The Dark Wasp ist das Solo-Projekt der in Berlin lebenden Künstlerin Chiara. Ihre elektronische Musik entfaltet eine ganz eigene Sogwirkung und ist von literarischen, visuellen und dystopischen Motiven geprägt. Klanglich im Umfeld von Dark Electro, EBM und experimenteller Elektronik verortet, verbindet The Dark Wasp fesselnde Rhythmen mit einer emotional aufgeladenen Klangsprache. Berlin ist nicht nur ihr Wohnort, sondern ein kreativer Resonanzraum, der ihre Arbeit spürbar prägt.
Im Interview spricht The Dark Wasp über ihre Anfänge, ihre Einflüsse und darüber, wie aus Stimmungen, Bildern und Ideen dichte Klangräume entstehen.
Who is behind The Dark Wasp, and how would you describe yourself beyond music?
First of all, thank you for having me. Behind the music, I’m actually an introspective person. I’ve always been drawn to stories more than anything else. Before music, I was constantly writing, short stories, fragments, anything with a darker, more mysterious tone. Writers like Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe had a big influence on me, and that kind of atmosphere still shapes what I do. If I weren’t making music, I’d probably be writing. I’m not someone who naturally seeks attention or feels comfortable at the center of things. I just like creating a certain feeling and leaving space for people to connect with it in their own way.
When did music first become part of your life? When did you first fall in love with sound?
The high school I attended offered instrument classes after school, so we had to choose one. I immediately went for guitar because I liked singing, and it felt like a natural starting point. But the guitar classes were already full, and the only option left was flute. I wasn’t too excited at first; I’d never really liked the flute, mostly because we were forced to play it in middle school. But this was different: it was a transverse flute. That already sounded better to me. So I decided to give it a try, and I ended up falling in love with it. Not the very high notes (I still don’t like those) but the middle and lower range really struck me. I was surprised by how much warmth could come out of a metal instrument.
If you had to describe your music without using any musical terminology, how would you portray it?
The sounds of a humanity that is almost no longer there, flesh replaced by robotic parts, machines everywhere, the machine is law. Among the neon lights of a ghost city, where everything progresses uncontrollably, where technology swallows everything, where trees have become a showcase for curious onlookers. A city where the search for one’s origins gets lost in the danger of a lie repeated so many times that it has become truth.
What are you looking for in music? What are the boundaries that you look to explore with music?
What I look for in music is truth, raw, unfiltered, and sometimes uncomfortable. I’m not interested in surface or perfection, but in what feels real beneath it. Music is my way to translate what cannot be said: fragments of emotion, tension, inner images. I don’t believe in fixed boundaries. I’m interested in pushing them, bending them, and dissolving them, between organic and synthetic, control and chaos, memory and distortion. That in-between space is where my work exists.
Foto: © @sebastiancitystories
What is sound to you?
Sound is when the Manis Iteritas starts to break the moment you push “Smash”, controlled chaos becoming alive. It’s that point where you’re still in control of the system, but only just, and the sound begins to push back. It stops behaving as a stable instrument and turns into something unpredictable, almost organic. That transition, when structure collapses into movement, is what sound really is to me.
What themes are you currently drawn to in your work?
I’ve always been drawn to cyberpunk and sci-fi; they feel like distorted reflections of our present. Right now I’m shaping an album inspired by Isaac Asimov and his Three Laws of Robotics, reimagined through themes of human collapse and the rise of AI. These ideas constantly return in my work. I like to explore their subtlest tensions and translate them into sound, balancing between hope and destruction.
What impact do your surroundings have on your music? You live in Berlin. What influence does urbanity have on your artistic work? To what extent do you find inspiration in urban culture?
What’s extraordinary about living in a city like Berlin is how it pulses with underground culture in the most unexpected places. That constant urban energy inevitably feeds into my work. As someone who makes EBM and dark electro, being part of these events feels like a real privilege, because I always come back inspired, and I usually end up working on something new as soon as I get home. These niche scenes are important to preserve, but what I love most is how open people are to new sounds; they create a strong sense of belonging. Feeling that you belong musically, even while moving across and experimenting with different genres, is something really special to me, and it’s deeply connected to the city I live in.
How are your music pieces created? Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? Where does improvisation end and intuition begin for you?
When I start creating music, the impulse usually comes from very different places, sometimes from a sound idea, sometimes from a visual or a specific atmosphere I want to translate into something sonic. I rarely begin with a fixed concept; it’s more of an intuitive reaction to a mood or an environment. When I build a live set, I structure it as a sequence of tracks where each one has its own distinct sounds, and almost no elements are repeated in the following track within the set. This makes it easier for me to import everything into Ableton and further develop the arrangement and production. Coming from years at the conservatory and a classical music background, where I was used to working with scores and very little room for improvisation, I naturally tend to structure everything quite precisely. At the same time, improvisation for me begins once the framework is in place; it happens in the moment of performance, especially in shaping drops, breaks, and transitions, where intuition takes over and the structure becomes more fluid.
Outside of music, what artistic influences have most shaped your creative approach?
For me, sounds build precise architectures and shapes. Because of that, when I think about my influences outside of music, I naturally connect them to design and architecture, particularly certain styles that speak to me strongly. Brutalist and tech-inspired aesthetics are a major reference point for me: exposed concrete, raw and uncompromising forms contrasted with chrome finishes and high-tech elements. I’m drawn to minimalist spaces with large windows, where everything feels intentional, sometimes even reduced to a single object, like one chair placed in the center of a room.
Foto: © @second_sun_
How would you describe the world you are trying to create during your performances?
During my performances, I try to build a world that feels both immersive and slightly unstable, like stepping into a parallel urban reality. It’s a space where industrial energy, dark electro, EBM rhythms, and cyberpunk aesthetics merge into something almost cinematic. I want the audience to feel like they’re inside a living system, mechanical, emotional, sometimes chaotic, where tension and release constantly shift. It’s not just about sound, but about creating an atmosphere that feels like a futuristic city at night: intense, hypnotic, and a little dystopian, but still open to moments of light and connection.
What’s next for you? What are you most looking forward to?
To be completely honest, what I’m looking forward to most is being able to fully live from music. That means leaving behind the jobs that only serve to pay the bills and instead focusing entirely on work that exists within the music world. And I don’t mean only producing or playing live, anything connected to music would be meaningful, as long as it allows me to stay in that environment. The goal is to create a more sustainable and focused life where I can dedicate my energy to my tracks and performances without constantly splitting myself between a job I don’t want and the thing I truly care about, which is what I live for.
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