Alt-pop, mixed with awesome art and violin playing thrown in, what more could you want? DIY artist INCONNIA is all of these things and more. 

I spoke to INCONNIA about what inspires her to be the cool, mega-talented artist that she is today. 

“My love for music began when I was six, when I first fell in love with playing the violin. Now I am making it my occupation via being an artist and freelancing which I am in love with as a way to spend my time. Music has always been with me, so whether I love it or hate it, it is the lens that I look at the world through and what my whole life has revolved around so far.“

Like many of us INCONNIA’S love for music came from experiencing festival culture for the first time. She’s gone even further and created a playlist of some of her biggest inspirations. 

“I grew up in a culture of folk music, a life coloured by sitting in firelit durgy pubs, and summer and autumn outdoor folk festivals. So that influence of learning folk tunes by ear on violin and playing in a folk-jam group most weeks has been huge.“

“Other than that I have listened to and played a huge range of music including experimental contemporary to classical, EDM/IDM, heavy metal, alternative pop, noise/industrial, folk/world, and so much more. Some of my favourite artists include Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, Talking Heads, Superorganism, Coldplay, Laura Mvula, Austin Wintory, Bon Iver, Billie Eilish, Beabadoobee, Lido, Iglooghost… and SO many more. A real range!“

in fact, I have a whole HUGE playlist of my influences that I made a while ago!!!:

INCONNIA produces her own music and does all her own artwork. With DIY music becoming more and more in fashion I asked what she felt the advantages of this setup are? 

“ I’ve never not been a DIY/Independent artist, but from what I’ve heard labels can be very controlling. I can make and put out whatever music I want to and run to my own schedule. I have found that being able to do everything myself, from writing to recording, producing, mixing, marketing, branding, website building, and so on, means I have a deep understanding of what it takes to be in music and how to manage my time, which means that as I begin to put out my music as an artist I have a good handle on what is going on at each stage of release. I can transfer those skills when I work with other people on their projects which is very handy too! Basically, I get to do whatever I want – woohoo! “

INCONNIA’S new single slow down is due to be released at the beginning of April. (I’m definitely looking forward to it) I asked her what the inspiration behind this new single was? 

“Slow Down is the first of a series of songs that will come out over the next 1.5 years that acknowledge mental health, as well as some other stories, in particular OCD and PTSD which are very underrepresented and misunderstood by society at this time. It is a gentle introduction to this, talking about mindfulness and the beginnings of how to slow down a racing mind – ideas around allowing space to exist between thoughts and reminding yourself, and myself, of the world around us.“

INCONNA is hugely talented and set for big things, here’s what she had to say on what’s next for her. 

“I have a whole series of songs coming out over the next 1.5 years. So there’s that! And each of these is to be accompanied by several YouTube videos that are categorised either as educational around music production/songwriting/mental health, or get to know the artist, or just for fun, which is cool too. And I’ll keep making music and art and working with other people, and also teaching violin/music production/songwriting which I have been enjoying recently. I would LOVE to get into live performance as INCONNIA, I’ve never really sung in front of people, so I think overcoming singing stage fright will be my next big project. I can imagine a beautiful INCONNIA show filled with atmospheric emotion and people coming together and mental health positivity, it’s literally tingling in my imagination! Must make it happen.“

“And on a personal level, continuing to work through mental health as well as having a load of fun times and seeing how this whole pandemic thing goes. Yeah!“