Self-exiled Russian artist and the voice behind duo Iamthemorning, Marjana Semkina has taken a different approach on her second solo album, Sirin. Her trademark melancholy lyrics are now ignited by anger over the political situation in her birth country, in what the singer-songwriter describes as a “unified art project”. She discusses the hope, heartbreak and personal cheerleading team that made this exciting release possible.

Words: Jeremy Allen

Marjana Semkina is a genuine, card-carrying “exceptional talent”.

Images: Kate Demina

Marjana Semkina’s second solo album, Sirin, is full of songs of ornate beauty that belie their bleak subject matter. The Russian singer has always had a predilection for the darkest of fairy tales, but, crucially in this real-life story, the world has become a perilous, nightmarish place since she released her solo debut, Sleepwalking, in February 2020.

Semkina left St Petersburg in the middle of lockdown that year to take up residence on the Sussex coast, having attained a Tier 1 “exceptional talent” visa. Then, as was the case for millions of others, her world was turned upside down when the country she grew up in invaded Ukraine in February 2022. As Pericles once said: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

“For me, music was always a means of escaping reality,” she says from her current home on England’s south coast, “because I didn’t particularly like reality. I always thought that when art becomes political, it defeats the purpose. Except at some point, there is a line where you can’t really avoid it any longer, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, that’s when I was like, ‘OK, this is it.’

“As a Russian with a conscience, I have a platform and I’m in a safe country. I’m not going to get arrested for saying things that I’m not supposed to say.”