My name is Nika Kretov. I currently live in Ottawa, where I study criminology at Carleton University. I grew up in Eastern Europe and moved to Canada at a young age. I speak English and Russian, and I have a strong understanding of Ukrainian and Polish, so language has always been central to the way I think and listen.

Pottery, writing, singing, and music production are the artistic forms I return to most. They look unrelated until they do not. All of them ask for the same thing in the end, attention strong enough to stay past the first impression.

Music matters to me because it is never just sound. It holds words, rhythm, tone, texture, mood, and all the small decisions that change how something lands. What stays with me most is the way separate elements can come together and become something far larger than they were on their own. A melody can be beautiful by itself, but once voice, harmony, timing, and production begin working against and with each other, it becomes something fuller, more alive. That is part of what makes music feel so human to me. It is made through people, shaped by people, and carried by people. That is why I love creating it, analyzing it, and being around it.

My writing has appeared in Nocturnazine (USA), Rock News and Views (UK), Boston Bastard Brigade (USA), Rock n Roll Biz (USA), Revista The 13th Magazine (Argentina), Duck Amuck (Japan), and Exhimusic (Italy).