Behind The Scenes: Orfin
At the end of October, 'Toi' by Kremenchuk, Ukraine based artist Danya Tkachenko was releases as part of the eRecords series on Whitelabrecs, under Danya's Orfin alias. Behind the scenes we have a team inside our community (Inner Echo), who will help contribute with blog posts from time to time. So for this one Ryan Watts (who records as Akira Film Script) took a listen to the album and penned a few interview questions.
Ryan chats with Danya about his journey into Ambient music and the ideas that shaped his Whitelabrecs debut, Toi. They discuss Danya’s creative beginnings, his approach to sound and texture, the meaning behind the album’s title, and how collaboration, spontaneity and honesty play a role in his process. Danya also shares thoughts on finding balance amid chaos, what inspires him to create, and what might be next for the Orfin project.
If you like to take a listen to Toi, there's a Bandcamp link at the bottom of the page!
Being a newcomer to the Whitelabrecs community and catalog, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and your Orfin musical project?
Any other Orfin releases in the wild fans should be on the lookout for?
DT: My name is Danya, and I’m writing from my hometown, Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine. I began creating solo music around the age of seventeen, when I realized I could use only a laptop to compose from sounds I recorded with my camera back then. That was like discovering a magic wand - I could manipulate the sounds I explored in my surroundings. In many ways, that’s where Orfin began - with a fascination for the textures and poetics of everyday noise.
Only in the past couple of years, with encouragement from friends, I felt ready to start sharing my work more openly. With the support of the Ukrainian label Liky Pid Nohamy, I released my first two albums Na Vitru ('On the Wind') and Uvi Sni ('In a Dream'). Both are available online for anyone curious to explore the earlier stages of my sound journey.
It seems to be a recurring theme within the Whitelabrecs community, and the larger Ambient community abroad, but many, if not most Ambient artists came from other backgrounds or disciplines. What is your musical background, and what brought you to Ambient music?
DT: My uncle is one of the main sources of my musical background. Traveling with him in his car, surrounded by immersive Ambient playlists and watching time dissolve through the window, opened for me the portal to the dimensions that Ambient music can lead to.
The lack of formal education is one of the reasons that led me to exploring textures and field recordings, focusing on the feeling of sound rather than structured composition. Now I tend to lean more toward structured musical forms, but this background still remains at the core.
Ambient remains the music field where I feel most free and sincere - helping me sense and live through all the beauty and mess around.
'Toi', meaning the one, or that one in Ukrainian is, as you've stated, a meditative and abstract exploration of becoming. Can you elaborate on how the one, or that one was a driving force of becoming for you, and how that drove the sonic narrative on this album?
DT: The protagonist of the album - or 'the one' - isn’t something fixed or clearly defined. It’s being shaped through the process itself, through the conditions that surround it. In that sense, Toi reflects the way everything exists. Not as a solid form, but as something constantly becoming without any possible final form.
On a more personal level, that’s how I felt at the time. The winter when I worked on the album felt quite dissociative - as if I couldn’t really point to what this 'I' even was. I felt more like a witness to everything unfolding around me, with a touch of interactivity. Living here in Ukraine, personally it often feels like being on a roller coaster with closed seats, going in endless circles. You no longer see what’s outside - you just have the idea that it exists. Each circle becomes more intense, yet somehow you feel it less. A samsara wheel, if you don’t mind such a metaphor.
I had a strong sense of being conditioned by everything happening, on all levels, as a cell in some larger process, a cell that once felt like a distinct object but no longer does.
Music felt like a way to create spaces to place myself and the listener into places to witness how all these vibrations move and interconnect, and how they make sense only together yet each feels more or less independent.
One of the things that really caught my attention was the balance between electro-acoustic elements on this sonically diverse outing. Can you elaborate on what instruments, hardware, software, and additional collaborative elements from Mechika (Mariia Koliadina) allowed this body of work to coalesce?
DT: What makes this album distinct from my previous recordings is that I really turned digital, working mostly with various plugins in Ableton and MIDI keyboard. Still, it also includes tape loops and recordings of acoustic instruments like my Native American flute and Indian harmonium. Some tracks feature my friend Mariia (Mechika), with whom we jammed, and she contributed vocals and violin. There are also fragments of modular synth parts and field recordings integrated throughout.
Overall, it’s quite a wide palette. I haven’t reached the point where I want to limit myself to a specific range of tools; I guess I’m still a bit of a maximalist in that regard.
Each composition, across the full album, resonates with purpose; as though every note and space between was steeped in intention. How did you find that balance in the noisy and chaotic world of today? What inspired you to create these very thoughtful and peaceful worlds within the album?
DT: I guess the best way to explain it is simply through my creative process. It mostly begins as a flow state born from an impulse - I never know what’s going to emerge. Sometimes it feels as if I open myself to some creative energy flowing from somewhere, letting it shape something while I just witness it unfolding.
Later, I listen back to the recordings and start collaging them, exploring the textures and combinations that appeared. The production stage becomes more conscious - that’s when an intention starts to form around what I want it to become. This phase takes the longest, because it’s where every microdetail matters. But even then, I try to leave space for spontaneity and unpredictability. That’s where the life of the piece really lies.
As for finding balance… I’m not sure I really found it. This music might seem like escapism to some people, but for me it’s not about ignoring chaos - it’s about choosing where to direct attention, which energy to let manifest during creation. I tried to stay completely honest with myself, and you can hear many emotional layers in the music. Still, I think of it as being filled with light.
Last, but not least, what's next for yourself, or the Orfin project? Any live shows or other releases on the horizon you'd like to share with the Whitelabrecs community?
DT: The most honest answer would be “I don't know”. But let's pretend I can say something about the future in the current circumstances hah.
I’ve come to a point where I finally feel like working on a live set. It’s a personal challenge - I’m used to getting fully immersed in music alone. Performing it live, with people around, requires a totally different mindset. But I see it as a valuable step, because simply sharing music online often feels a bit uninspiring. Performing live and connecting with people directly can become a deeper, more living experience. Hopefully, I’ll manage to bring it to life.
I’m also already working on new music, and that's where most of my attention goes. For now, it’s pure exploration - I’m not sure yet where it will lead. The key for me is to stay completely honest in the process and not be too demanding toward myself. Not an easy thing sometimes.
If you'd like to check out Orfin's album 'Toi' you can stream and download it HERE. This is part of the digital-only eRecord series and includes a bonus PDF booklet of polaroids and liner notes.
