Yota is the artist with the spellbinding, enchanting, and sensual voice set to nostalgic sounds. Surprisingly, she wasn’t always a singer. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden and went to art school. Her goal was to work in art, and she did operate an art gallery with friends for a while before switching her focus to music. Only later, after she had discovered and developed her voice, did she become the singer we know today. To know Yota is to listen to her music, which she described as a “sonic diary,” adding “Usually, diaries are private, but I’m kind of just putting it out there for the entire world to hear.”
The Voice
Yota’s voice is a special element of her music. I asked her how she discovered and developed her voice, and she said, “I never thought anything special regarding my voice until a friend of mine heard me sing some Al Green songs in her car.” Her friend’s encouragement was the reason why she thought she might give signing a shot. She added, “It’s funny how I never thought about doing music because I was actually more or less always singing and very passionate about music and my father was a singer.”
Yota’s voice developed over time. Initially, she was usually “singing in falsetto and the vocal style was leaning towards the soulful and disco-like genre.” Later, she developed her voice into the dreamy, sensual vocal style her fans have come to know and love. Yota said, “These days I do still sing in a soulful and soft manner but I’m also loving to experiment with different vocal styles including the more strong and direct vocals.” She told me “The red thread is still that I really need to enjoy the feeling and the way I’m singing.”
Yota’s albums are built around nostalgic atmospheres, sensual moods, and vocals that express a massive range of emotions through exploration of voice, all linked together through themes of love. I asked Yota how she collaborates with produces to yield her unique sound. Yota said, “I usually prepare a little sonic mood board which basically is a playlist that I send over to my producers with tracks that I like and sometimes I add a voice note along with that playlist where I’m talking about what I like about each song.” She added, “I often record some vocals and ask a producer to create an instrumental around them, too.”
Lyrically, Yota is a minimalist. She squeezes the most out of every word she sings. Yota told me that she always starts with melodies and then adds lyrics thereafter. She said finding melodies is her favorite part of the writing process, describing it as “a playful and free state of mind.” She said sometimes a word will sneak into her melodies, and she’ll build upon those. Yota added, “The mood and feeling the song gives me will set the topic of the lyrics and never the other way around. I’ve never started by writing a text and creating the melodies after that.”
A Knight in Shining Armour
Yota’s first album was A Knight in Shining Armour, which she described as “a romantic album and my vocals are often single takes (without layers) so in that way it’s more ‘naked’.” The nakedness of the album gives it a genuine quality. It feels spacious and features patient songwriting and exploration of voice and sound, heard as soon as the album opens with “Til the Night Fades Out.” There is a rawness, a vulnerability that can be heard on “One More Day” with the slapping of the beats and unfolding of the slow tempo synths as Yota sings, I’ll be just fine, It’s just another day. The rawness can be heard on the abstract, experimental, and tribal “Queen of Swords,” or the fluttering of the synths and tangoing of the guitar sounds on “Loveline,” where the innocence of the vocals are juxtaposed to the sensual lyricism.
Strangers on Film
Yota lives in Paris, France. She told me “Paris is so beautiful and raw somehow. It’s as if everything is a bit more here, like more beautiful, more strange and more alive at the same time!” It’s fitting that Yota lives in Paris and love permeates all of her music, a theme that has perhaps inspired more songs than any other.
Yota told me humor is also important to her. “It was a way for me to cope with a childhood and teenage years that were tough. In my teens my escape was music, art and joking. I’ve sometimes thought that I was kind of a sad clown.” That playfulness can be heard on her second album, Strangers on Film, a playfulness that is exemplified on the title track.
Yota’s said Strangers on Film, “is quite sexy.” Yota added, the album is “suggestive, a bit like a tease, and I like that playfulness in songwriting and in life. The theme is merely about seduction, and if the album would be a person, it would be someone that is moody, passionate, complicated and exciting.”
Strangers on Film has dreamy and abstract qualities and invites the imagination to flow freely about the meaning of the songs. The album features exploration of a rich, diverse set of sounds and textures and can be sensual, romantic, but also dark and cold, such as on the theatrical closer, “Mirror.”
The album features the endlessly infectious “Limelight” with its pulsating synths, hard-hitting beats, and pop vocals that inspire the listener to move their body, as well as the ethereal and experimental cover of Cindi Lauper’s classic pop song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
Hazy Paradise
A turning point in Yota’s singing and songwriting career was her third album, Hazy Paradise, which was released during the pandemic and an album Yota described as having an “amazing” response that opened new possibilities for collaboration. Yota said, “Hazy Paradise is full of life, and it is really the album that opened up for a way bigger fanbase for me thanks to New RetroWave Records that reaches out to so many people.”
Yota’s vocal melodies on Hazy Paradise carve trenches in the listener’s mind. Vocals on songs such as “The Vibe” as Yota sings I’m driving on my own tonight, I’m on my way back home tonight, Where I can breathe, Where I can feel alive or on “The Runner” as she sings Break, break through, You’ll never fail again play over and over again after the album has stopped. Yota said, “The tracks on it are just charged with sincere emotion. I sang with my heart. The topic or theme is once again love and partially sad love. Hazy Paradise is full of nostalgia and is like this big emotion explosion!”
Hazy overtones to the vocals and atmosphere can be heard from the opening notes of the title track with its dynamic percussion, reverberating synths, bass lines, and a space that swells with Yota’s vocals. The fog on “Number One” hovers and, as if time stops, Yota sings If I could be your only one,tThat I will be your only sun while the arpeggios play and she sings Ahaaaa Ahaaaa in the distance.
Every song on Hazy Paradise is a hit. The downtempo, danceable “The Switch” with its sticky bass lines matched by the stickiness of love in the lyricism in the ethereal chorus, the heaviness of “That Song” that churns in it subdued atmosphere as Yota slowly and softly sings There goes that song again before cutting through the weight with the aching sound of Days turn to nights, nights turn to years, the hard-hitting “Déjá Vu” with its tantalizing lead melodies and thumping bass line, or “Matters of the Heart” which features swooshing, gritty, and starlit synths, a glistening synth solo, and heartfelt vocals that painfully sing Why does it please to hurt me or the longing in Don’t want to dance with nobody, because I feel for you.
Lucid Dreams
The follow up to Hazy Paradise was Lucid Dreams, which features cover art drawn in a similar vein as Hazy Paradise. That’s not where the similarities end. The album is “charged with lots of emotion.” The commanding “Blame Me” or dreamy, hypnotic “The Light of Your Bright Sun” featuring chunky bass lines and tantalizing melodies, with the post-punk elements as Yota sings, You’re killing me in a deathly voice. Themes of ever-lasting love and destiny in the lyricism populate the album, such as on the agonizing ”Tangled Love” or “Lucid Dreams” with its wobbling bass lines and layers of vocals that cut through the haze and are the warmth of a fire out in the cold. Lost love makes an appearance on the album, too, on “Runaway.”
Yota told me, “Lucid Dreams is a bit more painful than the previous albums and I can feel what I felt during the writing process of it.” When listening to the album, she said “I get this feeling of a lot of drama and it is true that during the writing process I experienced some drama in my personal life and as my music is clearly mirroring my inner states, it’s basically like a sonic diary.”
Like its predecessor, Lucid Dreams features a hazy atmosphere with vocals that showcase the aching and vulnerability of the heart. Yota was quite involved in the final sound of the album. She said, “I was very involved in the mixing process on Lucid Dreams. I might have been overly picky sometimes and I still am with the mixing but ever since I started, I can’t stop.” Yota was also very involved in the mixing process on Room 412, her 2023 release.
Room 412
Room 412 has an atmosphere colored by a darker hue than Yota’s other albums. Room 412 includes “Velvet,” a song that convey a sense of losing control where defenses drop, and fantasy and reality become intertwined with the thick, rounded bass line and pitter pattering of the synth drum. It also features the highly sensual “More,” and the anthem “Let’s Not Sleep Tonight.”
Yota said, “Room 412”is an album that has a clear theme and it’s about life, love and the other side. It’s a love story that begins with the end (the intro). I thought about the fact how strong the force of love is and how painful it is to lose the ones we love. I had this idea that what if the power behind love could be so intense that it would cross over the boundaries of nature. I saw the image of an emergency room and someone flatlining and the intense pain felt in that moment by their spouse. I was imagining rebelling against death and going to “the gates” to get them back before it’s too late. I’ve written some articles for an alternative Norwegian magazine called “Medium” and in one of those articles I interviewed a friend of mine that has been clinically dead twice but that was resuscitated. Talking to her about what she experienced when she was “gone” was really fascinating, especially as she was gone for a long time the second time around, so she had a lot to tell about the other side.”
Yota told me “Room 412 has a rebellious feel to it.” She added, “It is also an album where I took my pickiness to the next level as in regard to the vocal performance and the mixing.” Yota’s explores a huge space with her voice on Room 412. It is electrified on “Don’t Tell Me Why,” pillowy light and draped across piercing synth melodies and pulsating bass on “Hunger,” lush, punchy, and danceable on “Hey Little Girl”, a song that coneys a sense of looking back at harsh realities. I am especially struck on this song when Yota brilliantly splits the verse by two moods. And on “Dark Dandy” Yota juxtaposes the vulnerably sung Don’t hurt me against the danceable beats and lead synth melodies.
Coming Soon
Yota is putting the finishing touches on her next album. She said themes of love persist and it has a “push and pull feel.” She added, “It’s dreamy, danceable, a bit sexy, and nostalgic.” She told me it’s a bit more romantic than prior albums, saying “I’m fascinated by observing the emotional defenses falling, there is something very beautiful about it.” The upcoming album was inspired by “those magical moments in life, the ones that feel surreal, the ones that catch you off guard. I love those moments.”
Yota has been very involved in the mixing process of the past couple of albums, and she said, “The upcoming album will definitely follow in the same manner, with me being there with a magnifying glass making sure that everything feels right.”
While fans wait for the next Yota album to be released, they can enjoy some fresh sounds on Universe in Flames, an EP with Johan Agebjörn, featuring the spellbinding title track with its reverberating synths and Yota’s powerful, ethereal, and mysterious vocals.