LA-based producer and vocalist Starya, formerly known as Tuff Ghost, is an expert at distilling real-life environments into her futuristic, electronic pop soundscapes. She’s a creative polymath: she uses her skills in singing, producing, and mixing to directly translate her fantastical vision into evocative, spellbinding songs.
"’Wet’ is about that moment when you find yourself at the after-hours warehouse party or your friend's basement rave and feel something drip on you. At first you look around in confusion, wondering if someone spilled a drink, or maybe the ceiling is leaking.. but slowly you realize that an entire self-sustaining cycle of condensation and precipitation has been created from the combination of late-night decisions, euphoric basslines, and the vibrant, sweaty, human need to DANCE.” - Starya
This creative skillset has led to a host of accolades. Including multiple collaborations with genre-bending house producer Durante and remixes for the versatile DJ/producer Mija (and a support slot on her nationwide tour) under the Tuff Ghost alias. Recently, under the new Starya moniker, she’s opened for electronic music titans such as Skrillex, Justice, Jamie xx, Boys Noize, Kill The Noise, Zedd, and 2manydjs, where she’s flexed her guitar-wielding, DJ/live performance hybrid.
Starya is an electronic music veteran and an acute translator of warehouse rave atmospheres. She’s also a child of the bloghouse era – a distinct time in LA dance music history that permeates her entire discography.
Last month, Starya continued that creative pattern with “Gradient,” an intergalactic, bass-fueled track filled with deep bass lines and airy pop vocals
Today, the artist unveils “Wet,” a sparkling, bloghouse inspired club-pop track. Blending Starya’s ethereal vocal presentation with pulsating, electro synth lines and lurid sound design, “Wet” is a dripping warehouse banger that transports listeners to the middle of a sweaty nightclub dancefloor.
“Wet” kicks off with a pounding four-on-the-floor kick drum, backdropped by real-life rain recordings. Then, an echoed vocal refrain enters the mix with the word “wet” reverberating within a seemingly submerged environment – a stylistic choice that perfectly reflects the track’s evocation of changing warehouse climates. Next, the song builds with driving persuasive elements, scintillating hi-hats, and bright synth stabs before bringing in Starya’s lush vocals.
“It’s raining in the club again/can you feel it drippin’?” Starya sings in the first verse before delivering a high pitch belt - a potent vocal that smoothly precedes the song’s blazing, techno-infused drop. Filled to the brim with luminescent, kaleidoscopic production details, “Wet” is a pertinent example of Starya’s imaginative, sensory-creating sonic skill set.
ABOUT STARYA
Bridging the world of form and interstellar life through music has been a quiet, long-running mission on Earth for most of time, and Starya knows she’s part of a much larger fabric of creators carrying out this operation. The singer-songwriter-producer-DJ-multi-instrumentalist spends most of her time in the cloud and out of the human-drama-fray, streaming on Twitch from her off-planet studio and occasionally coming down to bless us with an IRL festival or club performance to keep our joy levels steady and help harmonize the species
Starya’s tracks and mixes have a transcendental quality, an essence that can’t quite be qualified except to say it got her opening for Skrillex, Justice, 2manydjs, Kill The Noise, Tokimonsta, ZEDD, Arty, Diplo, Mija, Boyz Noize, and Dillon Francis to name few. Her former artist name Tuff GHost allowed her to stealth-move between the worlds of hip-hop, techno, electro, house and dubstep as what some might call a DJ’s DJ, but as Starya she emerges in true form, singing over her DJ sets to haunting, enrapturing, original pop-house songs with an ethereal other-worldy edge that’s distinctively hers.
Last summer, Starya joined the Altered States family with her single release “Meadowlark.” Her recent singles “Gradient” and “Wet,” are ethereal new tracks that should attract fans of Grimes, Justice, Cobrah, Ninajarachi, Uffie, The Knife, and more.
