Arctisky

Brief Description: Arctisky (A.K.A Zul Arif) is a Melbourne, Australia-based Independent Artist, Producer, Composer, Song-Writer, Multi-Instrumental Musician, and DJ from the Maldives. He began his career in music as a drummer at the early age of 6 and has been active in music ever since. Picking up and learning the core contemporary instruments along the way, including bass, guitars, keys, and vocals, paved the road to endless possibilities in writing music. Now with over 18 years of experience under his belt and continuing to absorb as much knowledge on music as he possibly can, Arctisky is Zul's biggest project yet. Aiming to bring you fresh and new original music with various collaborators and great artists worldwide. Building a sphere of independent culture, with music and art. Arctisky has no demographic identity, no one people. Arctisky is for the people of the world.

Official Website: https://www.arctisky.com/

Record Company: Arctisky Records

About me

Arctisky (A.K.A. Zul Arif) is a local artist from the capital city of the tiny nation - the Maldives. He was taking his first steps into the Maldivian music scene as a drummer in 2007. Inspired by the movie 'School Of Rock,' he decided to gather up the tins around the kitchen to make his first D.I.Y. drum kit, using color pencils to play on. 

 

    Not too long after he created his D.I.Y. drum kit, Zul got his hands on a small starter PowerBeat children's kit. Later, he got a Premiere drum kit for his birthday as a gift from his father, who saw the potential in him. 

This was the turning point where he started taking his music as a significant priority and established his passion. He was only six years old at that time. 

 

    Between 2007 and 2009, Zul was performing all around the Maldives and neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and the U.K. Zul was also featured by one of the most popular bands in the Maldives then - The Clove. 

 

    Since he was performing and touring around at a young age, it impacted his school life drastically. Hence, he decided to take a little step back from his life as a musician to enjoy his last school years. Even so, this didn't stop him from taking part in minor events or playing as a studio musician for other well-known artists in the Maldives.

 

    He took off from the music scene (2009-2014) led him to experiment in his jamming studio at home. Due to the unlimited amount of time on his hands, Zul started exploring with the rest of the other instruments, beginning with the guitar - Learning simple chord progressions off with the help of YouTube turned into a large-scale learning process. Bass guitar, vocal training, and keys, step by step. During this period, his knowledge of instruments grew broader, helping him understand how to work with all the instruments, combine the different sounds, and create his music.

 

    He made a come back to the Maldivian music scene in 2015 with the band T.N.T. Live. He formed a group of five with some of his very close friends. They first got active in the studio at the end of 2014, with the same mindset - strive to perform one great show to an audience of 4000. This was a huge success. After T.N.T. Live's first concert in 2015 followed, a second performance was held due to the profound support from the audience.

 

    In 2016, Zul took a new interest in the new age of Electronic Dance Music. This led him to expand his exploration plan to the next level. He has explored the more significant sub-genres in this area, such as Down-Tempo, Electronica, Trance, Psytrance, etc. Including the practice of engaging himself in the flow state as much as possible. 

 

    However, due to the vast range of possibilities followed by experiments, the music genre he wants to compose and produce has just landed at its destination. Starting in his discovery phase with diverse synthesizers, Zul has been interested in digging into analog synthesizers and hopes to jump to modular synthesizers to spend as much time on experimentation as possible. 

 

    Zul is still looking to expand his knowledge on E.D.M. Production and hoping to find an exceptional and unique sound combining his root instrument (The Drums) and new electronic instruments. Tweaking around with different tones and melodies on Ableton Live, Zul is still learning how each line of the instruments works together to make his compositions exceptional. His initial goal was to keep learning, expanding, and experimenting with sounds. He hopes to achieve the next best thing to perfection in his music.

 

   Since moving to Melbourne, Australia, in 2019 for his Bachelors in Music Composition at the Australian Institute of Music, he has been nurturing his art and honing his skillset as a Musician, Producer, and Composer and have taken every possible opportunity to get into the studio as a session drummer/producer with industry-grade professionals and absorbing everything he can along the way. Getting exposed to Melbourne's vibrant music scene opened him up to untapped territories like classical, funk, jazz, soul, R&B, and pop. He is adding up the key elements to develop his sound for Arctisky.

   Arctisky brings these experiences together to bring to the audience an ever-changing unique, original sound in the realm of E.D.M.