“You can release anger as an attack, or you can be creative and not sacrifice your soul”: Inside the haunted but hopeful world of n0trixx

“Am I a vampire?” n0trixx grins, playfully. “Well, I had a reflection last time I looked in the mirror!”

Mistress of amongst the most intriguingly shadowy alt. metal sounds in 2026, and known to sport the kind of face mask that could conceivably be covering a set of fangs, it’s a welcome reassurance.

Bloodsucking may not be on the agenda for the Russian-born, Lancashire-based vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer – whose first name is Anastasia, and whose surname is kept private for reasons that will become apparent – but gothic tradition is steeped into everything she does, particularly on her box-fresh album A Catalogue Of Madness And Melancholia.

It’s about the shadowy feelings in the heart, more than the black clothes on the body, she tells us. It’s about an affinity for the seductive darkness that dates back to reading E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Elixirs Of Satan when she was a teenager. And any parallels with the most famous gothic villain of all, Count Dracula himself, who also journeyed from Europe’s mysterious far east and ended up crashing into the north of England are purely coincidental.

“How I got here is quite a story,” she sighs. “I would still be in Russia if it were my choice, if the war hadn’t started, if my life didn’t turn out as it has. I had protested against [Vladimir Putin’s] regime a few times before, but this was about more than just my life, it was about being part of a nation attacking and killing other people for reasons totally against my values.

“My family, my colleagues, my employer, everyone tried to get me to stop, but that simply wasn’t an option. I ended up being arrested, but as the single mother of two young children I couldn’t risk jail time. My responsibility as a parent is above my responsibility as a citizen. So I had to leave before that happened. For the first two years, I ended up in Turkey, as it was the only place that would accept me. But during that time of feeling trapped and isolated, I was putting out music, and eventually I was eligible for a Global Talent Visa. That, and the opportunities for musicians, led me here!”

Having spent a year in London and opted for England’s more affordable, friendlier and more geographically central North-West, the majority of people n0trixx encounters in her day-to-day have little idea of about the music she makes.

They must know she’s a musician, she reckons, because kids talk. And they certainly see that she’s run off her feet trying to get things done. But the intimidatingly masked industrial Valkyrie seen online and onstage is kept safely under wraps.

“Is n0trixx my alter-ego? You might say that. But in both my art and my real life I speak openly about big subjects and sensitive things,” she says. “It’s more that sometimes I release my anger through music. You can release anger as an attack on people, to destroy things, or you can channel it into creativity and not sacrifice your soul.

“I very much choose the latter, but there is a darkness in it that I keep hidden from my children. They’re too early in their lives to be exposed to how cruel the world can be. But that darkness is still there. I amplify it as a tool to bring awareness and help people see that everything can be normal if you’re accepting and don’t run away from yourself.”

Magic and misdirection might be priceless skills in the world of onstage performance, but true to her title n0trixx understands that, if you want your dreams to come true, the real work never ends.

“Sometimes I don’t know how I cram everything into a day,” she grins. “For a one-woman band, life is as hectic as it gets. I am growing my ‘team’, but sometimes I wish I had four or five band members to delegate some of the tasks you need to check off to. It’s hard doing everything on your own. Then my ‘side job’ is being a mother, which is also incredibly hectic. The birth of my children and seeing them grow into their own stand-alone personalities has helped me understand a lot about human psyche, to be more accepting of others and more knowledgeable about myself.”

Becoming self-attuned has been crucial. As documented starkly over the 11 tracks of A Catalogue Of Madness And Melancholia, living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) has shaped so many of her most formative experiences. The song hysteria [БЕГN] – the Russian meaning ‘run’ – for instance, delves hard into the dark thoughts she felt while trapped in Turkey. ‘To the mouth or the vein? / With a gun or a noose? / Have you thought of the way? / Shall we let demons loose?’

Revenge On God shares the perspective of a loving husband and father who murdered his wife, following a mental breakdown, and termed it the said revenge. St. Chaos, meanwhile, started with the working title of 80HD stolen from a kids’ book, but then shapeshifted after n0trixx misread a road sign for St Chad’s Tunnel and imagined meeting a patron saint of hectic minds.

“I write when I feel something,” she shrugs. “Being a sponge, I can get inspiration from a YouTube video about dementia and the horrible effects of that disease, then imagining what that person was going through. Talking about these things – mental health issues and what they can lead to – is very important.

“On Catalepsia, I tell the story of someone who was diagnosed schizophrenic and spent the rest of his life in a mental asylum but wanted to be a pianist. That really stuck with me because I could easily imagine myself being in that position. The piano isn’t my favourite instrument – probably because I did seven years of lessons – but I asked my friend Warren Willis who toured with Linkin Park on Chester [Bennington]’s last run to be a part of it, with the piano being the centrepiece of the song and my vocals being secondary.”

Although n0trixx has naturally been likened to fellow rap-heavy solo artists like Mimi Barks, she stresses that she rarely listens to rap. Rather, the hip-hop influence of her music has bled through from nu-metal. Over the course of our conversation she namechecks artists as varied as goth legends The Cure and Linkin Park themselves, with special note of Joe Hahn’s instrumental masterpiece Cure For The Itch. Musically, it’s about patching together the pieces that feel right.

“If you had to pick out specific elements to what I do, horror would be one. Not listening to much rap might make me a poor rapper, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like using it in my music. The song narc (i’m so happy that you’re dead) could never have been anything but rap because I had this massive barrage of words I wanted to get out, without limiting myself in any way. I’ve only played it live twice, but the experience was unbelievable. It gets the dirt out of my system.”

There are central factors that set n0trixx’s music apart. Those elements of classical composition, and the sense of reaching for melodic resolution rather than deliberately eschewing it are crucial. But put on the spot herself she points to the need that every song gets groovy.

“Once something is written, I check with myself that I’m able to do all my crazy dance moves to it,” she laughs. “I snowboard in my spare time, too, and I love to make beautiful moves on the slopes to those sounds. It’s important to move the body. When I’m stuck in my head, music that moves my body can be the only thing that sets me free.”

Music has provided so much stability and release already. And having poured every ounce of pain and turmoil into A Catalogue Of Madness And Melancholia, there is no rush to the next thing. Rather than grasping for notoriety or fortune, the aim is to reach a point to truly help people.

“I don’t pursue fame,” she signs off. “The only desire I feel is to know that I’ve done my job right. If I do have a goal beyond that, it’s to provide representation. In metal there is representation for everything from LGBT rights to Satanism, but I don’t think there’s a real representative for neurodiversity. I feel like I could be that person. I feel like I would suit that role well. I’m Buddhist. I’m straight-edge. I try my best not to be corrupted.

“At the end of the day my whole goal is still to help people – so let’s see where that takes me!”

A Catalogue of Madness And Melancholia is out now. n0trixx is on tour in the UK until April 5.

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