Photo of Sergey Onischenko by Arkadiy Sosnin

To Sergey Onischenko of Make Like a Tree, traveling and going outside is the main inspiration behind his music.All tastes, smells, fragrances that stay with me, all strangers who I meet on my way and they turn to be my best friends, all landscapes from bus, train, airplane windows – all these things stay deep inside my heart and later on when I start working on a new song,” says Onischenko. That’s a big reason why I choose Arkadiy Sosnin’s photo of Sergey. The photo represents a man surrounded by water and mountains in the horizon. It is calm… Peaceful… And that’s exactly what Mothernight is.

Sergey Onischenko, singer songwriter for Make Like a Tree, isn’t just a musician. He’s also a traveller. “I travel with a pocket size recorder and do some field sessions capturing nature sounds, noises of the big cities, symphonies of big factories and solos of subway and intercity trains. I’m always happy to use them as a background  for some of my songs where it fits to the ideas of the song,” says Sergey. His influences also include the music he listens to on his own time. He dreams to produce an album where every track is different then the others… “Let’s say after an ambient track – there would be hip-hop track, and then midwest-emo song, then hardcore tune and finishing the album with some classically composed fugue for strings quartet,” says Onischenko. Sergey’s fan base is mainly people who’ve been lucky enough to hear his music played live. He often play small venues of 20-50 people. While he does play larger venues and festivals, he actually prefers smaller venues. “I actually like it a lot as every show becomes a very intimate dialogue between me and audience and I feel like I can really be heard and understood by those people,” reflects Sergey.

“Sometimes I feel that I know most of my biggest fans personally. As I keep in touch with some people who are deeply inspired by my project and it makes me feel very motivated to write new songs and release new albums.“

– Sergey Onischenko (Make Like a Tree vocalist and producer) [7/23/2019]

Under Water is the 4th most popular song on his Spotify library and also the opening song for his most recent album Mothernight. The song features Sergey Savenko (Owl Clarinet) and was recorded/composed on the island of Zanzibar. Savenko’s part in the song is his clarinet, sax, and akai ewi melodies that fit beautiful upon creating the song. “I met Sergey long time ago seeing him performing with other bands in clubs of my hometown Kharkiv where we all used to grow up. Some solos that he played from stage got carved in my memory and when coming back home from his shows these melodies were always on repeat in my mind,” says Sergey. Under Water is focused around the feeling of being united with someone for no reason. Unity and togetherness is actually what Sergey discovered during a 3 year journey through the world. “I can definitely say that travelling changed my life, changed myself – hopefully to a better person, helped me to overcome many complexes, get rid of stereotypes and I actually started trusting people much more than in the beginning of my big trip,” reflects Sergey. This world journey was more than just collecting nature sounds for background in tracks like Birdwatcher. It was also a time for him to find himself and his own peace in the world around him. “When I came back from my long journey home (Savenko and I) made our collaboration happen. Being ‘Under Water’ with other people means finding out that you have something in common that makes you feel a strong connection even without knowing each other well,” Sergey says. That connectedness is common when you travel and meet new people he tells me. Mothernight is not only an attempt to connect with more people around the world, it’s also Sergey giving back to the people who he connected with on his long journey. “Travelling alone somewhere on the edge of the world and being saved by complete strangers who shared everything with me and never asked anything in return. I feel I came back home as an updated version of myself and I realized that this world has no limits,” Sergey says.

“The main idea of my performance is to take the audience on a journey with the help of my music, photos, and videos to the places and experiences that I have seen and witnessed. The deeper that journey can be – the more my concert and music would mean something special to myself and to my listeners.”

– Sergey

Sergey is currently working on improving his performance in live venues… As mentioned above… He is also focusing on releasing an album sometime around 2021. That way he “will have enough time to work on a more quality record and trying to express my emotions and feelings more accurate in lyrics and music,” says Sergey.

I would like to thank Sergey Onischenko for the response to my questions and being so patient in waiting for this review. You can follow and like Make Like a Tree on Facebook and Instagram. You can listen to Sergey’s music on Spotify and SoundCloud. I would like to also thank Johnattan Suckling and Arkadiy Sosnin for taken the two photos used in this article. You can follow and like Unedited Music Blog on Facebook and Instagram. Finally, you can also listen to previous music that has been reviewed on Unedited’s Spotify playlist. Have a good rest of your weekend and upcoming week!

Mothernight by Make Like a Tree (2019)

Overall: 4.9/5

Mothernight: 5/5

Animal: 4.8/5

Top Song: Under Water (2019)