Ukrainian duo Bloom Twins want to do it all

It all started with a DM.

“I would love to share some songs with you,” Sonia Kuprienko, one half of the Ukrainian duo, Bloom Twins, wrote to Grammy-winning Italian DJ, Benny Benassi.

The London-based dark pop group wasn’t expecting a response.

But soon a notification popped up. Benny Benassi checked the playlist of their songs, and one of them caught his eye.

“I love it. I think it could be really great. Could you send the vocals?” Benassi wrote back.

Several months later, the collaboration of Bloom Twins and top international DJ resulted in the release of an electric pop single “Day Dream” on March 26.

The song with Benny Benassi is the most recent but not the only star collaboration of Bloom Twins. They have previously toured with such bands as Duran Duran and Eels.

As the Ukrainian twins, Anna and Sonia Kuprienko, both 25, are building their music career in London, they are dreaming big of future releases featuring other big names.

Born into music

The sisters were born into the world of music.

Their parents are also musicians, who met while forming a band, with their father playing the drums and guitar and their mother singing. The parents’ musical genes passed on to their twin daughters, as the two started singing before they could even speak, growing up in a small apartment in Brovary, a city of 109,000 in Kyiv Oblast.

“We had lots of instruments, and it was way too loud for the neighbors,” Sonia told the Kyiv Post.

“Music was always around us,” Anna adds.

Although music surrounded the two during their childhood, it isn’t something they expected to continue on as a career. In fact, Anna was planning on becoming a mathematician. The two also modeled for a bit, and through a casting process, they met their soon-to-be managers.

The managers recommended moving to a city with more opportunities, like Tokyo or London. The two ended up in the U.K. capital shortly after in 2013 and would go for three months at a time, to test the waters.

Only 17 at the time, the move from the small city of Brovary, just 30 minutes outside of Kyiv, to London was a huge change. They didn’t know English when they arrived and worked at Starbucks to practice the language.

“We had a rule that we would never speak Russian (their native language),” Sonia says. “That meant using the three words you know, or five, and rebuilding.”

Through hard work and plenty of vocabulary sticky notes, their efforts paid off. At this point in time, anyone could assume that Bloom Twins are native English speakers.

Although they were able to successfully assimilate in London, they didn’t forget about Ukraine.

Moving just before the events of the 2013–2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted pro-Kremlin ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, Bloom Twins used their music to bring attention to the protests. The music video for their song “Get Up Stand Up” used footage of the mass uprising.

But when they were starting out, Ukraine didn’t have the daily open mic opportunities London provided them, where the twins would go to various pubs and clubs to perform, sometimes multiple times a day. So they continued to pursue their dream in the U.K. capital.

Aside from their 2018 mini-album “Winter’s Tale,” the band has released 11 singles since foundation. Their most-streamed song “Blue” has exceeded 1 million streams on Spotify. And their most-watched music video for “Love Me Right Now” has over 1.3 million views on YouTube.

Complete opposites

The twins’ taste and style both contradict and complement each other at the same time.

“Anna and I are very different, although we are also very much alike, but complete opposites,” Sonia says.

That contradiction naturally blended into the dark pop they produce. Though having a pop structure, the genre has an overall dark vibe.

“Dark pop is when you mix two things that normally don’t work together, so that’s exactly what we did,” Anna says.

Although the twins may disagree on music production decisions, when they find something they both like, the end result is incredible.

“It’s so difficult but it’s great, that’s the beauty,” Anna says. “When you work hard on it, then it pays off.”

Even the way the twins hear and create music is different. Anna produces the songs, while Sonia writes the lyrics.

“Anna does not listen to lyrics when she hears a song,” Sonia says. “The only things I hear are the melody and the lyrics.”

Combining work styles, genres and taste is what brings the unusual mixture Bloom Twins are known for.

And that’s how their most recent track, “Day Dream,” was created. Originally an alternative song, when mixed with the Benny Benassi sound, which had more of a pop feel, delivered the electric dance song that it is today.

Bloom Twins are a triple threat. They not only make music, but act, and are involved in fashion, where their styles also differ.

While Anna prefers black but makes sure it still stands out and is a little over the top, Sonia experiments with colors and patterns. The twins model for brands such as Benetton, Burberry, Giuseppe Zanotti, and more, serving stylized looks daily.

DM galore

Although it seemed like the world had come to a standstill when the coronavirus pandemic first showed up on the scene in early 2020, the past year has been the most productive in Bloom Twins’ career.

“The first thing we did was Sonia literally DM-ed everyone she could think of,” Anna says.

“During quarantine, we wrote more songs than we ever did,” Sonia adds.

Because of the pandemic, their other projects such as their various fashion campaigns were put on hold, so their focus and energy were only on the music.

“You wake up and you go to bed with music,” Sonia says. “At times, we would write three or four songs per day.”

Messaging artists, designers and creatives, the Bloom Twins’ pandemic year made them engage in all sorts of new projects and opportunities.

The designers involved in their recent track “Day Dream’’ were also connected through their DM campaign. One of them was Irish Graham Cruz, known for his metallic fitted corsets worn by taste-makers Jennifer Lopez, Janelle Monae, Khloe Kardashian and Paris Hilton. Now Bloom Twins joined the list appearing in their latest video wearing metallic pieces.

The passion for creating continues to drive them forward. They’re now preparing a new release for May, made with someone who is still kept in secret.

“It’s a collaboration with a very cool guy, but this is as much as we can say,” Anna says.

There are plenty of other artists that Bloom Twins hope to collaborate with in the future, such as Kaytranada and Ben Böhmer. Another one is Lenny Kravitz, a U.S. singer with Ukrainian roots who invited the two to go on tour with him before the pandemic but the plans have been put on hold.

“That would be my dream-come-true,” Sonia says.

The twins’ eyes light up as they talk about all future collaborations and work that can be done with more producers and artists.

“They all have their own value, and they are all colors that they bring to the table,” Sonia says. “I want to do it all.”