Lingua Erotica: Silk, Ghosts & Synth-Pop Desire
- Amanda Sandström Beijer
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Inside the debut of Berlin’s most seductive new duo — where romance bleeds into fiction, tears become choruses, and pop is reborn in velvet and vermouth.
Lingua Erotica didn’t start as a band — it started as a couple sending each other cinematic screenshots, flirty fantasies, and emotional debris until those private exchanges crystallised into a new world. Producers and DJs Narciss and Morphéna were already fixtures of Berlin’s club scene, but something about the booth felt too small, too cool, too safe. So they tore themselves out of it and stepped, hand-in-hand, into something far riskier: a synth-pop project soaked in yearning, melodrama, velvet floors, and 80s cinematic glamour.
Their debut EP Wrapped In Silk is part breakup waltz, part ghost story, part lovers’ quarrel turned into a hook. It’s pop made by two people very much in love, very much in their feelings, and very willing to weaponize those feelings for art.
In this interview, the duo open up about the devils they’ve faced, the tears that became lyrics, the dream of reclaiming sincerity, and the scent of a project that somehow smells like candles, cognac, leather… and maybe even a hint of cum.
We realised that what inspired us wasn’t functional club music — it was soundtracks and pop. So we thought: maybe we should start a band.
Tell us the story behind Lingua Erotica!
Mori: It began shortly after we started dating… we wanted to do something together. At the time we thought it would be for our Italo/disco DJ sets, and Nicki came up with the name “Lingua Erotica” while they were daydreaming. And I don’t know why, we started sending each other visual references of movies we love, and creating this world that had silken textures, somewhat formal wear, velvet floors, etc., just for fun and because we were inspired.
Nicki: Yeah, I actually think this instinct of doing something new, something special, of creating a project and a world just for the two of us was also what began to fuel us pulling away from what we made before. Lingua Erotica was always a project that’s this alchemical mixture of the things that inspired us the most throughout our lives, not just visually but also musically, and we realized that that was more soundtracks and pop music than functional club music. So the thought popped up: maybe we should start a band.
Wrapped in Silk feels like a soundtrack to a lost 80s movie about doomed lovers and disco sweat. What films or aesthetics were taking over your heads while you made it?
Nicki: Oof, I love talking about this, but it’s so many, and sometimes they’re even specific scenes for specific songs. I think the first and biggest inspiration was obviously the work of David Lynch, specifically Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks, no? I feel like that was the first thing we sent each other for vibes. I remember you then throwing Italian movies into the mix?
Mori: Yes! Because one of the big inspos was Suspiria, which adds to the pomposity, drama and slight darkness of our style. I like to flirt with horror or phantasmagorical aesthetics… but also from other Italian movies, specifically from Fellini like La Dolce Vita, we found the reference of sensuality that is so important for Lingua.
The devils I’ve faced in life — namely this addiction to external validation and the way this ends up poisoning your soul
“El Diablo” opens the EP like a warning label. Who’s the biggest devil you're facing?
Nicki: I meaaaaannnnnn… I think a lot of Lingua songs have this mixture of real life and storytelling for the characters we display, which, in some songs, gets blurred a little bit. Where does the real life begin and where does the fiction of Lingua Erotica begin?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell apart. On “El Diablo” I think I wrote my part very specifically about the devils I’ve faced in life — namely this addiction to external validation and the way this ends up poisoning your soul if you keep it up for long enough. But I think I was only able to write it that specifically because at the time of writing I thought I was telling a story for a character hahaha.
Mori: For me, at the time, it helped me exorcize, through the character, feelings related to my own history of distrust, betrayal and anger (especially against men hehe). But I have to say, it’s a very fun song to perform, haha.
El Diablo let me exorcize distrust, betrayal and anger… but it’s a very fun song to perform.
“Stars In Your Eyes” is basically a breakup anthem sung by two people who are also together. How does that work in real life? Did you ever pause mid-argument and go, “Wait, this could be a chorus”?
Mori: That was… exactly how that song came about hahaha. We were actually quite stuck in a sketch we had, and we started fighting over it, and because it was one of the first conflicts we had in the studio the emotions were quite intense and I think I started crying… and that took us to the lyrics of the chorus: “stars in your eyes, or tears while you cry.”
Nicki: Kinda uncanny actually how that was literally what happened hahahaha. But I do think that this is something we’re very good at — using moments from reality and letting them fuel our art.
You’ve both made names in the club world — now you’re doing songs. Emotional, cinematic, very main-character energy songs. What was it like leaving the safety of the booth for the vulnerability of the mic?
Nicki: To be fair, Mori was always way more connected to the mic than I was. I think they actually were a big inspiration for me to want to do more than just twist knobs on a mixer. Honestly, in the end, while it was terrifying to leave the safety of the DJ booth, it felt incredibly freeing.
Mori: I sang all my life and played instruments way before I started DJing. But I used to be way more shy, and actually DJing helped me to start showing myself in a way where you are still protected. However, my desire for singing and performing was and is deeper than my desire for making people dance playing pre-recorded music, and it is a very important and necessary transformation in my life.
Nicki: There’s definitely a comfort to the safety of the DJ booth, but I think in the end, we were both feeling very disconnected from ourselves. That’s why deep down we had this wish to break out of it, sing our hearts out and perform.
There’s this tension in your music — between romance and danger, love and ego, chaos and control. Do you think that’s just good songwriting… or your relationship in musical form?
Mori: A bit of both, I guess? I think especially at the beginning of our relationship there were moments where our unhealed trauma appeared, and like any other relationship sometimes we triggered each other. At the same time we were creating this fictional world that was fed partly with our shadows, so in the end we were sending these sides of ourselves into the brain of our characters. But, for example, nowadays we have way less conflict and we are still writing great songs about similar situations.
Nicki: So maybe in the end we are just good songwriters hahahaha.
Our unhealed trauma showed up in the studio… and we fed those shadows straight into our characters.
You’ve said you were tired of the “too cool” club vibe — so what’s the emotional temperature of Wrapped in Silk? Feverish? Hungover? High on heartbreak?
Mori: Anger. Sadness. Yearning. In that order.
Nicki: And interchanging between the three at will.
Narciss — you’ve talked about not wanting to “sell yourself out” to trends. Do you feel like you're reclaiming authenticity again, or are you just saying “fuck it” and making what you want to hear?
Nicki: For me this is a big part of why this project holds such a gigantic chunk of my heart and why it felt like such a liberation: from the very start, it had nothing to do with authenticity, or some musical career or some nonsense like that. It came so purely and genuinely from the heart and it was 100% made because we wanted someone to do this project and make this kind of music. So yeah, it was more or less just Mori and me saying 'Fuck it, we’ll do it ourselves then,' and that attitude is exactly why I love this project so much.
Morphena, your sound has always felt cinematic and sensual — part heartbreak, part hypnosis. When you sing now, do you feel more like an actress, a lover, or a ghost haunting her own synth line?
Mori: Wow, I feel very seen hahahah. I think acting is one of the callings/professions I admire the most. I also did a bunch of theatre lessons throughout my life and a big part of my friends are performers/actors. So now I’m super happy I get to do this a little bit but with our music. I think the lover and ghost identities were already quite ingrained in me and I still feel very identified with that. I’m an alt-pop dreamy gurl at the end of the day.
Be honest — who’s the diva in the studio? Who storms out first? Who cries?
Nicki: Mori cries first, no contest hahahahaha.
Mori: Eeeeeeeh, well, I love drama, what can I say hahaha. But we are 100% both of us divas in the studio.
If Lingua Erotica had a smell, it would be freshly blown-out candles, red vermouth and a hint of cum.
If Wrapped In Silk were a scent, what would it smell like? Champagne on latex? The inside of a black limousine at 3 a.m.?
Mori: Those are gooooood. If I would make a scent that represents the EP it would have: musk, cognac, leather and oud.
Nicki: It’s insane that you ask this, because I’ve of course thought about this a lot, are you ready? In my eyes if Lingua Erotica would have a smell its most prominent notes would be: freshly blown-out candles, red vermouth and a hint of cum.
Berlin has birthed a thousand techno acts — but this is very different. Do you think the city is ready for synth-pop sincerity again? Or are you secretly trying to start an emotional revolution?
Nicki: The thing is once you venture outside the techno scene and into the wider music scene, you can so see that Berlin is jonesing for emotionality and sincere pop. So I think if anything we’re just turning towards new horizons more than trying to start a revolution?
Mori: To be honest we are not making music solely for Berlin nor from Berlin! I think synth-pop was always there; we are not trying to make techno people like our music. It will resonate with whom it’ll resonate, and hopefully not be limited to Berlin or Germany.
There is something about showing your authentic self to the world in a way that could be rejected by societal norms
You talk about “queer voices over genres.” What’s the most profound thing about queerness in your music?
Mori: There is something about showing your authentic self to the world in a way that could be rejected by societal norms that is very queer and very brave. I think we (queer people) create our lives and ourselves exactly as we perceive ourselves to be, and our project mirrors this.
Nicki: Wow, well said — and it was exactly my thoughts hahaha.
When was the moment you realized: “Oh shit, this is not just a side project — this is us”?
Nicki: It started to kinda dawn on me rather early, but I think the moment when it all truly clicked in my head and I had this “This is it. This is us.” moment was after our first band practice. It made me feel things that I hadn’t felt since playing bass as a teenager.
Mori: Uff, I think for me too, to be honest. I think before we were feeling it already, but when we really started embodying the project it just felt right. And our debut show at Draaimolen was when I confirmed: ah, I want so much more of this from now on!
When we really started embodying the project, it just felt right. Our debut show confirmed: I want so much more of this.
Finally — if someone puts on Wrapped In Silk in bed, what kind of night are they about to have?
Mori: A passionate one, with a couple of tears probably.
Nicki: Depends if they’re by themselves or not. If no, a very sensual one; if yes, probably some pretty wild dreams.
