{"id":3419,"date":"2025-12-28T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/?p=3419"},"modified":"2025-12-28T12:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T09:33:08","slug":"emos-return-in-baltic-greyness-suki-on-pain-honesty-and-life-in-a-post-soviet-country-a-conversation-with-the-band-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/emigration\/emos-return-in-baltic-greyness-suki-on-pain-honesty-and-life-in-a-post-soviet-country-a-conversation-with-the-band-members","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEmo\u2019s Return in Baltic Greyness: S\u00fcki on Pain, Honesty, and Life in a Post-Soviet Country\u201d \u2014 A Conversation with the Band Members"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Riga. 2025. A piercing Baltic wind. Against a backdrop of pines soaked by eternal rain, a genre resounds that seemed destined to remain in the mid-2000s, somewhere between thin bangs and broken hearts. But it\u2019s precisely here, in cold and outwardly reserved Latvia, that a new, radically honest emo-chaos is being born.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interview with the band S\u00fcki is not just a conversation about music. It\u2019s a manifesto about how to be young, loud, and emotional in a country still dominated by rigid \u201cnormality\u201d and post-Soviet restraint \u2014 and we also listen to tracks from their latest album.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikita<\/strong> \u2014 lead guitar, lead vocals
Koly\u0430 <\/strong>\u2014 bass
Vlad<\/strong> \u2014 guitar
Egor<\/strong> \u2014 drums
Edd <\/strong>\u2014 vocals, noise, samples
Jan\u0129na<\/strong> \u2014 saxophone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NTD:<\/strong> Hi! Introduce yourselves. And most importantly \u2014 why emo? What made you choose a genre that barely exists on the local scene?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikita:<\/strong> It all happened very spontaneously; the drummer pulled me into this genre, and I immediately decided I wanted to play it, no matter how popular it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edd:<\/strong> I\u2019m sure each of us plays emo music for our own reasons. For me, it\u2019s the perfect way to release energy \u2014 not spend it, but pass it on to the crowd. Today you rarely find any kind of core-music in Riga, but when I was growing up, it was quite in demand. Take in.stora, for example. Everything is cyclical; I think emo is returning to the so-called trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vlad: <\/strong>Personally, having been in the local scene for over five years, I\u2019ve noticed more than once that people here are afraid to experiment. Working by template, bands that usually don\u2019t last long. I wouldn\u2019t say sticking to genre canons is bad, but I\u2019d like to see a fire in the eyes of new musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
photo from the band\u2019s personal archive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

NTD:<\/strong> Emo and Latvia \u2014 a combination that sounds almost surreal: cold, Baltic winds, pines\u2026 How did the scene you ended up in even appear? And did you ever feel like you \u201cdidn\u2019t fit\u201d, even among your own?
<\/strong>
Nikita: <\/strong>Honestly, I have no fucking idea what\u2019s going on in our scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edd: <\/strong>I can compare our scene now and ten years ago. I didn\u2019t fit in then, and I don\u2019t fit in now \u2014 and honestly, it really doesn\u2019t matter. We do what we like; the rest is up to the listeners. As for Latvia \u2014 I think everything is exactly as it should be. Rain, slush, blood, and tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vlad:<\/strong> To me \u2014 the setting is perfect. Outside the window, it\u2019s grey; you step onto the street and the wind almost knocks you down. As for the second part \u2014 I wouldn\u2019t say so. Even standing at a morning bus stop among grandmas, I feel like I live among emos who refuse to admit it until the very end. Post-Soviet paradise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n