LA Music Review | Art, stories and advice
Chill, empowering, and full of light!
Hi Nikita, welcome to LA Music Review! Tell us a little bit about you and your music.
Hi LAMR! I’m Nikita Lev, an indie-rock/folk singer who is committed to crafting compelling music with honesty, confidence, and maturity.
Hinged with guitar, piano, and drums, my song showcases my rich, lower-register vocals that call to mind influences like Lana Del Rey and Phoebe Bridgers.
I grew up around family members heavily influenced by classical music. I come from a family of musicians that performed chamber music together as well as my mom was in a band in the 1990s.”
I picked up the flute and piano at an early age and by ten, I was learning how to play the guitar and write songs. I always know what I’m going to say first and the melody comes later. I need a narrative thread to hold on to when writing. The lyrics are the reason the song is being written rather than sonic motivation but I think both are equally important. So when I write, I’ll have a bunch of different lyric ideas. I’ll accumulate them on one page, map them out, and put them together like a puzzle. Then I’ll use the piano and guitar with the lyrics to see what melody works best.
To date, I have written over 200 songs. Most of my songs carry a theme of longing, I like songs that are evocative, that are relatable, universal, yet ambiguous, I love a clever lyric,” she says. “I have always been inspired by artists that embody that; The 1975, St Vincent, Arctic Monkeys, Leonard Cohen, etc. Quite the variety.”
Start streaming “Elegance” here:
Congrats on the release! What was your inspiration when you were writing this project?
Fashioning her songs with grace, emotion, and soft- haunting vocals, the New York-bred multi-instrumentalist Nikita Lev released her debut single “Elegance,” on February 27, 2023.
Nikita crafts music that is honest, confident, and mature for someone who is just about to turn nineteen in April. Not afraid to speak her mind, she introduces a tension between nostalgia and modernity on “Elegance.” As she penned the lead single off her forthcoming “Clearly Misunderstood” EP, she examined the juxtaposition between entering adulthood and the carelessness of being a free-spirited youth.
“I was experiencing intense writer’s block when I wrote the song so it has some risk in it that I like,” Nikita says. “I was thinking about what it feels like to be a kid, when you think you know everything, and how as an adult you feel like you don’t know anything. It was the mature side of me looking at the present and also at past actions mixed with this element of wanting to retain the wonder of being young and playful.”
This record is a little different though, because when I was writing, I reached out to fans to ask them what they needed to hear. I wrote some of the songs for them, instead of for me, which is something I’m so proud to give the world.
What is your vision for this song?
The vision of “Elegance” takes you on a flashback journey and lets you relive the stages of childhood and upbringing up to adulthood. During these times, we want to make sure not to be wrapped up in responsibilities and enjoy the wonders of life.
Life’s too short, have fun! “Elegance” is a reminder of this.
Anything else we should know about? Upcoming events? Future releases?
My management company, JV Agency, will debut my next highly anticipated song, “Like I Care,” plus a few more fresh cuts over the course of the year.
In celebration of the song dropping, I performed Elegance live as part of the We Found New Music showcase at Hotel Ziggy in Hollywood, CA, last February 27th as well.
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