[2] Semkina was born in the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where her father worked as part of the spaceport team, before moving to the Russian city of Kazan and then Moscow.

[4] In 2019, Semkina appeared on an all-female panel discussion on the changing role women have to play in the traditionally male-dominated genre of progressive music.

[5] Semkina has been an outspoken critic of the Russian government and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and has raised funds for the treatment of Ukrainian children harmed in the war.

A meeting with Anna Murphy (Cellar Darling) in 2019 led to them forming the duo Maer in 2022, with a debut single and music video released in October 2022.

[7][8] Semkina has appeared as a guest vocalist with diverse international bands including I Am Waiting For You Last Summer, Celestial Teapot, Echoes and Signals, Subsignal, Jordan Rudess, Charlie Cawood, and Versa.

Her lyrics cover a range of dark subject matter, and draw influence from sources such as Virginia Wolf, Sylvia Plath, Pre-Raphaelite art, and Victorian social history.