ITW: Ugné Uma at Meakusma Festival - Music as Unfiltered Honesty

Bathed in the soft blue glow of Meakusma’s dimly lit Speincher (attic) stage, Ugné Uma walks slowly but with quiet confidence toward the back of the room. She takes her place at the front of a space that feels more like a shared corner than a formal stage: a desk draped with a faux fur blanket, on which rests a pair of cdjs and a microphone. The audience is seated around the artist, immersed in an intimate and soothing setting. She pauses before pressing play, and takes a moment to meet each of our gaze, one by one.The atmosphere is charged with a warm, tangible intimacy — inviting for some, though perhaps a little unsettling for others. With a soft, delicate voice, she begins her performance, and we are gradually drawn into an intimate ritual, as she stands alone before us - wholeheartedly open to the intricate emotions her music is about to evoke.

Taking place from August 29th to September 1st, this year’s 20th anniversary edition of Eupen's Meakusma Festival brought together over a hundred artists, labels, and performers for a boundary-pushing, genre-spanning lineup that extended across various venues in the Belgian city. Among them was the emerging talent Ugnė Uma, who took the stage on the second day of the festival.  The berlin-based Lithuanian musician blends poetry, piano soundscapes, lo-fi aesthetics and hints of folklore. Her emerging yet already extensive body of work includes collaborations with artists like Sam Gendel and Kirk Barley, and releases on labels such as Odda records, Stroom  and Meakusma. 

We sat down in the sun-drenched, gravel-strewn backyard of the festival‘s main venue to reflect on her performance and discuss her artistic journey.

mana: It feels like you've made eye contact with every single person in the room during your performance. Is breaking the fourth wall something you consciously strive for when on stage?

Ugné Uma: While performing, I believe that eye contact matters just as much as in a conversation. It's so primitive, but there has to be a connection : broadcasting without a receiver is meaningless. Hey, we're meeting each other in a situation which is new, thrilling and a little bit weird for everyone - especially for me. Therefore, I’m seeking comfort through eye contact as a means of relating in the strangeness of this dynamic.  That's a gift, a fuel and an essential aspect, for me, of performing live.In relation to breaking the fourth wall : my act isn’t as entertaining as watching a MTV clip.  Thus, the presence of the audience is so important in creating 50% of the good tension,  conditions, time and space for things to happen. Simply put - we're doing this all together.

Your performance was very emotional—at one point, you sang curled up on the floor, and as we applauded, you shed a tear. What allows you to connect so deeply with your emotions while performing?

It’s not really a choice: I wouldn't do music if I couldn’t be open emotionally. I’ve been making music for just under a year, so I still remember clearly what it was like to live without these intense emotional outbursts - artistically speaking. When music appeared in my life, it became a channel for my emotions; they were one and the same.

What inspired you to start making music?

Oddly enough, almost every house I lived in had an old, out-of-tune piano. We moved a lot, and wherever we went, there was always this piano, impossible to tune. When I was around 17, my friends and I started DJing in Vilnius. It was our way of flexing our musical muscles. But something was missing— the idea of that piano was haunting me. At some point, we even formed a band and rehearsed weekly, even though we never performed publicly and the band didn’t have a name. 

All of this came together and because of personal reasons I shut down for five years, to the point where I couldn’t even sing “Happy Birthday.” Music remained extremely important to me, eventually leading to a decision : either go all in or stop completely. There was no middle ground. It took years of silence before I realised that to be happy, I needed to embrace music fully. A few people in my life pushed me to sing again, and I did, often breaking down in tears. Once I committed fully, it was a bumpy ride, but incredibly rewarding in the end.

I wouldn't do music if I couldn’t be open emotionally. I’ve been making music for just under a year, so I still remember clearly what it was like to live without these intense emotional outbursts - artistically speaking.

Were there specific artists or projects that influenced this turning point for you?

Absolutely. Delroy Edwards and his label, LA Club Resource, had a big impact on me. They’re mostly about Chicago house, bass and Memphis rap—very raw and unapologetic. It showed me that if you love a sound, you can mould it into something uniquely yours. Delroy’s work, whether it’s a hundred demos or a solid 8 track album, embodies bravery. It’s like this saying in martial arts: when you strike, you have to believe in your hit. You can’t doubt it.

Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, Erykah Badu and - to be honest, very recently - Dean Blunt. The freedom and clarity in their music, them being themselves, wild and very integral at the same time. Amongst friends, we’d label them as ‘unhinged’, in a positive way. It’s inspiring. 

I obviously have to name drop Sam Gendel. His approach to music is so organic and intuitive, genre-defying, so powerful without any intention to control. Freeing. It’s like a flourishing garden where everything grows beautifully. Kind of like a martial arts master, he teaches the importance of trusting your instincts and managing energy. It doesn’t matter if the final product is jazz, rap, or something else entirely—what matters is the level of realness and raw edge, wit and wisdom.

As you’re mentioning Sam Gendel, how did your collaboration in Tam tikri objektai erdv​ė​je come about?

Sam and I first connected virtually when I was hosting a radio show on Radio Vilnius called Hao Dao. It was a one-hour talk show focused on contemporary jazz and improvisation in both music and life. Sam was my first guest, and during our conversation, we quickly moved beyond music into deeper life topics. There was a moment of recognition between us. I remember Sam saying, “I feel like you really get what I’m saying,” which struck me as surprising given how vast the Californian landscape is (where he’s based) -  six times bigger than the other side of the planet, where I’m from. We shared similar points of view and we could empathise with each other. 

When I moved to Berlin this year, I realised how rare it actually is to find a kindred spirit in a big city. So we naturally thought, “It would be cool to make music together.” and started our collaboration. I sampled sounds from my childhood synthesiser and sang a piece that was about 15 minutes long. We became fascinated with the idea of an oratory, a continuous piece dedicated to the planet Saturn. The result was a half-hour-long oratory, where Sam masterfully composed and compiled various musical passages, using wind instruments.

The way you describe your connection with Sam sounds very organic. Would you say there’s a spiritual dimension to your collaboration or to your music in general? Especially since you incorporate Lithuanian folklore, which is deeply connected to spirituality and mythology.

I believe that people are beings with a spirit, so, as cliché as that sounds, not only our bodies but also our souls can meet. Spirituality is embedded in us—together with flesh, bones, blood, and sweat. Sam, is to me, very much in tune with the world and himself. His intuition and sensitivity are on such a high level that it was profoundly humbling to see how his instincts led him to decide what feels meaningful. Is human connection spiritually charged? This question remains open, however miracles will still be inevitably intertwined with everyday life. Our brains love to rationalise everything, but the unexplainable is still there. Maybe this is also why folklore, an authentic expressive culture shared by a certain group of people, naturally includes both terrestrial and extraterrestrial worlds as they both define the  reality within which it exists.

Is music a way of moving beyond the constant need to rationalise?

Definitely. For me, music is the most effective way to achieving sincerity within myself in today’s world, whilst intrusive thoughts are blasting. It enables me to take in all the noise and reshape it into something you can coexist with. Instead of fighting the thoughts in my head, I translate them to a different dimension with the help of additional sounds and tones. It’s then suddenly soothing and feels more bearable.

Listening to your music feels like we're diving into your personality, your intimacy. Has making music made you more in tune with yourself? And is that feeling of self-connection something you want to convey to your listeners?

That’s a beautiful question. To be honest, after I started performing, I realised that the person on stage and the one off-stage—standing at the bar, small talking—are almost like two different entities. Not exactly a dual personality, but close. Music forced me to go all in. It was either full commitment or nothing, and that commitment put me in a place where I had to fully confront myself.

It’s strange because after a performance, where I’ve bared everything on stage, I find myself wandering around as if nothing happened. But inside, it’s intense. There was a moment where I had to call the therapist and say, “I’m handling two worlds and I don’t know how to live anymore.” In just half an hour, the audience sees me through an X-ray. Later, someone asks, 'How are you?' and I respond with the usual, 'I'm good, how about you?' It's part of the routine, grounding me back to reality. Connecting with myself through music has prompted me to reflect on who I am.

The way you present yourself when performing is a significant part of this raw honesty and openness that you convey. But lyrics are also a powerful way to express this sense of authenticity. Some of them are in Lithuanian, which not everyone can understand. What do you explore in your music when it’s not in English?

I usually come up with the lyrics as I’m singing, it’s spontaneous. But somehow, when I sing in Lithuanian, I’m drawn to themes of nature and superstitious occurrences. It’s like tapping into something ancient—myths, legends, weirdly even stories from the Bible. As I’m improvising, there's no time to think, so sometimes I recall some lyrics and am slightly weirded out how they came up. Maybe these themes are deeply embedded in some old part of my brain, maybe some ancient identity surfaces when I sing in Lithuanian? You know how people pray and begin to speak in unfamiliar languages? It's a strange feeling, like carrying a certain baggage of stories I wouldn't share in conversation or in a setting like this festival—but they just appear before I can hold myself back.

It reminds me of your song “Manhattan,” which seems to encapsulate the intricacies of your music. There’s a part that feels very folkloric, almost religious, and then it shifts to English, becoming more straightforward and prosaic, like a love story.

Yes, “Manhattan” is a banal love story. Different realms can blend naturally within the music. I see no charm in high-pitched, heavily charged and saturated ‘meaningfulness’. Simple things are meaningful. In the end, all I want is to keep it down to earth.

All of this came together and because of personal reasons I shut down for five years, to the point where I couldn’t even sing “Happy Birthday.” Music remained extremely important to me, eventually leading to a decision : either go all in or stop completely. There was no middle ground.

In such a simple manner, you’ve managed to make those complexities of identity coexist in your music, it’s very intriguing.

That’s my favourite part. I see music as an extraterrestrial medium. It just exists. You can be simple with it. The same goes for  lyrics - I’m not a high-level poet. In simplicity I find attractiveness. And we’re not talking about thoughtless, bland, corny simplicity. It’s about not dressing the essence with decoration.

Even when you sing something simple, the voice, the timbre, the frequency—it’s adding to the effect. And it affects people. Neuroscience surely has some answers for why that happens, but I like these questions left unanswered. That’s what makes coming to a festival so exciting—you’re curious to find it out more and discover through the music, across all genres. That’s what it’s all about.

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Interview by Mila Dutilh. 

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