Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with 3321
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
Darya: My earliest memory isn’t just a single moment, but rather a sensory imprint. I was six, standing in the hallway of the music school before my first piano lesson. I remember the smell of old wood and dusty notes, and the sounds of a dozen different melodies colliding behind closed doors. It was chaotic and exciting.
But the defining moment was the first time I sat at the piano. I was so small that my feet dangled, not touching the floor. True, it was still too early to use pedals, that would be revealed in later stages of mastery. I was eager to learn what’s called control, when it seemed like my hands were moving across the keys and the music began to flow, filling the entire space. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. But when I learned my first piece, it was a small miracle. It was me playing, and it filled the space. Unforgettable.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Darya; My first piano lessons gave me language, but my passion for creativity began when I realized I had something to say. As a teenager, I was quite quiet, and it was difficult for me to put certain feelings into words. I remember one day sitting at the piano, frustrated by learning classical pieces, and simply starting to play my own chords – something that reflected my mood that day. It was chaotic and unstructured, but it was mine.
It was a turning point. I discovered that creating music it’s a kind of translation. I translated my own confusion, my sadness, my nostalgia into sound. The feeling was utterly captivating. To this day, it’s the core of my passion: the process of making music, sound design – all of it serving to create a world that can make someone else feel the same way I did when I first created it – understandable.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
We’ve been making music for a long time. So it happened because it couldn’t be otherwise. A critical mass had accumulated that needed to be transformed into music, to give form to objects of consciousness through musical language.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Darya: I struggle with simple genre tags because I’m actively trying to blur them. The simplest way I can put it is: ‘glitchy structures deconstructed through an modern lens.’ It’s a conversation between the organic and the synthetic. The goal is to create something that feels both familiar and futuristic.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
Darya: The most transformative thing I learned was to get out of my own head and consider the space the music will live in. I was making music for myself, in a vacuum, focused on tiny details no one else would ever notice.
I started asking, ‘How do I want someone to feel when they hear this on their headphones walking through the city? What is the journey of this song?’ This changed everything. It made me think more about atmosphere, dynamics, and the overall emotional arc. Now, I’m not just layering sounds; I’m building a world for the listener to step into. It shifted my focus from technical self-indulgence to creating a meaningful experience for the person on the other end of the speakers.
And here’s another thing. These are stories. Stories like in a TV series, which we’ve all lived through. Only the main character is you, voiced by me and accompanied by music during this part of the journey.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
In general we live in Cubase DAW. As bedroom producers we use classical bilds of Waves and Plugin Alliance plugins. We use a Warm Audio WA-47jr microphone for its vintage, slightly darkened character that captures intimacy and nuance and it suits the voice when it goes thru SSL2 audio interface preamps. For guitar sound we often use ESP E-II and Gibson LP. Try to control all of it on Yamaha monitors.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Oh, there are a lot of them, but I’ll highlight the following: Mothica, Vana, Ella Boh.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
That’s the heart of it all, really. Our music is the direct translation of life’s frequency – the quiet moments, the chaotic shifts, the people around – all filtered through my artistic lens.
The structured chaos of the city, the hypnotic rhythm of raindrops in the morning, the melancholy in a stranger’s voice on the phone, the merging of the virtual and real worlds, the interpenetration of one into the other – we perceive the world as a piece of music. We began creating because we wanted to capture these intangible feelings and stories.
So, in the most honest sense, 3321’s artistic vision is about sonic empathy. We’re taking internal world – personal experiences – and rendering them into a shared, auditory space. Our goal is to create a frequency where someone can listen and think, ‘Yes, I’ve felt that. I know that exact story.’ It’s about making the personal universal, and making the internal, audible.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
Darya: I aim to create a cathartic journey. The darkness in my music isn’t an endpoint, it’s the catalyst. I want someone to put on my song when they’re feeling a specific kind of tension – that late-night anxiety, the slow burn of a grudge, the weight of nostalgia. Through the brooding production and visceral lyrics, I hope they can fully feel that emotion, and then, as the beat drops and the layers build, I hope they experience a profound release. It’s about alchemizing pain into power, and solitude into a shared, almost cinematic, experience.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
Darya: Music has been my greatest teacher in transforming leaden emotions into art.
Life throws a lot of difficult feelings at you: heartbreak, anxiety, disillusionment. The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you don’t have to just endure these feelings, you can actively work with them. I can take the weight of a sorrow and channel it into a haunting melody. I can take the heat of anger and forge it into a driving rhythm.
Music taught me that my darkest emotions aren’t burdens, they are my most potent source of creative fuel. This has completely changed how I move through the world, turning periods of struggle into periods of intense, purposeful creation.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
Honestly, the ultimate dream would be Rock in Rio. It’s more than a festival, it’s a cultural moment. And to be part of that history, to bring our sound to that audience, would be absolutely surreal.
And if I had to pinpoint one more absolute dream, it would be Glastonbury. More than just a festival, it’s a temporary, breathing universe of art and music.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
To be honest, I would name those already mentioned: Mothica, Vana, Ella Boh. I think that it is a new wave and the breath of modern music. Oh, DeathbyRomy, of course, and maybe Baybe.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@3321official
Instagram: https://instagram.com/3321band
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5LJgk7Nh1LGzk6PdI1r7Uf
Apple: https://music.apple.com/ru/artist/3321/1797868421
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Looking forward, my dream is less about a specific milestone and more about the quality of the connection. I want to cultivate a tight-knit, global community – a ‘cult’ following in the best sense of the word. A group of people who don’t just stream the songs, but who find identity, solace, and power in them.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
Ultimately, I hope they discover their own reflections in my work. The things I sing about—the longing, the resilience, the moments of beautiful dissonance—are universal. If they discover that I am curious, empathetic, and perpetually trying to make sense of life through my art, then they will have discovered the core of who I am.
