Late Diagnosis and Musical Mastery with Audio/Visual Artist Szopa

Join Jessica Kidwell on Neuroversity as she chats with Damian Malecki, an audio-visual artist from Sheffield, UK, known as Szopa. Damian talks about his late autism diagnosis after moving to the UK in 2017 and how it's shaped his life and music. He shares his journey from Poland, the impact of hyperfocus, his unique way of learning music, and balancing personal expression with audience appeal. Stick around to hear a track from his latest album, "The Prayer Book."
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Transcript

>> Jessica Kidwell: 0:00

I'm Jessica Kidwell, and this is neuroversity, a space to expand our understanding of neurodiversity and elevate neurodivergent voices and experiences. Today, I want to introduce you to Damian Malecki. Damian is an audio visual artist currently based in Sheffield, UK. Behind the pseudonym Szopa he has released two full length and one mini album. And his third album, the Prayer Book, was just released in August. Additionally, after Damian moved to the UK in 2017, he was diagnosed as autistic. And I wanted to talk to Damian about his late diagnosis and how that has impacted him in his music or his life, if at all. So, curious minds, let's get started. Hello, Damian Welcome to neuroversity, and congratulations on the third album.>> Damian Malecki```: Thank you so much. And thank you for inviting me, Jess. So I would like to talk a little bit about this late diagnosis. You moved to the UK in 2017 about how old were you at that time, and how did the diagnosis come to be?>> Damian Malecki```: So when I originally moved to the UK, that was in 2014, which now feels like a lifetime ago. I must have been around 21. I was 21. And the diagnosis didn't take a. Didn't, um, take place until much later. Um, it was only two years ago that I got diagnosed with autism. But, yeah, moving to the UK was part of figuring out that I might be neurodivergent, which is not something that is widely spoken about eastern Europe. So that definitely sped up the process. Did you move from Poland? Is that where you were?>> Damian Malecki```: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what caused you to look into whether or not, uh, the way you were experiencing life was a neurodivergent way of experiencing life?>> Damian Malecki```: Uh, it was a small project I worked on with a friend of mine. She was working on a sensory book for children who are on the spectrum. And as someone who has a background in design and fine arts, she's asked me if I would like to do her a favorite and design some illustrations and do the COVID for the book and just put the thing together as part of a final year diploma. So I started working on it. The concept behind it was, uh, quite, quite interesting. She wanted to make a book that allows you to explore a grocery store and pick up items from the shelves that were stuck to the book on Velcro. And then at the end of it, you could go to the cashier and pay, and you had Velcro money as well that you could use with it. It was a very, very fun project to work on. Um, and the way I've designed and set up everything just felt very natural and fun to do. So then I've helped her with some ideation. I gave her some clues on how this could be elaborated on. Um, and yeah, we've worked on it for quite a while, which then it got finalized and it was used by some practitioners in Poland. And the feedback we've got was absolutely outstanding. Everybody loved the book. And as we start talking about challenges that neurodivergent people and autistic children face, I started resonating with quite a few things that she spoke about, which then led, uh, into researching, uh, what neurodivergency is, how autism presents itself in younger children and adults. And there were quite a few hey, that sounds like me moments, which then shed a lot of light on my situation. It's interesting because there seems to be in the world here in the States, as I think more and more of us talk about neurodivergence in general, it is causing that kind of,"wait, this sounds like my experience", which is, I think, what's adding to the prevalence of these late diagnoses. I've heard some people question the legitimacy of it, as if, wow, everyone is becoming neurodivergent all of the sudden. Whereas I think what you said at the beginning rings true to me and we just didn't talk about it when you were growing up. So we're talking about it now. So, of course, all of a sudden, more people than just children are going to start resonating.>> Damian Malecki```: Yeah, I definitely agree with all of that. Um, there seems to be a very unfortunate narrative and language being used at the moment where people seem to be saying that being neurodivergent or autistic seems to be trendy at the moment, which. Right, it's not a trend, it's just the knowledge and education kind of making progress and people being more aware of what neurodivergency is and perhaps certain stereotypes are just no longer considered as valid. And we learned that it doesn't have to be as binary as the old kind of definition of autism and diagnosis used to be. In the past, there was this great anecdote that I seen somewhere that people were not that many people were left handed at a certain moment in time because they were trying to teach children to just use their right hand, which then it didn't mean that children were not left handed. It's just that it wasn't something that was culturally or socially accepted. Yes, that's excellent, excellent. Um, sadly, I have friends who went to catholic school growing up and they would get rapped on their hands if they tried to write left handed. So, yes, society was not open to the difference of being left handed, much like society is not open or built for people who are neurodivergent in some way.>> Damian Malecki```: Yep. So, as an audio visual artist, I imagine that there are some aspects of your autism that can be quite helpful and maybe, in retrospect, contributed to you being drawn to that field. Can we talk a little bit about what it is about your art and your work that suits you well with being a person who is autistic?>> Damian Malecki```: There is a lot of stuff that autism, in a way, um, enhances or makes easier, which is not always healthy. But the ability to hyperfocus for long periods of time was so, so helpful when learning how to play piano and learning music theory, which, then again, it sounds like a benefit on paper, but in practice, I probably should have been taking more breaks and having more kind of rest time between sessions, whether it was learning how to play piano or producing music. Up until this day, I find myself

starting on a track at 04: 6:50

00 p.m. after finishing work early. And then you blink and it's

02: 6:55

00 a.m. and you're still working on it, and you forgot to go to the bathroom, and you forgot to make some food, which is the downside of the situation. But, uh, yeah, being able to hyper focus, especially as I was younger, helped, uh, me a lot to learn how to play the piano and was a very interesting process as well, because for some reason at the time, I wasn't diagnosed and I didn't have even an idea that I might be autistic. It was very interesting to want to learn piano completely on my own and not respect any pre existing rules or teachings on how a piano should be played. I had some inspirations and I had some musicians that I adored and, um, idolized when it comes to, uh, music, both classical and modern music. And I wanted to play like them, but I didn't want to copy anything that they do. So in my head, it made sense that I would not focus on the music theory behind it and the classical kind of way of learning, um, playing the piano or learning about composing or music production. I felt like I'm just gonna try everything myself, see, if I fail, if I fail, I'll learn from my own mistakes, and eventually I'll reach a point at which I'll be proficient at it, hopefully. Um, so that's how it was. I bought my first piano when I was 16. I didn't know how to play a piano. I used to visit the school auditorium here and there to, you know, press some keys, uh, without much thought or concept behind it. But, um, yeah, then a few years later, when I got that first piano, I was just pressing buttons. I didn't know what they do, I didn't know how you compose chords, I didn't know how scales work. There's just nothing. Um, so I was trying to produce something that sounded pleasing and have a bit of a, I don't know, a research, maybe, of my own when it comes to making music and see what conclusions I draw. And if I draw them, they're going to be mine entirely, and I'll be the only person to either celebrate it or blame myself, uh, for not making progress, which is something that I think is applicable to everything that I do. I much more prefer to learn things on my own and make my own mistakes, rather than rely on experiences of other people. And perhaps that links to just growing up and not being able to relate to other people or their experiences, or just having this assumption that what other people experience is not going to be the same for myself.

>> Jessica Kidwell: 9:09

It's interesting to think about the, you know, I am neurotypical. Um, and so my experience of the world is obviously much more suited for how most of the world is set up. And it's been through the process of this podcast and raising my daughter, who is autistic, for me to really open my eyes as far as just how ingrained and normalized neurotypical process is in every aspect of life, and to think about learning, playing an instrument, and to see that neuronormative process of this is the way you learn and you should follow these steps, is the quote, unquote right way to learn an instrument, and how that just does not line up with the entire concept of neurodivergence, which is, if you've seen one mind, you've seen one mind, and they can all learn in different ways. So it was just, I I can't believe that I'm still finding ways in which I'm surprised at how, uh, neurotypical ways of being exist literally everywhere. So thank you for opening my eyes to that. So, as you said, the hyper focus is possibly one of the benefits. I understand that there's got to be a downside to it. Um, maybe at the expense of your personal life or your work life, your focus on your music and your art could probably be a problem. Is there anything with the way, as you have learned more about yourself, with the way that you process sound and the way that audio works in your mind that you can maybe try and describe.>> Damian Malecki```: Interestingly, I don't think I have many differences when it comes to auditory processing. Um, autism, of course, is different for everyone and I mostly have issues with lights and visual input. It's something that I've struggled with since I was a kid and always had issues with lights being too bright. So even now, as we're

having this conversation all the. Even though it's 04: 11:34

00 p.m. in the UK and it's beautiful and bright outside, all the blinds are down and it's almost completely dark. Uh, but when it comes to audio input, I don't think there is that many things that possibly difference. I think it's mostly the way of thinking about music and how it should be organized in terms of patterns and repetitiveness. There might be some things that I just haven't kind of yet named or defined. When it comes to auditory processing, I do often talk to my friends and it's difficult for me to focus on more than one sensory input. And I'm not sure if that's a relatable experience for other neurodivergent or autistic people, but it's enough for, I don't know, a broken fridge or a conversation happening outside at, uh, the lowest, tiniest frequency to happen. As I'm having a conversation with my friends and it's going to steal my focus entirely and I can't speak anymore, um, I just need to be in absolute silence when having conversations or interacting with the world and just have one thing to focus at a time. But in terms of auditory processing, something I've noticed is that I do get kind of scared and I get a bit of anxiety from high pitched and high frequency volumes. And something that I've been criticized for, uh, in terms of a technical aspect of music is that some of my previous mixes for my songs, they do come across as very heavy on the bottom frequency of sound, kind of bass register, which is something I am much more drawn to. And I don't notice it as, uh, something that is a mistake, which then as you produce a song and you release it, that needs to be kind of a bit quieter or a bit more kind of mixed in with the rest of the music. Otherwise it just sounds very low and overwhelming and kind of muddy. So perhaps that's one of those preferences. But definitely with kind of rituals and repetitive patterns, uh, that translates itself into music as well. And I do prefer for elements of music to be quite repetitive, kind of follow the same patterns um, and it's difficult to break that sometimes.

>> Jessica Kidwell: 13:41

So, uh, when we first were talking about having this conversation, this aspect of you as artists, having a clear preference for a certain type of music, feeling like you need to change that to widen your appeal to a wider audience, I'm fascinated by that because I want to ask whether or not that should actually be necessary, in that if the artist prefers the sound to be heavier and repetitive, why do you feel like you want to push yourself to widen your comfort level?>> Damian Malecki```: Yeah, I thought about that as well, uh, quite a lot, because I had this kind of internal dispute whether am I trying to appeal to a wider crowd or am I trying to do something that's going to make the listener happy, or is this part of my personal growth? And I do think that part of it is personal growth. And, yeah, perhaps even though I have that preference, I do acknowledge that within music, what is interesting is dynamics. And the music that I listen to is not necessarily repetitive. What I listen to is very dynamic, very varied music. It's just that I prefer to make music that isn't like that. So I'm trying to challenge. I'm trying to challenge myself a time a bit more. Because what's fun in music and what we enjoy as humans, you know, we're novelty machines. We want to hear something new. We don't want to be doing the same things over and over again, um, a lot of the time. And that provides us with excitement, with dopamine. It's how our brains work. Um, I think whether we're neurotypical or neurodivergent, with neurodivergent people having specific preferences towards repeated patterns and rituals, but still within music, when somebody sings and there is not much velocity, not much change in volume or expression, you know, if you have a song that is four minutes long, kind of captivating someone and getting their attention towards that music, that dynamic and that velocity is what is important. And same with song structures having verses that are much different from choruses, having breaks in patterns and tempo, having different volumes and different frequencies appear throughout the song, it's much more interesting to have a 15 2nd section of violins that have instruments coming in and out, rather than just having the same instrument play for 15 seconds, because there's nothing new or unexpected that can happen. So that's something I've recognized recently, and I'm trying to work on it because I think I could make much more interesting instrumental sections of my music if I explored a bit more. I'm curious, do you think having the diagnosis and having that tangible thing has helped push you to try and make more dynamic music, or was that something you were thinking of before you even had your official diagnosis?>> Damian Malecki```: I feel like it definitely helped me because before. Before getting the diagnosis, I did look into autism. But it's difficult to realize which parts of being neurodivergent fit within your personality and your behavior. What part of it is my personal preference and part of my personality? What part of it, you know, neurodivergency could be contributing towards? And now, how do we challenge that? And do we have to challenge that? Is that just part of who I am, or is that something that I would be happy and satisfied exploring? So getting the diagnosis for a, uh, big part of it was really helpful in making adjustments to my personal life so that I create a living that suits me and not people around me so that I can make those adjustments that I love, you know, sitting in complete darkness and not feeling ashamed of it because other people don't do it. Well. I do like being in a cave. That's what's going to happen. But with music, yeah. Recognizing that it's a part of it and putting more attention to it because of that diagnosis, that became interesting, but also another part that is very interesting, and I think it's tied to my musical style and the diagnosis. I feel like neurodivergent people are not as, uh, fast to apply pre existing labels to things related to culture. So when it comes to music, if you have different musical elements in your tracks, you're just going to perceive it as, ah, music and not necessarily as a musical style. And something I struggle with a lot is explaining to people what type of music I make, because I'll get asked, what genre of music do you make? And I just blank because I could give you 20 different influences or 20 different genres of music, and it all simultaneously fits and it doesn't fit. But what has been my focus for a long time was using, um, oriental, south asian, and middle eastern instruments in my music. Same with rhythms and tempo. And it gets very quickly defined and labeled as folk music, which I don't think it is because using a folk instrument doesn't necessarily mean that you're leaning towards, uh, kind of folk. So that's part of it. I think, um, getting a diagnosis was very eye opening as to why I think this specific way and why music is not as easily labeled in my head. And I think it helps me to have an open mind about what I do. I think that's so interesting because I think one of the stereotypes that plagues autistic people is that categorization comes very easy. That's what the constant seek is. I'm seeking to categorize things, and if it doesn't fit, then it does not compute. So, to hear you describe how, in reality, your autistic experience is actually from a music standpoint, it's all music, and it's hard for you to categorize different sounds to match up with certain genres of music.>> Damian Malecki```: I find that very interesting as well, because with other aspects of my life, everything is very binary. Things have to be one or a zero. It has to be a yes or a no. Whether it's making plans. You know, if. If I make a plan, it's a plan. It's made. I have to do it. If I decide to wear something, I am wearing it. If I planned an outfit and it's 40 degrees outside and I decided to wear a jacket, it doesn't matter. I am wearing that jacket because I've made that decision. Same with labels. Things are specific way, and I do label them in my head. And there's a lot of drawers where things have to, you know, fall into a specific category. But with music and things that are related to my self expression and identity, I feel like I'm much more open minded about that. And I do not like to label myself because, I don't know, it seems like from a, um. Kind of from a more social and society point of view, people and, yeah, people just like to define themselves in a specific way, to feel like they have a sense of belonging within a group, which is obviously a really good thing. But, uh, yeah, when it comes to things like music or identity, it's something that seems so abstract to me. To categorize music, if I'm using a rock guitar or. Sorry, an electric guitar, uh, it doesn't make it rock music. It's just an instrument. It's about how I use it and what I do with it. So, as I have learned more and more through this podcast, one thing that I have become aware of is that if you have one type of neurodivergence, sometimes many people experience more than one type. And because you're so drawn to music, I'm wondering, do you have any type of synesthesia in that music feels like colors or numbers or you can see it. Have you identified any of that in yourself?>> Damian Malecki```: I wish I had the sketches from the studio from when we worked on my first album, and I had to explain to the producer how I wanted some of the mixes and instruments to sound like, and I was drawing shapes with a box of crayons. That's, yeah, I think that definitely is a thing with music. It's definitely, you know, I can't get into somebody else's brain. I don't know how other people see those sounds. Am I, you know, am I just getting a tiny bit of a vibe, uh, from music? Is it just that I'm assigning it to some colors and shapes, or is it really that strong? I don't know how to explain to other people, but to me, music is very clearly visual. If I'm making on music, I do color tag everything, um, in my production software, uh, when I work in Ableton, everything is so color coded. And, yeah, when you hear music, to me, it's just shapes. Low frequencies have different shapes and colors. High frequencies have different ones. Certain instruments just immediately, you know, strings are always brown. Any string instruments are just a shade of brown, and that cannot be changed. That's just it. That's just it. That's just it. Okay. Well, I think you just confirmed, perhaps, that if you wanted to pursue, you probably could also claim synesthesia as one of your, um, neurodivergents. So your first album came out in 2020, and since then, you have two full length, one mini album. How has your music changed?>> Damian Malecki```: First album that I worked on was a tiny bit different because, uh, I had a producer working on that record, so I was working with somebody else. So even though I was scared there's going to be m too much external influence there in what I aim to do. Uh, note, who I worked with, a brilliant musician who is based in Sheffield, has taken so much of my feedback and my ideas on board that in the end, we've created an album that I was very proud of and that pretty much covered the vision that I originally had for it, which was brilliant. And from a technical standpoint, his mixes were just brilliant. The sound was very clear. The vocals were coming through in production just perfectly. I was very happy with everything. And then I started working on my second album, Vital Organs, which I decided to produce independently after three years of being mentored by naught and learning bits and bobs of music production. And the way it changed is that I became a bit more explorative and started experimenting a tiny bit more with different sounds. And just what can you do with music production? How does this work? What can I do that we didn't explore in the studio over the past three years? So it was, yeah, it was constant experimenting, constant checking. If I can do this or that, how will this affect sound? Can I reverse this sound? Can I stretch this by ten years and then just grab a small section of it to use in a song? You know, loads of experimenting, and the final product came out brilliant. And I had a lot of fun working on that second album. But now, in retrospect, I do notice certain issues that perhaps if I worked with a producer, I would have avoided. And that's mostly to do with the clarity of the mixes or how much low frequency there is in them. So now I got myself much better speakers to make sure I check everything. And with the third album that, uh, is going to be released in just two days, before I sent it for mastering, I grabbed my small studio, uh, speakers and brought them to a few of my friends, and we had a listening party here and there. Just that I get some external feedback on. What do they think about it, both musician and non musician friends, just to see what they think about them and the quality of it. As I'm exploring more, you know, this third album that I just did is very heavily tied to the themes of religion and devotion, which is something quite unusual. And it's very kind of themed album. Very heavily themed. So now that I'm back to working on something that is a bit more personal and less about a very specific idea, I'm finding myself coming back to those middle eastern influences once again and exploring it even more and trying to collaborate with local musicians and see if I can get more live instruments, uh, on my albums. So, Damian, before I let you go, I would like to find out how I and any of the listeners can follow your music, find out what's going on, what are the best ways to keep in touch with you or find your new releases.>> Damian Malecki```: Uh, you can find me on the shop app, everywhere on social media and on music outlets. It's spelled s z o p a. Um, that's what you'll find on Spotify, uh, on Bandcamp. It's szopa dot bandcamp.com, where you can find all the merch and the recent vinyl release. There is a lot of merchandise as well, uh, which I am thrilled, uh, to make available to listeners. And on Instagram, it's same, uh, szopa at the end because Shopa was taken, unfortunately. So I have to add an underscore. Well, I am so happy for you on the launch of your third album, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your career and your art continues to evolve and grow as we go out. I would love to play something from the new album, if that's okay with you.>> Damian Malecki```: Yep, that sounds great. Thank you, Jessica. It's been a real pleasure. Damian Good luck with everything>> Damian Malecki```: I reverse my prayer I'm undoing all the harm I reverse my prayer take a part of life all these blocks I reverse my brain I'm undoing all day. Neuroversity is hosted and produced by Jessica Kidwell. Our audio engineer is Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios. Jarrett also created our theme music graphic design for neuroversity by Kevin Adkins. Web support is provided by George Fox. For more information about this episode, ways to support the podcast or anything related to Neuroversity, please visit our website at www.neursitypod.com. you can also follow us on your podcast, app and social media sites. We are aurovirsitypod on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And if you like what we're doing, please tell others about neuroversity and give us a review on Apple Podcasts. There's plenty of room for more curious minds to enroll.