Part 1

Name: Joanna Fostiak aka Joa Luna
Nationality: Polish
Occupation: Songwriter, vocalist, producer, dancer
Recent release: Joa Luna's Hold space is out now.
Recommendations: A book: The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron; An album: To Live & Die In Space & Time - Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice

If you enjoyed this interview with Joa Luna and would like to find out more, visit her on Instagram, and Soundcloud.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

My story with music started about 14 years ago when I sang at a high school talent show and got invited to my first band. Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone were the first artists that inspired me to get into singing. Their music expression felt very familiar and I wanted to be able to express my feelings with my voice the same way.

However, I guess that dance came first and that’s how I really got to appreciate and understand music: through my body and through listening into expressing and creating sounds. I started dancing when I was 6 years old. My mum was a dancer and a dance teacher and that was such a beautiful connection we shared.

As my body awareness was changing through the  years, so was my music making. Music and dancing are the most emotional and natural languages to me. They influence and inform each other in my world.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I feel music with my body. It sinks through my skin and resonates with my molecules. It makes me more relaxed and makes me want to move. I immediately react, even if it’s just my head swinging, shoulders melting, feet stomping. Both listening and dancing unlock my energy in a chain reaction. My imagination gets very active as well when I’m listening to music. I travel through memories and create new dream worlds; oftentimes very abstract, inexplicable, impossible to wrap into words.

Both music and dance can be very abstract, hence it’s a perfect match. I produce music how I understand it with my body and how I express it in dance; I produce music I would dance to.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

I’ve always strived for a very wide and flexible mindset so my journey with music has been very intricate. Being a musician can mean so many things. I first focused on my voice, sang in a lot of bands, and ended up traveling through different genres like soul jazz pop electronica psychodelia indie avant-garde ambient, managing my projects – Chaotic Pieces, Fickle Vibe, Joa Bird and now Joa Luna, organizing events, looking at music from various perspectives to fully understand this world.

Along the way I added synthesizers to the mix and that opened up a lot of new ways of expression and made me feel more confident as a musician, more included, more accepted. Undeniable,  when you are a woman singing you are viewed in a certain way. I got a lot of comments about my appearance, my talent was never the focal point. Singing and performing is also a craft! In a way, I always tried to turn patronizing and limiting beliefs and comments to my advantage, so it became a positive motivation to get into playing synthesizers and finally into producing music.

I wanted to be part of nerdy music conversations as a lot of my male musician friends oftentimes talked about gear and music production. There weren’t many females in my surroundings that I could learn from or with. I’m really happy to now be in an environment that feels far more safe and supportive in Berlin. There’s plenty of flinta initiatives and collectives that amplify our voices and skills to help create a more balanced scene.

I’ve always been very individualistic and very sure of my personal voice. It has always been my guide in all artistic decisions, leading me to the place I am at now, which supports my vision. I always chose to stick to my style and ideas and search for places where my energy is appreciated and understood. And all these years of fighting only built up my resistance and confidence.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Overall, I’m trying to be very in tune with myself. Trying to listen and respect and accept my feelings and decisions which I feel make up my identity. I appreciate creativity as the main energy in life in all its flexibility. I am a dreamer looking for sparkles in life. I’m trying to be a good human and a mindful empath as I recognize that by being good to each other we create more good in the world.

I also come from a background of competitive sports which made me very focused on my own energy. Thus, I feel responsible for my flow and adjust its course when it is blocked. As a listener and as an artist I’m looking for things that resonate. Somehow I do not find things rooted in my culture to resonate much with me. Yet, I’ve heard it a few times that when I am singing mantras my voice changes into deep tones that resemble old folk Polish songs.

Probably there’s a few patterns of being and patterns of relating that are harder to recognize, like an invisible, deeper structure that grounds me and empowers me in everything I build up creatively and personally. These might be linked to my culture, however, I also grew up in a very globalized culture and studied English Philology, so I guess there’s a mix of a lot of things in me.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

I appreciate improvisation, value playfulness and freedom and I’m striving to make songs that move me, literally. And if I move, that inspires a ripple effect in others as well.

My creative process is very meditative. It begins with an emotion or story in mind. Upon that I create different layers - beats from personal samples that I manipulated. I like focusing first on creating quite a few different loops; I add layers of synths to create an ambient cloud, then I improvise with my vocals to it, I get into a zone, firstly focusing on a melody, feeling how simple words and phrases resonate; then I re-listen to what I've created and try to organize my little creative chaos, catching the best parts, thinking how to understand them further.

I make a lot of shifts and twists, try to push myself and my sounds, try to surprise but always try to create a danceable mix of sounds that will put me and my audience in a trance; I try to allow for a good flow of energy through my music. Hopefully the emotions I am channeling, the lessons I've learnt from life and my creative process, bring release and healing.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I’m definitely choosing originality and individualism over perfection and I try not to focus too much on the past or the future. I’m more interested in expressing what’s important now. How is the world now? What are we going through at this very moment? Trying to capture the ephemeral nature of our time.

When I channel this energy, I feel that’s giving me the best flow. Cause that’s the only thing I know and understand. I’m constantly trying to fight perfectionism as it has too many victims. If something is good enough, I’m releasing it. We are perfectly imperfect and I appreciate raw things. They are very honest. Not trying to be anything else.

And so should my expression of art be. Raw, honest and free.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

My main instrument is my voice. That’s how I started with music, its exploration and expression; it changed meaning the more I knew and the further I went on my journey; different scenarios, bands, genres. It all influenced how I understood and felt my voice and was able to use it.

Adding Kaoss Pad changed my perception and use of my voice further. It added more playfulness, more options, more layers, more distance. To this day I’m still exploring the limitless options of this effect. Later I started playing Nord Lead in the band Fickle Vibe as no one else had free hands. I started very shy, simply repeating given lines and then dived deeper into the exploration of new possibilities of producing sounds.

With all my instruments I always strive to stay intuitive and to keep the playful aspect of music making. I took some classes along the way but I really wanted to stay untouched by curriculum and other people’s opinions so I stayed out of official programs.

Working with music means working with creativity which ultimately means working with our emotionality and with our mindset. Taking care of my mental state and motivation and the flow are as important as musical skills to me. The tools I mostly use that concern the mindset are mindfulness, journaling, reading, conversations and limitations. I use them to stay curious, maintain enthusiasm and a strong structure of my workflow, to take care of myself and love my work.

It all helps to connect with myself, know myself, check in with my emotions and respect them, to stay self-confident and honest, respect the phases of my creative process, maintaining motivation and keep the curiosity and playfulness in my life.

When I am struggling or need help it’s also important to remember to reach out to friends and other creatives, because sometimes a simple conversation can solve all the issues.