"Shadow work — it's not a blowjob"

"This story is the start of a big book that's going to be a bestseller — that's what it's like to work with Vlad and Liza."

The music I write — vast, ambitious, fucking insane, on the level of Lennon's Imagine. That's what it's like to work with Vlad and Liza.

In sessions with artists recording vocals, I feel them, hold them, and help their voice open up in a way they have never heard before — to the point where they start crying when they sing. That's what it's like to work with Vlad and Liza.

The music I make is so saturated with emotional colour it grabs whoever's listening instantly. The songs I sell move in a couple of days. That's what it's like to work with Vlad and Liza.

I can finally feel. That's what it's like to work with Vlad and Liza.

Beginning with gratitude

I want to begin with gratitude.

Gratitude on the level of release — release from a programme I had been living through for too long. Gratitude on the level of feeling — finally free, with the ability to do whatever I actually want with my life. Gratitude toward these people — for their acceptance, their understanding, their compassion.

It was the funniest, most playful, most life-filled, love-filled transformation I've been through — full of laughter and tears, screaming and quiet whispering. Thank you for changing my life.

The morning of honesty

I open my eyes in a room flooded with daylight from the Portuguese sun. The clock says 2pm, and there's a haze of "honesty" in the air. Vlad stands in the doorway, leaning on the handle, saying something to me. At first the words sound unclear, but as I rub my eyes I catch the calm tone — and the fact that what he's pointing to, again, is my shadow.

The previous nights begin to load in my head — the long conversations where, with all cards on the table, I was finally being shown what I had been doing. Until that moment I had refused to admit my real intentions to myself. Insights open up; recent events flicker through my mind like a film reel — only this time honestly, without the filter.

Let me start from the beginning.

True transformation is quiet

"Transformation — a worn-out word, but a deep one. People throw it around, beating their chests about how much they've transformed."

In my experience, true transformation is quiet. Seeing and accepting your shadow — that's the most important transformation in anyone's life. And how hard we fear seeing it, admitting it.

For example: noticing that, in your seemingly innocuous act of starting to chat with the friend sitting across from you with a laptop, bringing his idea to life — there is, in fact, a deliberate intention to distract him, to suppress his spark the same way yours was once suppressed. And it's a loop.

Or noticing that your daily small decisions affect the person next to you — someone you don't actually love, but feel safe with. And then choosing not to see it. Not to look. Not even to glance in that direction. Convincing yourself the headache is the weather, the absence of sex is just a phase, the love is still there, we'll manage. The list is endless.

And then, when you've seen it all — learning not to sink into guilt, but to take full responsibility, with compassion, to accept what's actually there. The dark side, in full "glory".

Late autumn — Lisbon, Sintra, Baileys

Late autumn. Leaving the airport in Lisbon after a stunning 4-day party in Cyprus, I drag on a hand-rolled and book a taxi an hour out of town. On the map — a dot, tucked into a green landscape near the ocean.

An hour later I see Liza on the terrace, and Vlad coming out with a bottle of Baileys, hugging me tight like an old friend. And right here is where my transformation began.

By the evening the three of us are sitting near the fireplace. My return ticket was in 5 days. The whole thing looked, to me, like a 5-day visit to friends in Portugal. As you already know, I never went back.

Career. Music. Subtlety.

Somewhere in there, the transformation begins to unfold in my reality, in my life, in my career. I let go of 90% of my artists. I start to notice which work I had been making from inspiration, and where I'd been on autopilot. Autopilot was almost everywhere.

I begin to feel differently — more subtly. To see the connections between emotions, chords, feelings, resonance. How a single A minor chord, for instance, can hold an unbelievable amount of charge — different emotional impulses. And how to know, clearly, what to do in a song to make it sound real.

In sessions with artists, I begin to feel the artist's state during recording — and through what I say to them, direct that state up or down.

Speed

A week feels like a month. A month — like a year. I had never felt this kind of speed.

"Never seen it in this life?" Liza asks me. Pillows, fireplace, candles, a jug of water with lemon. "Yes, in this one," I answer. I look at her; she silently smiles and nods.

From competition to collaboration

One of the most important steps was recognising my patriarchal nature — and dis-identifying from it. The shift out of the old game — where competition, subjugation, exploitation, "I won only when you lost" run the show — into a different one. Where the core principle is collaboration, resonance, coherence between people. Where everyone moves from a place of inspiration toward another person, the body, nature. They build together, create together, enjoy life.

Admitting to myself that all my life, as a man, I had operated on the strategy of "bros before hoes", and seeing how every one of my actions had been done to uphold that structure — was painful. And nothing close to easy.

The wildest school

"The wildest fucking school of transformation — though not a school in the usual sense. It's when you're being thick, you fuck up, you make mistakes — and they just hold you, without judgement, without verdicts. That's when real transformation happens…"