Arina Krondeva steps up to the Delusional Records roster of radical femme producers with her Scattered EP, offering up a cutting edge blend of techno, bass, and breaks.
Influenced by her current Florida home, Arina straddles the long stamped history of Florida breaks and modern day experimental club music. With this body of work, Arina carves her own path of zany eccentricities, emotive solitude & club kinship, while paying homage to the influential club scene that shaped the breakbeats we know today.
The sounding of Scattered materialized during a time Arina was fuzing the old and new elements of self. She funneled the overwhelm of feeling "scattered" & torn into this EP. We feel the energetic push and pull throughout this body of work in her quest for clarity & connection
Tell us a bit about your music history, from live drumming to production of electronic music? How does your past influence the present in this regard?
My music history started when I was in preschool. I always loved to dance and sing as a kid, so my mom enrolled me in various dancing classes, which helped me find my sense of rhythm. I wasn’t a great dancer, but I enjoyed interacting with music.
Like a lot of teenagers, I got into live shows and concerts, which led me to start learning drums around age 14. I loved being able to create a rhythm and a base for other musicians to rely on. I also took some vocal lessons, though I was too self-conscious to sing outside the classroom. Still, I knew even then that I wanted a deeper relationship with music. Although I wanted to be more than just a listener, I kind of left that idea since I was trying to focus on planning life after high school.
After moving to the U.S. and my first year of college, I decided to give DJing a shot. I loved electronic music and felt like DJing wouldn’t take too much time out of my college life. I signed up for a DJ school when I went back home to visit my family, and I loved it. I spent the next year DJing in my bedroom, mostly for my college friends. At the time, it felt wild to imagine playing at an actual venue.
Eventually, with the help of social media, I got booked for my first gig in Miami, followed by a gig in Orlando. From there, things slowly started building. I kept playing more shows, and through those gigs, I began meeting people in the electronic music community. That network grew naturally over time, just by showing up and staying involved.
Later, I got a manager who encouraged me to try music production. I took some lessons from my friend and a very talented producer, Solh. He helped me navigate Ableton and get comfortable with the basics. At first, I struggled to finish anything; I couldn’t land on a sound that felt like mine, so I stepped back for a while.
Eventually, I decided to give production another shot and when I finally finished a track that felt authentic, there was no going back. From then on, I was trapped by the DAW, spending hours making weird blips and figuring out how they could live inside my beats.
When I think about how my past influenced my recent music projects, I think that my background in drumming and dance taught me to feel music physically and intuitively. I really stand by the experimental approach I take with my projects. In that sense, learning to trust my feelings and intuition was crucial. DJing experience showed me the importance of building and releasing energy, creating a certain atmosphere, which comes in very handy when producing a track. Those years of trial and error, learning to trust my ear, my taste, and my instincts have led to a sound that finally feels true to myself.
Can you share about your experience living in Florida? How has it influenced you musically? What is it like being a transplant in the U.S.?
I’ve been living in Florida for 6 years now and it’s been treating me well. It’s a place where I developed and grew as an artist. Florida has a lot to offer sonically and it definitely had a big influence on my sound. At the same time, growing up in Russia left its mark on me as well. There’s a certain emotional depth and intensity that I think comes from that environment. Florida, on the other hand, exposed me to a broader range of genres, cultures, and scenes than I ever had access to back home. It pushed me to explore, experiment, and figure out what resonated with me.
Orlando is quite literally the home of breaks! Even though I didn’t catch Florida Breaks at the prime time of the genre, I knew the second I discovered electronic music that was not ultimately 4 to the floor that I was drawn to it. Another epicenter of musical talent is Miami. Miami has an insane music scene. It is so diverse, from your classic house, techno, and Miami Bass to experimental IDM, and, of course, Latin rhythms, Miami has a scene for everyone. I really love how much the city has to offer and I resonate with a lot of the communities that are curating events in Miami. Miami Bass has introduced me to a whole new realm of sound and intensity that I feel like I tend to lean toward in some of my productions.
Being between two cultures gave me a layered perspective. I’m influenced by the freedom and openness I found in the States, but also by the complexity and resilience that came from my early years.
.jpeg)
What else inspired the tracks on this EP? What were you going through while you were producing these pieces of music?
During the time I wrote the tracks for Scattered I was going through some major changes as an artist. I used to be in a queer DJ duo, Rinas, for the past couple of years and our work as a unit was my primary focus. We decided to let go of our project last April due to personal reasons, which was extremely heartbreaking for me. I felt lost and out of touch with my artistic identity. I still kept making music because it was (and is) one of the things that I genuinely enjoy. I think it really helped me go through this breakup in a way that was healthy. As for the inspiration, I truly just experimented with various sounds and had zero direction in making this music. It just came out of me and I am happy that it felt so effortless and natural because I was so low on energy. There was no pushing to finish the tracks whatsoever and I think that a big part of making this music was just me processing the change and expressing how I felt…
What do you hope to communicate through your music?
It sounds very basic and cheesy, but I simply want people to feel something when they listen to my music. Whether it is for connection or self-isolation, if a person feels anything when listening to my tracks, it’s a win for me. I don’t like to take much ownership of the music that I made because I feel like once the music is released, it is no longer mine, it is everyone’s. So, whatever the tracks mean to listeners, I let it be. I may communicate something particular through my music or just express myself, but it doesn’t mean I want people to experience that. I want them to experience what is authentic to them. Everyone has their relationship with music and art in general, so I just want that to let be. So, I guess the overall message of my music is to be authentic.
If by listening to this EP, people were transported to a place, real or not, where would it take us?
The place Scattered took me to is this liminal, in-between space of change. The raw, unfiltered space where confusion, overwhelm, and disorientation coexist with anticipation of a breakthrough. Scattered is the sonic expression of a destination that doesn’t exist quite yet. Raw and unpredictable, but somehow still whole in its brokenness.
For more from Arina, follow her here:
For more from Delusional Records, follow here: