Miss Monique is today among the world’s fastest-rising progressive house DJs, and probably the most recognized female DJ in this genre in Europe. Unlike most other popular DJs nowadays, who made their name producing rather than mixing, she rose to fame bringing the old school back with her unprecedented conversion of classic radio mixes into the form of YouTube podcasts.
Miss Monique’s unique talent for smoothly melting techno rhythms with classic trance and progressive tunes year after year gets highly appraised by an ever-growing number of electronic music aficionados. This year, her live sets gather thousands of progressive house addicts online, with recorded streams gaining up to 2 million views, and her most popular set on Radio Intense channel boasts a whopping 11+ million views.
Today we get together with the Ukrainian artist to talk about her latest release, ‘Silent’, which sees her collaborating with Pavel Khvaleev and Avis Vox.
EG: Hey Miss Monique, great to connect with you! You’re based in Kyiv, Ukraine, correct? How was lockdown over there? How did you spend your time during that season?
Miss Monique: Hello, EG team! Thank you so much! Sending hugs to all of you guys! Yes, I’m based in Kyiv and was also here during the lockdown. The first month I was scared because something unknown happened. We couldn’t live our normal life, couldn’t go wherever we wanted, and everyone around was kind of panic. But for the next months, I kept control of myself and continued to work with my YouTube channel, label, produced tracks, and spent more time chatting with my listeners and fans.
EG: Tell us about ‘Silent’, your recent collaboration with Pavel Khvaleev on your Siona Records imprint. How did you link together to produce this track?
Miss Monique: I knew Pavel from his project ‘Moonbeam’ from around 10 years ago, but we’ve never met and didn’t talk till this year. A few months ago I supported one of his tracks and somebody sent my video to him. Then, step by step, we started chatting and an idea about a collaboration came to us fast. I had been a big fan of his sound for many years. He is one of the most talented artists which I’ve ever known, so I’m very happy to produce something together and the beautiful voice of Avis Vox.
EG: How was the production process?
Miss Monique: Unfortunately, Pavel and I live in different countries, but nowadays the internet is a very powerful thing, so we produced the tracks online. It’s not so different than to do this in real life. Almost all collaborations with artists we usually produce online.
“Sometimes collaborations are even more
interesting than just a solo”
EG: How different is you produce a solo track versus collaboration with other artists? Do you take on different sounds and roles?
Miss Monique: Probably I’m just lucky to have had very talented producers as partners, and I’ve never felt some discomfort about collabs. Sometimes for me, it’s even more interesting than just a solo: two different visions of the sound, more ideas for a final powerful release.
EG: If you could collab with any artist, past or present, who would it be?
Miss Monique: It’s really difficult to choose even 10 artists. I know too many talented names which I would like to collab with 🙂
EG: What will the first record be that you play when you get back to clubs?
Miss Monique: I would like to put 5 tracks at the same time (laughter)! During the lockdown, I’ve added to my playlist so many tasty sounds and I can’t even imagine which one I’ll choose as the first track. Probably, as always, I’ll look at the crowd and they will give me a feeling which track will be the first.
EG: What are your plans for the rest of the year in terms of releases?
Miss Monique: A lot of my new releases will out in the next few months. I continue to work on my YouTube channel, new videos, and podcasts. Also, we signed a few great artists and many powerful releases are coming on my label Siona Records. Of course, I hope in the near future I’ll have the opportunity to finally be back traveling and playing to all the crowds around the world.
Miss Monique’s collaboration with Pavel Khvaleev feat. Avis Vox, ‘Silent’, is out now via Siona Records. Grab your copy here.
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