot of sound effects. Then there’s ‘EPHEBOPHILE’, which is very raw and intense. It’s about spreading the knowledge you have about what someone’s done to you, so they won't have that power over other people either. And then you've got ‘THE LIKES OF YOU’, which is the sweetest and softest song, and it has an intimacy to it.

As for the last two unreleased songs: one of them is about consent, and the other one is about eating disorders. I saved them for last on purpose, because I wanted to have time to put them out there in the way that they need to be presented. I shot two beautiful music videos for them, with actors involved, which were the biggest productions I've done to date. I’ve been approaching the album like a short, informative film, which can connect with the audience and make them feel less alone. We're usually too embarrassed to actually push these topics out there and talk about them, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”

I’m looking forward to hearing her perform her new material live at our showcase, I tell her. Is there anything else we should expect from a NXKXTA live performance, I add? “With my performances, I always wanted to be the freak show, so that everybody else can just be themselves, and think ‘no matter how freaky I get, Nikita's freaky already, so it’s okay’.” She laughs. “I want my performances to be a safe space, and a liberating experience.”

She elaborates: “I remember when I was younger, I used to always go out and dance with friends. I’ve loved dancing since I was a kid, and even when I was underage I started going into nightclubs. I wasn't even drinking, I just wanted to dance. I always felt, though, that you were so objectified as a woman when you were dancing. You’d be constantly treated like it makes you cheap, and undermines your status. At the same time, it’s acceptable for performances like burlesque: when it’s on a stage and when Dita [Von Teese] is doing it. Meanwhile, people criticise strippers, for example, who are technically doing the same thing, just in a slightly different way.

“I always wondered about where we draw the line of what we consider acceptable or unacceptable, and I think in that area, women, non-binary people and femmes always lose out. We're always put into a box, and have to appeal to the male gaze. So what I wanted to explore with my performances was what it meant to be sexy on my own terms. I asked myself, if I was to envision the most confident, exciting and wild version of myself as a persona, what would she be like? What would she do? How would she act on stage? And that's really what it is. It’s an exploration of being seductive but also cheeky, but also having fun with it. And it’s a bit ‘out there’ in a way that as women we’re constantly forced not to be. The stage offers that sense of liberation for me, and my goal is to create that experience for people watching as well. So they feel they can ‘let their freak out’. I want them to have a good time and feel safe within that framework”.

I am new to the sensational and thoroughly arresting NXKXTA. I am compelled to follow her this year and share her music whenever I can. Someone that should really be played and known to all, I think, when an album arrives, more and more will discover her music. Someone I can also being on the screen and being involved with film. The brilliant and essential NXKXTA is one of the most exciting and important names of this year. A wonderful person we all need to embrace. If you have not discovered NXKXTA, then make sure that you…

CHECK her out now.

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Sam Liddicott