Nastia: Keep on dancing

The very next year the floodwaters broke, carrying her on a growing torrent of international gigs through to now, a year which sees her first appearance at Panoramabar on April 29 and numerous gigs at Circo Loco over the summer. It was also in 2010 that she formed a relationship with Moscow club Arma17, after meeting some of the club’s DJs at KaZantip. Allowed to hand-pick her dates as new resident of the club, which closed three years ago due to re-development but continues to throw parties, it’s become her home from home, giving her a space to redefine her sound in less obvious, more experimental realms. “It was super underground and they created amazing ideas,” she says, bright eyed, rating its atmosphere even above the legendary Berghain. “Once, they put ice on the dancefloor so you could skate. Another time they invited artists into a nearby building and created an entire labyrinth.”

Nastia seems uncomfortable acknowledging her talent, ascribing her journey to luck – even when we point out that her only other appearance at Fabric was to support Ricardo Villalobos (who was still playing, using her borrowed headphones, when she’d been to sleep after her own set). It’s certainly not luck tearing the roof off the London club at 4am when Hawtin starts setting up to follow, cameras thrust into Nastia’s face from the front of the booth, sweaty bodies stretching in every direction. As Discrete Circuit’s demented, bleeping ‘Machine Code’ stutters out of the system, a man in a wheelchair is hoisted head high in the middle of the floor, cheers erupting.

Two of the biggest tracks are forthcoming on Propaganda. ‘Safari’ is one of her own rare excursions into the studio alongside the handful of producers that she’s worked with (‘Safari’ was made with Nikolay Bogomolov, otherwise known as d’n’b producer NickBee, while she’s currently making tracks with Gera Taraman). All pulsing bass and polyrhythmic percussion, Nastia, now in a chic black dress, is clearly relishing it as she dances along with a wide grin. The other, the bubbling ‘Journeyman’ by Matteo Papacchioli, forthcoming on the same Various Artists EP and a hit in waiting, breaks down into an instantly familiar vocal hook from the earthy tones of Rich Medina.

It’s pitched perfectly, boiling over just as she hands over to Hawtin. But in her post-weekend Facebook post, covering all four of her extended weekend gigs, she brands it simply “okay, but professional”. It shows the exacting standards she holds herself to, as well as her refusal to engage with the usual online smoke-blowing. While her performances might look faultless to anyone watching, in private Nastia admits to some personal challenges. Last year she says she almost burned out thanks to her phenomenal tour schedule, refusing to cancel any dates (as she did two years ago, when she sank into a deep depression after the invasion of the Crimea) because she didn’t want to let fans and promoters down.

She also talks about the struggle of raising a daughter while earning money as a DJ, afraid she neither has enough time to spend with Uliana or to dedicate to finding music and getting into the studio. She even floats the idea of taking three months off at the end of the year, and of going back to university to study psychology. “It’s an experiment for me,” she says seriously. “I haven’t been at home for longer than a week since 2009. I want to experience normal life: sleeping at night, seeing the mountains in the interior of the country, not getting on any flights.”

At 9am, though, Nastia is at the front of the booth between Ali Dubfire and Hawtin, the ENTER. boss twisting the night into a crescendo of sound and bright white light. The woman with music and movement in her bones is still the gravitational force who pulls everyone else in around her. Her life might not be as uncomplicated and carefree as back in those village school days. But with an uncompromising purity and transparency around everything she does, Nastia is still a hypnotic force of nature.

Nastia plays at Strichka, Distortion, Kamehameha, Mystic Garden, Kappa Turin, Dour Festival, Tomorrowland, Into The Valley and The Social Festivals this summer