Interview Mylla Issues

Today, I’m very excited and genu­inely honored to intro­duce MYLLA ISSUES, an Italian darkwave/EBM artist from Rome. Not only she blends synth, dark­wave and dream-pop influ­ences, but she also cre­ates atmo­spher­ic and emo­tion­al music with a strong ’80s edge. Absolutely everything I love ! Her debut album « MY(RAGE) », released in June 19th, 2026 on Wave Records, is a power­ful first mile­stone in her incred­ible journey.

First of all, I want to say what a real hon­or it is for me to get the oppor­tun­ity to real­ize this inter­view with you. There is noth­ing more exhil­ar­at­ing for me as a music journ­al­ist than get­ting the chance to inter­view an artist I love so pas­sion­ately! I fell in love with your album from the first time I listened to it : the design of the cov­er art, the pho­tos, the melod­ies and lyr­ics of the songs.

Thank you so much! I'm truly delighted to be doing this inter­view with you. I'd also like to thank you not only for giv­ing me this oppor­tun­ity, but also for the won­der­ful review you wrote of my album. It really means a lot to me!

1. You describe your­self as a “witchy” sing­er-song­writer. How does that spir­itu­al or eso­ter­ic lens shape not just your lyr­ics and visu­als, but the way you approach sound design and performance?

Yes, I'd say that the "witchy" side really defines the over­all vibe of my pro­ject. For me, though, it's nev­er been just an aes­thet­ic, it's some­thing that genu­inely belongs to who I am. I've been fas­cin­ated by the eso­ter­ic, witch­craft, and the paranor­mal ever since I was a child, so it nat­ur­ally found its way into my music. It's a recur­ring thread through­out my work. While not every song is about those themes, many of my lyr­ics are influ­enced by those kinds of atmospheres.

I think you can hear it in the sound of the music, and of course you can see it in the visu­al iden­tity as well. For example, the concept behind the album was also inspired by clas­sic hor­ror cinema. Visually, I drew inspir­a­tion from films like Suspiria and Deep Red by Dario Argento, so you could def­in­itely say that this witchy imagery accom­pan­ies almost every aspect of the project.

It also extends to my live per­form­ances. You can see it in my stage out­fits, which often evoke those eso­ter­ic, witch-like, or vam­pir­ic vibes, and in the atmo­spheres I love to cre­ate on stage. I always try to trans­port people into a world that feels dream­like, eth­er­e­al, and a little oth­er­worldly, some­thing that isn't entirely tangible.

2. In a genre scene that often draws from occult or goth­ic aes­thet­ics, what does “witchy” mean to you per­son­ally, and how do you ensure it feels authen­t­ic rather than performative?

For me, I know it's authen­t­ic because it's a world I've genu­inely been fas­cin­ated by for as long as I can remem­ber. It's not some­thing I've adop­ted for aes­thet­ics, it's always been part of who I am. I think people can usu­ally tell the dif­fer­ence, there are artists who might embrace a cer­tain image, but then you listen to their lyr­ics and there's no real con­nec­tion to that world. In my case, I believe it comes through nat­ur­ally, both in my atti­tude and in my songwriting.

A lot of my lyr­ics are inspired by my dreams. Ever since I was a child, I've had very vivid dreams with paranor­mal, occult, or mys­ter­i­ous imagery. Those themes have always fas­cin­ated me, and that interest also comes from my fam­ily, it's some­thing that was passed down to me in a way, so it has always felt very familiar.

What draws me to these sub­jects is that they're full of mys­tery, some ques­tions that prob­ably can nev­er be answered with com­plete cer­tainty, and I find that incred­ibly inspir­ing from a cre­at­ive point of view. So I think the authen­ti­city comes across nat­ur­ally. You can hear it in my lyr­ics, or even just by hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with me about these top­ics. My music reflects who I really am, and I believe people can genu­inely feel that.

3. Your lyr­ics draw heav­ily from the dream world — vis­ions, inex­plic­able sen­sa­tions, and hid­den mean­ings. Can you walk us through how a spe­cif­ic dream or lim­in­al exper­i­ence made its way into a song on (MY)RAGE?

The first song that comes to mind is def­in­itely "Haunter". It's prob­ably the track that's most dir­ectly inspired by my dreams. In the lyr­ics, I talk about a spir­it that haunts someone, and through­out my life I've had many dreams with that kind of unset­tling atmo­sphere. I'm sure all the hor­ror films I've watched have also influ­enced those images.

"Haunter" is prob­ably the darkest song on the record, both lyr­ic­ally and con­cep­tu­ally. Even the title sug­gests the idea of a pres­ence that fol­lows you or refuses to leave you, so it's the track that's most closely con­nec­ted to that dream­like and paranor­mal world.

Another example is "Hollow Way." That song is a little dif­fer­ent because it's not so much about dreams them­selves, but about memor­ies and emo­tions con­nec­ted to the past. I ima­gined myself as a child, going to vis­it my grand­par­ents in the city, so it's filled with nos­tal­gia and dis­tant memor­ies. But dreams are still part of it, because I often dream about my childhood.

Sometimes I find myself back in the house where I grew up, even in my night­mares. It's strange and unset­tling, but at the same time incred­ibly inspir­ing. I'd also men­tion "Creature of June." That song is very visu­al, almost cine­mat­ic. It's dreamy and eth­er­e­al, but it also has a slightly creepy atmo­sphere, and I think that comes across in the music video as well.

Then there's "Two Sisters," which tells the story of a fig­ure sus­pen­ded between dreams and real­ity, exist­ing in that lim­in­al space that has always fas­cin­ated me. But if I had to choose the song that's most dir­ectly based on one of my dreams or, more accur­ately, one of my night­mares, it would def­in­itely be "Haunter."

4. What role does that sub­con­scious space play in your cre­at­ive process?

I would actu­ally say it plays the cent­ral role in my cre­at­ive pro­cess. I rarely write songs that are dir­ectly auto­bi­o­graph­ic­al. Even when they are inspired by per­son­al exper­i­ences, they're usu­ally filtered through memor­ies that have been reshaped over time, or memor­ies that come back to me in dreams and take on a com­pletely dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive, often a dark­er or more unset­tling one.

When I describe my pro­ject, I often use words like witchy because there are def­in­itely eso­ter­ic and occult influ­ences, but even more than that, I think it's deeply rooted in the dream world, in hid­den mean­ings, unex­plained feel­ings, and that lim­in­al space between real­ity and imagination.

I also real­ize that many of my lyr­ics aren't straight­for­ward, they're inten­tion­ally sym­bol­ic rather than lit­er­al. I like leav­ing room for inter­pret­a­tion, because every­one can con­nect with them in a dif­fer­ent way and pro­ject their own exper­i­ences onto them. So yes, I would say the sub­con­scious isn't just part of my cre­at­ive pro­cess, it's really where everything begins. It's the found­a­tion of almost everything I write.

5. Many synth/darkwave artists explore nos­tal­gia or ret­ro­fu­tur­ism. For you, the 80s ref­er­ences feel filtered through some­thing more per­son­al and ritu­al­ist­ic. How do you bal­ance homage to that era with a con­tem­por­ary, for­ward-look­ing vision?

Yes, abso­lutely. Alongside the dream­like and eso­ter­ic side of my music, there's also a strong con­nec­tion to the sound of the 1980s, espe­cially in some of my songs. What's inter­est­ing is that I nev­er actu­ally lived through that dec­ade, I wasn't born yet, but I've always been fas­cin­ated by it. A lot of that comes from my par­ents: the stor­ies they told me and, above all, the music they intro­duced me to when I was grow­ing up. Those influ­ences became a very import­ant part of my music­al and artist­ic education.

For me, the '80s influ­ence is mainly music­al rather than visu­al. Visually, my aes­thet­ic is much more con­nec­ted to the witchy and occult side of my pro­ject, but son­ic­ally, espe­cially in tracks like "Party!!!(in the 80s)" you can def­in­itely hear those ref­er­ences. I find it fas­cin­at­ing that I feel nos­tal­gic for a time I nev­er actu­ally exper­i­enced. It's a very spe­cif­ic kind of nos­tal­gia, and I almost think it's some­thing worth study­ing. Those sounds have become part of me, even though they belong to a past that isn't mine. I nat­ur­ally com­bine those son­ic influ­ences with much more per­son­al themes like dreams, hid­den mean­ings, emo­tions, and the sub­con­scious. I don't really think about bal­an­cing those two worlds; it just hap­pens instinctively.

Since those influ­ences are part of who I am as an artist, they blend with my own inner world and end up cre­at­ing some­thing that feels per­son­al, con­tem­por­ary, and, hope­fully, for­ward look­ing rather than simply nostalgic.

6. Your debut album "MY(RAGE)" seems to chan­nel a lot of emo­tion­al intens­ity through mel­an­chol­ic synths, hyp­not­ic bass­lines, and ritu­al­ist­ic energy. What does the title rep­res­ent for you — per­son­al rage, col­lect­ive fury, cath­arsis, or some­thing more esoteric?

I chose the title of my album through a kind of word­play, because it car­ries mul­tiple mean­ings. The main one is def­in­itely “My Rage” as in anger and I wanted to explore dif­fer­ent kinds of rage. The cent­ral idea behind it is about trans­form­ing anger into some­thing pos­it­ive, rather than let­ting it become destruct­ive. It’s about turn­ing some­thing ini­tially neg­at­ive into energy, some­thing vital that can be channeled into art and music. In my case, that rage can be quite per­son­al. It can come from peri­ods like adoles­cence, when I often struggled to fully express who I was and felt a bit dif­fer­ent from oth­ers, but it can also rep­res­ent some­thing more uni­ver­sal, smal­ler or lar­ger trau­mas that any­one might exper­i­ence in life. Everyone has their own form of anger, for dif­fer­ent reas­ons, and the mes­sage is really about trans­form­ing it into some­thing cre­at­ive and beau­ti­ful. So for me, rage becomes vital energy.

At the same time, the title can also be read as “Mirage,” which con­nects back to the more eth­er­e­al and dream­like side of my world. There’s also a per­son­al story behind that : dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of the album there were sev­er­al delays, and at times it hon­estly felt like it would nev­er be fin­ished. I remem­ber think­ing, “When this album is finally ready, it will feel like a mirage.” So in the end, the title is a mix of all these layers—rage, trans­form­a­tion, and some­thing almost illus­ory and dreamlike.

7. Tracks like “Modern Vampires” or your col­lab­or­a­tions (with Fluid Ghost on “Haunter”) blend dark­ness with dance­floor energy. How do you nav­ig­ate that ten­sion between introspection/shadow work and cre­at­ing music people can move to?

I’ve always been a big fan of more ener­get­ic tracks. I also really enjoy dan­cing, which you can prob­ably see in many of my music videos. So I like the idea of cre­at­ing songs that take you on a jour­ney, some­thing sur­real and dream­like, but at the same time give you a lot of energy and make you want to let go and move. At the same time, I don’t like writ­ing lyr­ics that are super­fi­cial. Just because a song is dance­able or even fun, it doesn’t mean the lyr­ics should be empty. For me, I nat­ur­ally can’t write in a super­fi­cial way, I’m always drawn to deep­er themes, and my writ­ing pro­cess is very instinct­ive in that sense.

So I like com­bin­ing a dance­able rhythm with lyr­ics that still have depth, mean­ing, and some­thing intriguing in them. I like the idea of blend­ing some­thing almost poet­ic and at times even mys­ter­i­ous with ener­get­ic sounds that work per­fectly in a club or on a dance floor.

8. As an Italian artist rooted in Rome, how does your cul­tur­al and geo­graph­ic back­ground influ­ence the atmo­spheres you create?

In real­ity, my cul­tur­al roots haven’t had a very strong influ­ence on my artist­ic side. I’ve always mainly listened to for­eign music, mostly English and American, while Italian music has actu­ally been a very small part of my listen­ing back­ground. That said, I always men­tion that one of my favour­ite cit­ies is Rome. Not only because it’s object­ively beau­ti­ful, but also because I have a strong emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to it. There are def­in­itely some songs where that con­nec­tion becomes more present.

For example, “Hollow Way.” I shot the video for that track in a neigh­bour­hood in Rome that I used to vis­it when I was a child. I wrote the song think­ing about the sen­sa­tions I exper­i­enced grow­ing up in that area, and I wanted to bring it back to life visu­ally by film­ing it in the exact place that inspired it.

So I wouldn’t say my Italian cul­tur­al iden­tity has influ­enced me dir­ectly in a music­al sense, but Rome spe­cific­ally has, in a more emo­tion­al and visu­al way. Since my writ­ing is often inspired by dreams and memor­ies from the past, espe­cially child­hood memor­ies, the aes­thet­ic of the city, the build­ings, the chaos, the atmo­sphere… all of that def­in­itely shaped the envir­on­ments and moods I create.

9. Do you see any dis­tinctly Mediterranean or Southern European under­cur­rents in what’s often per­ceived as a very Northern/Cold Wave sound?

To be hon­est, I remem­ber once I was per­form­ing in Madrid, and my boy­friend said some­thing inter­est­ing to me. He told me that in my music, des­pite the fact that the over­all atmo­sphere is much closer to colder, more min­im­al aes­thet­ics, typ­ic­al of the genre, he could still sense some­thing a bit warm­er in cer­tain tracks. Not neces­sar­ily some­thing fully Mediterranean, but a subtle influ­ence that felt slightly more Southern in tone. He didn’t describe it as a dom­in­ant ele­ment, but more like some­thing that emerges here and there, depend­ing on the song.

Personally, I don’t fully see it myself, or at least I wouldn’t con­sciously define it that way. But it’s inter­est­ing that someone close to me picked up on it. So appar­ently, even if my music is gen­er­ally rooted in colder sound­scapes, there might still be moments where a more Mediterranean influ­ence comes through in a subtle way. It could also be linked to the fact that in some of my tracks there are ele­ments that remind a bit of Italo disco. One of my pro­du­cers, who actu­ally worked on a large part of the album, is really pas­sion­ate about that genre and has exper­i­ence work­ing on sim­il­ar sounds. So I think that influ­ence def­in­itely comes through in what we cre­ated together.

10. Looking at the broad­er synth/darkwave resur­gence, what excites you most about the cur­rent scene, and what frus­tra­tions or gaps do you hope your music helps address?

What excites me the most is def­in­itely see­ing this kind of reviv­al hap­pen­ing. It feels like audi­ences are becom­ing more and more inter­ested in this genre lately, and more people are both listen­ing to it and cre­at­ing it as well espe­cially in Italy. In Italy, we know it’s still a very niche scene, and the music industry isn’t always the most innov­at­ive when it comes to emer­ging genres. But at the same time, I do see a shift. I per­son­ally know sev­er­al young Italian artists who are explor­ing this sound, and that’s really encouraging.

I hope my music can con­trib­ute in some way, first of all by reach­ing more people and pos­sibly intro­du­cing them to the genre, help­ing to broaden its audi­ence. At the same time, I often get told that while I’m con­sidered a dark­wave artist, my sound isn’t strictly tra­di­tion­al dark­wave. People tend to hear oth­er influ­ences in it as well, and hon­estly, I like that a lot.

I’d like to move away from rigid labels and cat­egor­ies. I think mak­ing music is also about free­dom and the mix of dif­fer­ent influ­ences. So yes, dark­wave might be a start­ing point, but I don’t think it should always stay with­in fixed bound­ar­ies. For me, it’s more inter­est­ing to keep things open, bring­ing in dif­fer­ent genres, dif­fer­ent sens­ib­il­it­ies, and cre­at­ing some­thing that feels fresh, flu­id, and not lim­ited to a set of rules.

11. If a listen­er comes to your music seek­ing trans­form­a­tion or insight (giv­en the ritu­al­ist­ic and dream-like qual­it­ies), what would you hope they take away from the full "MY(RAGE)" experience?

First of all, I’d like it to become a truly multi­s­ens­ory exper­i­ence, some­thing that feels like a full immer­sion into my world. I want the listen­er to go through a kind of dream­like jour­ney. I also hope it brings a more pos­it­ive sense of self-aware­ness. This is closely con­nec­ted to the idea behind the album: trans­form­ing anger, which is often seen as some­thing neg­at­ive, into pos­it­ive energy. So I hope it helps people recon­nect with them­selves and real­ize their own value.

We all go through phases in life where we might feel dif­fer­ent, or in some cases even inferi­or, or where we’ve exper­i­enced being made to feel that way by oth­ers. With my album, I want to send the mes­sage that being dif­fer­ent is not some­thing neg­at­ive at all but it can actu­ally be a strength. Some tracks, like “Modern Vampires,” are very much a mani­festo of this idea. The mes­sage is: even if you feel dif­fer­ent, that doesn’t make you less, it might actu­ally be what makes you unique.

So I hope the album encour­ages a sense of self-accept­ance and inclus­iv­ity, and a recog­ni­tion of one’s own unique­ness. At the same time, I’d love for it to open people up to the unknown, to inspire curi­os­ity, and a desire to explore deep­er and more intense emo­tions and sensations.

12. You already have an intense live show activ­ity across Italy and abroad. You even shared the stage with sev­er­al artists. Where can we expect to see you soon on stage, and when? I dis­covered some­thing I only saw in Italy with Italian artists : In-store sign­ing ses­sions. Is it some­thing that you could do as well?

I really love per­form­ing live. It’s an amaz­ing feel­ing to bring your art on stage and see people singing and dan­cing with you, it’s hon­estly one of my favour­ite things in life. I have sev­er­al dates com­ing up. Some have already been announced, while oth­ers I can’t fully reveal yet, but I can share a bit. In September 5th, I’ll be in Milan, then on the 13th I’ll be in Benevento, fol­lowed by Prato on the 19th. These are my first three dates in Italy. On the 26th of September, I’ll be at Barna Dark Fest in Barcelona. Then, in October 29th, I have an import­ant open­ing slot in Bordeaux, in France, which I can’t offi­cially announce in detail just yet. On the 3rd of December, I’ll be in London open­ing for Diagonal Gasp on their tour.

And finally, in May next year, I’ll be tak­ing part in Spain Goth Day in Madrid. That’s everything I can share for now. As for in-store sign­ing ses­sions, yes abso­lutely! It’s some­thing I’d really love to do. I think it’s a beau­ti­ful ini­ti­at­ive, and hope­fully it will be pos­sible in the future.

Mylla, thank you so much for your time, des­pite your busy sched­ule (rehears­als, pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies with radio/TV sta­tions, song­writ­ing and com­pos­ing), and more import­antly thank you for your genu­ine kindness.

Thank you as well! It was really a pleas­ure to answer these ques­tions. They were all very inter­est­ing, so thank you again for think­ing of me for this interview.

We’ve also got a review of Mylla Issues’ latest album, "My (Rage)", in the Electrozombies magazine issue #02. Get your copy now!