Interview by Miriam C.
Even though Markize‘s second album “A Perfect Lie” was released almost 2 years ago, it felt right to dedicate a space to this nice Franch rock band. So, I’ve asked to Alina Dunaevskaya about the recent album, the new band member (yeah, there are have been some line-up changes) and her upcoming projects. Brace yourself, Alina‘s solo album is coming! Read more in this interview…
Hi Alina, how are you? I hope you’re really fine!
Hi Miriam, I’m fine thank you! Happy to talk with you!
“A Perfect Lie” is your latest brand new album. How was its genesis? When you have started to compose it?We started the writing of the album at the end of 2009, then, in October 2010, we had the opportunity to support Tarja Turunen on her European Tour. So we put the writing on standby to prepare the gigs. It was a great possibility also to try several new songs live, and we were very happy to see how the audience react to our new stuff. We finished the writing and started the recordings when we came back from the first part of the tour. We joined Tarja on the road again in Germany, in 2011, and Russia, in 2012. So, we have had many breaks during the writing of this album, but they were proved to be useful since they allowed us to develop the songs. We finally released “A Perfect Lie” at our show at Le Zèbre de Belleville in Paris, in November 2012.
Let me tell ask you: why is passed so much time between “Transparence” and “A Perfect Lie”? Also, if you can drow a line between the 2 releases, what are the main differences that you can notice?Because we had to deal with lineup changes, tours and we wanted the new album to depict our inspirations and our own evolution. I think “A Perfect Lie” is more pop, electro and also more darker than “Transparence” buy you can still find intimate lyrics in French, English and Russian, which is an important aspect of our music and artistic choices. We like to merge different styles, different languages and we tried to do it through “A Perfect Lie”.
Recently, in 2011, Julien De Feyssal joined the band as the new Markize bassist. How Julian helped to mould/shape the new full-lenght?The tracks of the new album were already finished when Julien joined the band, but he added a few bass lines to several songs, very catchy and quite “dance”.
What strike me the most about “A Perfect Lie” is its album title: it is important and it carries a profound meaning. Mind to tell us more about it?It’s a way to explain something as a paradox, like human relationships, drawn in most of this album songs. I talk about love, hate, regrets, complicated feelings and situations that I’ve personally experienced. “A Perfect Lie” is an antagonism, beauty in something ugly, an illusion, a deception, something we unfortunately all experience one day or another.
“Mechanical Hearts” is your first videoclip extracted from “A Perfect Lie”. What you can tell about its preparation and behind the camera insights?This video clip was directed and shot by Any May, a very talented young movie director. She helped us in writing the script and she has succefully written the story of the video. More importantly her story is consistent with the meaning of my lyrics. For the the first time we have decided to integrate a choreography and it was very important to me because dancing has always been, besides the music, one of my beloved passions. We shot the videoclip in 3 days and at 3 different places with the actors for the “dating” sequence. I had personally so much fun to play that seductive part! Nothing was left out for this video clip. The visual aspects like outfits, makeup and hair were an important part of it. I wanted a futuristic look for the live scenes to emulate the cold electro keyboards of the song. For this sequence and the dating one Magali Fleury was responsible of the makeup instead for original hair style was Rima Serdouk. In the dance scene, I wanted to create a “dust” atmosphere with the intent to remind the “A Perfect Lie”‘s cover. Yvana Verbecq is the coreographer who has helped to recreate and depict, with some kind of “robotic” movements, the meaning of the song. The original hairstyle of all dancers (including myself) were concived by Guillaume Rabeyrin, whose aim was to add a touch of “surrealism” in this context.
Yes, our music and our image have evolved as we did ourselves as persons, so change the logo was necessary to stick with this evolution. For “A Perfect Lie”, I wanted our visual to be modern but at the same time inspired by Haute Couture designers advertisements I love like Alexander McQueen, Ellie Saab or Dior. So we hired a young French fashion designer called Axelle Migé as the artistic director of this photo shooting, who created exclusively for us the outfits and she also directed our photoshoot. But we don’t repudiate at all the Gothic scene. I’m always a fan of some so-called “Gothic” artists and I love the dark, romantic and full of mystical Art. We still gratuful to the gothic fans that has warmly welcomed us when we have released our demo “Poussières de vie” in 2004.
Markize albums’ have always featured lyrics in mainly 3 language: Russian, English and French. In which languages you can feel more confortable with? And how you ‘recognize’ that specific language is the right fit for that song?The choice of the language comes naturally with the melody, I can barely explain how it comes. Russian is my native language, so when I sing in this language I feel like I’m exposed because it reminds me of different feelings and memories, in connection with my life overthere, both sad and happy.
Despite being the founder and singer, we know that you’re and all-round artist whose interests range from the classical dance to art history and photography. How all these specialties can find space in Markize?Yes, I am interested in Art in all its forms. I studied Art History when I was at La Sorbonne. I’ve always loved antique painting, architecture and furniture. I also collected some old objects like jewelry boxes, bronze statues and rosaries. I did myself some paintings for fun. And of course I love dance, I practiced it for 10 years and photography, as a model. I think, all these passions can clearly found a place in the artistic influences and choices of Markize such as visual, outfits and in the general artistic research of the band.
Recently you have released as a videoclip Survivor‘s cover “Eye of the Tiger” as a snippet for your coming solo project. Why did have chosen this song?The video was directed by a talented artist called Cécile Delpoïo. This is a really meaningful song to me in this delicate period of my life because its lyrics accurately express my current feelings. It’s like I feel that, after some suffering I’ve experienced in my private life, I need to move forward to something new. With this solo project, who “Eye of the Tiger” introduces it, I want to take revenge on the pain I suffered and to achieve a personal challenge. This new challenge is my solo album, something that will be totally and deeply me, without compromises.
How’s born your collaboration with the pianist Alain Da Silva?We met a year ago. He plays in an orchestra for private parties and he was looking for a singer, so I auditioned for his cover band and then we started to work together. In September, we decided not only to work together with the cover band but also on different projects. We have a lot in common and we share the same musical ideas. Initially the piano version of “Eye of the Tiger” was intended to be exclusively performed during the shows with the cover band but when we started to work on it, we realized that we should do more of this song. So he has arranged the song and shaped on my vocal range afterwards we decided to shoot a video on it and so with this cover our collaboration has officially started and we have decided to launch the project too.
Instead what you can spill about your upcoming solo project?Right now I’m just working on it and it takes time to write, compose the way I want it. From me is really important to offer to the long-time fans, something that will be totally true to myself and that I will be proud of. I’m collaborating with so many different and talented musicians and I can’t wait to let you know! Be patient, I’ll try to release an extract soon.
Well, Alina we’re at the end. Please greet freely your fans and our readers. Merci pour le interview!Thank you Miriam for your great support to the girls in the rock bands and thank you to the readers! Stay tuned for interesting news!
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