Lost And Sound
Lost and Sound is a podcast exploring the most exciting and innovative voices in underground, electronic, and leftfield music worldwide. Hosted by Berlin-based writer Paul Hanford, each episode features in-depth, free-flowing conversations with artists, producers, and pioneers who push music forward in their own unique way.
From legendary innovators to emerging mavericks, Paul dives into the intersection of music, creativity, and life, uncovering deep insights into the artistic process. His relaxed, open-ended approach allows guests to express themselves fully, offering an intimate perspective on the minds shaping contemporary sound.
Originally launched with support from Arts Council England, Lost and Sound has featured groundbreaking artists including Suzanne Ciani, Peaches, Laurent Garnier, Chilly Gonzales, Sleaford Mods, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Coxon, Saint Etienne, Ellen Allien, A Guy Called Gerald, Jean Michel Jarre, Liars, Blixa Bargeld, Hania Rani, Roman Flügel, Róisín Murphy, Jim O’Rourke, Yann Tiersen, Thurston Moore, Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Caterina Barbieri, Rudy Tambala (A.R. Kane), more eaze, Tesfa Williams, Slikback, NikNak, and Alva Noto.
Paul Hanford is a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller whose work bridges music, culture, and human connection. His debut book, Coming to Berlin, is available in all good bookshops.
Lost and Sound is for listeners passionate about electronic music, experimental sound, and the people redefining what music can be.
Lost And Sound
Lila Tirando a Violeta
The boundary between imagination and technology blurs in Lila Tirando a Violeta's mesmerizing sonic experiments. From her early DIY noise experiments in Uruguay to her current position as one of electronic music's most distinctive emerging voices, Lila's creativity has flourished despite—or perhaps because of—the challenges of living with a chronic condition.
When health issues confined her to hospitals and home at age 23, Lila found herself transitioning from improvisational performance to structured composition. The internet became both her music school and lifeline, leading to collaborations with artists like Loraine James and Amnesia Scanner—relationships that began digitally before materializing in the physical world. This digital-first approach mirrors the themes in her work, particularly her fascination with David Cronenberg's Videodrome, which she references in her new album "Dream of Snakes."
What makes Lila's creative process so compelling is her transformation of limitation into innovation. She samples her own pulsating tinnitus, captures field recordings from hospital rooms, and builds intricate sonic collages without formal training. Though her aesthetic suggests urban futurism, she's found her creative sanctuary in the quiet Irish countryside, where nature and technology intertwine in unexpected ways.
Most striking is Lila's openness about navigating the music industry—from including special lighting requests in her rider to dealing with international promoters who expect her to play reggaeton simply because of her South American heritage.
If you’re enjoying Lost and Sound, please do subscribe and leave a rating or review on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you listen. It really helps to spread the word and support Lost and Sound.
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Listen/Buy Dream Of Snakes here
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Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica
My BBC World Service radio documentary “The man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin Wall” is available now on BBC Sounds. Click here to listen.
My book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culturet Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
long live the new flesh. Today we're going to get a little cronenbergian, a little diy, a little experimental with my guest lila tirando, a violetta, but before we get going lost in. Sound is sponsored by audio technica, a global but family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio quality yet affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, so I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a really lovely one today. And this is the episode. Thank you, hello. So you're listening to episode 168 of Lost in Sound. I hope you're doing good, I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 1:My name's Paul Hamford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer and, if you're new to the show, lost in Sound is the weekly podcast where I chat with an artist who works outside the box, from global icons to trailblazing outsiders and emerging innovators. We talk music, creativity and the way it's all connected to life. So, yeah, I'm speaking to you and it's an Easter Monday. You can hear some nice church bells, perhaps in the background, and it's a very quiet. Apart from the bells, it's very, very quiet here in Berlin.
Speaker 1:This morning and this week you're going to hear a conversation I had with Lila Tirando Avioleta, who, over the last years, has been quietly building a really distinct body of work, drawing in her music on everything from ambient to club to noise, to IDM to Latin American rhythms, to create something that feels very whole and very hard to pin down and also deeply personal. There's a lot in her work like how, in her 2023 album, nda, she starts off with what feels to me like a very heartfelt cover of the Smashing Pumpkins first track of Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, and it's one of those things when you listen to it and you go like that's Smashing Pumpkins, isn't it? Not where you expect to hear it, but it works so well. And everything from that to the abrasive beats that form the core of her new album, dream of snakes. And the new album dream of snakes, which is fantastic, is the reason why we had the chat today.
Speaker 1:She's released music on hyperdub and nafi, collaborated with nicola cruz, amnesia Scanner and recent guest on the show, lorraine James. She's originally from Uruguay. Now, after a nomadic period of living in Europe, she's moved to the quieter surroundings of Ireland, which set the inspiration for the Dream of Snakes album. So we talk influences that seep into her work, such as filmmakers like david cronenberg and jonas mikas. Talk about getting like musical education from the internet and I think, most bravely, what you're, what you'll hear in this conversation is how lila talks about her experiences of chronic illness and how that shaped the way she thinks about music and makes music, and I can say that speaking for myself as someone who has had a several year long brush with chronic illness in the past. I had a very you know it was a brush. It lasted for several years. I think her words really resonated to me and maybe they will to you as well. Um, lila is a thoughtful and open guest and an artist that's truly carving out her own path. So I think you'll get a lot from this one.
Speaker 1:But before we get into it, as always, lost in sound is a one-person operation. I'm super lucky to have the sponsorship of audio technica, but the work, the research, the editing, the, the interviewing, the putting it out, that's all just me on my own. So if you want to show your appreciation, please do give it a subscribe. If you've not subscribed already, give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice, wherever you're listening to the show. Um, it really, really really does help build the show. But anyway, back to the episode. So, um, we had this conversation on the morning of friday, the 7th of march 2025 and, yeah, this is what happened when I caught up with lila tarando. Uh, violetta, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Um, I'm really glad we could make this happen thank you, I really appreciate it are you in ireland?
Speaker 1:yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm in ireland. It's raining a lot and it's dark already right.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we've just got spring in berlin right now. It's just just hit. Yeah, lovely, so welcome to lost in sound mean you've had an incredibly productive decade, I can gather. It seems like you've released around 20 albums. I can never, no matter how much you research, how much I research, never be sure if this is the right information, but it feels like at least 20 albums, and that's not including EPs and singles. I mean you've also moved country several times. I mean, how do you feel that you've changed the most as an artist over this time?
Speaker 2:So I started making music in quite a DIY scene in Uruguay back home in Montevideo, and it was mostly in the noise scenes and experimental between Montevideo and Buenos Aires. But then I had a period where I was very ill so I had to stay at home and in between hospitals I have a neurological condition. So that really changed my approach to music. I started going from hour to hour-long improvs and drum sets to focusing on making music with Logic and my process entirely changed and my condition is still chronic so it's still ongoing, but I managed to like recover from the worst part of it. So I managed to start touring again and that gave me the opportunity to relocate here to Europe and it's been quite a process. But I would say musically it really changed. Once I stopped, my improv era, started focusing on properly rounding up the songs and sending them out to the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Do you feel that the? Was this a lot because of the condition? Was this a lot out of necessity? That initially caused the change out of the improv?
Speaker 2:I would say so, yes, because being inside my house or at the hospital I didn't have much chances to play live, of course. So that also gave me the opportunity to meet most of my collaborators, which is quite peculiar because I met them all first online and then I met them while I recovered in Europe. So it was fascinating that most of my dearest collaborators and lifetime friends I've met online, on reddit or discord.
Speaker 1:So it's quite, quite funny yeah, it makes me think about, like how different it could have been 15 or 20 years ago, when these opportunities to connect and collaborate with people wouldn't have been there in the same way at all. Would you feel like that must have had such an impact on your confidence as an artist and, in turn, what you can accomplish creatively?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would say so. I learned a lot from them and also the internet was basically my teacher. I never had any form of musical education or training. I was always fascinated by technology, so I had access to computers since I was a kid basically since I was born but still I would say that I learned everything I know about music from reading online or PDFs or finding the schematics on how to repair a synth online yeah, I mean your sound merges various different things, like there's a, there's a very experimental club music element to it, there's ambience, there's also like a kind of you know, like hyper pop vibe to some of it as well, like futuristic pop elements.
Speaker 1:I mean, do you have a particular way of starting a track? Is there, like um, a process that you go through for for starting a track?
Speaker 2:um, so I would say that my process always been super experimental diy. But I don't specifically have a process. I got a few recordings during months and months before starting a song. That's something I always do, not a song or a project, and I often had pre-existing like concepts in mind, like, for example, my record Xela is based on a James Joyce book, the one I released on Hyperdub. The other one, like this, called Limitencia, is based on all the time I was in the hospital I did a lot of field recordings there. I was very bored.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I usually try to start with field recordings and then from there I import all the months and months of field recordings into logic. First I categorize them, because that's a headache, but, um, yeah, it seems pretty diy and unstructured, which is kind of confusing if you are a trained composer or anything like that. When I collaborated in person with peers that I've been collaborating online for years, it was like, wow, what is she doing? Like they didn't? Yeah, so basically, it's a collage. I would say it's a collage and I never know where I'm headed unless I am making a concept album. But yes, I love equal parts hardware and software, you know. So I've always been been really into circuit bending and making my own gear, so so yeah, I would say it's 50 percent and hardware and software, mic processing yeah, I mean I love the stuff about the field recordings.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of artists I speak with are really really into field recordings and I think some for some people I feel like it's like a way of keeping a diary, you know, maybe sonically, and like for you when you're talking about being in hospital, like, what kind of role did the field recordings take in your life?
Speaker 2:well, it's really. I once had a project where I recorded 24 hours a day everything I went to for a couple months and then I made a, an ep based on that. But yes, it was. It was really important me even the most mundane situations to beautiful birds to like I don't know conversations that people didn't know I was recording you get when you are exporting that into your software and how many outcomes could you get from a simple walk in the park.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, it's so much chance. Yeah, open to it, isn't it? And I love the uh just as an aside, because I always do my introductions for the podcast when I'm walking around, like berlin mostly and uh, and I love it when I'll hear like, say, maybe look at the bit of a construction works, or like someone's walking a dog, and they, they have no idea that they've been captured somehow in time and but somehow it affects my mood, you know, somehow it creates like a piece of music really yeah, yeah, one thing that really inspires my music, I would say, is like simplistic, like poetry, or, for example, jonas mecca's films, you know, it's so, uh, very daily situations that I would say I gathered the most inspiration from.
Speaker 2:That's one of the reasons because I, after leaving uruguay a couple years years ago, I moved around a lot and I found like first I tried big cities, I was quite some time in Berlin, then a year in Amsterdam, and I didn't find myself there, because I'm more of a nature person. So I was thinking about Dublin, but then I was like maybe it's a big city again, you know. So I moved to Waterford, which is in the southeast of Ireland. It's a pretty quiet town.
Speaker 2:And it gives me a lot of possibilities with field recordings. So yeah, I mean I've been doing a lot of field recordings from Irish accents and different kind of dialect. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting as well, just as an aside as well, that you talk about how connecting more with nature than cities, and that could be quite surprising to someone who maybe listens to your music a little bit and maybe sees the way you use visual identity, because there's an element of very, very cyber, very futuristic, like online culture about it, and then it's quite surprising to sort of hear that, okay, actually at the root of this, you've got a real deep connection with nature and quiet yeah, I totally get that might seem like a contradiction but for me, like actually, for example, my my favorite anime, serial experiments, line, experiments Line or Ghost in the Shell and I know they might appear like oh, this is a big city movie or like massive buildings, but I take a lot of from the conceptual parts of those animes and, like I love the philosophical approach and I try to take as many visual elements.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's incompatible because I take a lot of the aesthetic inspirations from anime, from sci-fi movies. You know that I try to stylistically get the approach of them from the more philosophical or colour palette. I don't think it's incompatible with life in the countryside somehow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's a very interesting connection, and I think I can think of other artists as well who have a very strong connection to the countryside, like I. I spoke very recently with igloo ghost and you know he makes this music that is so futuristic and so much about world building, yet he draws a lot of inspiration from like living by the sea, and and then, of course, like apex twin as well you know being the classic kind of coastal but futurist.
Speaker 1:Um, there's a quote from you hear about the new album, um, dream of snakes, where you you were saying how you wanted to have the same kind of adrenaline rush that, uh, you get when you watch a David Cronenberg film. Could you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:So in the recent times I've been super obsessed with Videodrome, like it came back to me. I watched it when I was really young but somehow everything that's happening right now with AI and technology, it has made me think a lot of Videodrome Of course, not TVs, but the internet and it has been on my mind constantly. So I thought that, for example, the song New Flesh, my single it includes a quote that is myself reading, the quote that Debbie Harris says on Videodrome, and I think it's the best prediction of what we're living by now, even better than Orwell's, like it's really important. Also, it's crazy that, for example, the outcome like James Wood now, that's like you know, that's crazy it is. I think it's a fascinating movie and I've been watching it non-stop lately. I collect videotapes as well, so I have all the chronometer videotapes and that is the futurism we are approaching. Perhaps it's not flying cars or anything, but unfortunately, yeah, I like to read a lot about that.
Speaker 2:I've been really obsessed with the internet theory, you know. So it's like a lot of influences that reflected on this album, because I wanted to make something that made me want to dance, you know, because I've been making conceptual music for a bit now, and I didn't really. I mean, it was not made for dance, like my last Axella record on high playdive is more conceptual. You can dance to it, of course, but it's not a club album. It would be more like sample based or conceptual, you know.
Speaker 2:So it was really important for me to make something this time around that didn't involve a pre-existing concept. I mean, two concept albums in a row was giving me a bit of a headache and I was falling out of love with a lot of them. Yeah, you know, with my live set. So I still love the music, but I will listen to it on headphones in my, in my house, and not not on a club. So it was going back to the basics, you know. So I was trying to reconnect with that part of me that used to love to go to underground clubs and yeah, yeah, that does come across in it.
Speaker 1:And just to go back on what you were saying about videodrome, I was actually going to ask you what your favorite david cronenberg film is, but you just answered and I wrote here videodrome, just to sort of because that's my it's crash.
Speaker 2:I would say it's crash right.
Speaker 1:I haven't. Yeah, because I guess there are two. I mean, there's roughly two types of David Cronenberg films, I think aren't there. There's the sort of the nasty, fun, exploitation ones and the ones where he's got more of like a kind of uh, I don't know, maybe you feel like he's wanting to win the palm door and I don't know crash or somewhere, feel like he's wanting to win the Palme d'Or and I don't know, crash Short was somewhere between both of those.
Speaker 2:That's what I love about it. It's like a middle ground, like it's based on a baller book, and it has so many elements that could come across as sci-fi, but at the same time it could be just a fetish movie. So you know, I just love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and I think some of his like aesthetics, like they feel like in more of his recent films. They feel like they're deliberately ugly or they're deliberately like cinematic techniques, look deliberately like like a tv movie.
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like there's something very conceptual he's he's trying to do with that and I know I can never quite articulate it yeah, yeah, it happens like I feel exactly the same way, and that's one of the few movies that I feel that way, so I think that's why I love it so much, although, although video drama is growing on me on the last few years because of how, how accurate it is becoming so yeah, and the james woods thing as well.
Speaker 1:You know he was. Yeah, that's definitely um. Another track of yours that I just wanted to ask you about is micas on britney shaving her head? Who is the is? Who is micas here?
Speaker 2:janice meccas is a film right it is.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sure if it was like yeah right I.
Speaker 2:I just adore him like. I've sampled him on both the outro of the Sirepad, which is a Latin-oriented album I made a couple of years ago, and on this track I love everything he says. It comes across as such a warmth, but realistic. And all his films.
Speaker 1:They are gorgeous and that's an excerpt of a conversation he was having with someone that I found on YouTube and, yeah, it's fascinating her hair and and like I guess kind of really criticizing the media outrage and the sort of I guess it's very misogynistic kind of uh angle, of uh questioning like a young woman kind of finding her own identity, I guess. And um, and there's a line in it I mean I'm not sure the exact line, but it's about like where he's saying the artist shouldn't be normal. Do you agree with that? The artist shouldn't be normal? Or or rather, like you know that it's important for to be artistic that they're you do step outside of like a normal kind of lifestyle well, that is something I I agree with.
Speaker 2:I mean, of course, you never have to generalize, but I I do agree with that. I feel it's it's something that encapsulates perfectly all my favorite artists, for example. So I wouldn't speak for myself because I I think he's speaking on a higher level, like, but yes, I agree with what he's saying perfectly. I think also he says in a part like um, she's allowed to have a mental breakdown, because all I just need to have a mental breakdown in order to have some sort of outcome that is productive somehow. So yeah, I really empathize with that. And the other one I use in the outro of the Sirepad is taken from as I Moved Forward, I Saw Brief Glimpses of Happiness, which is another movie of his. Forward I saw brief glimpses of happiness, which is another movie of his uh. So that that one is really fascinating, but it's more reflecting about his uh, elder years and about death.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah yeah, and and talking about your life, I mean I wanted to kind of go back to the beginning. So you were born in uruguay can you tell me a little bit about like your upbringing and and like what role music played for you growing up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So I started making music. I couldn't pinpoint an exact point. What I could say is like it's always been present in my life, and when I was around 15 years old I was given my first synth because I was really obsessed with Brian Eno back then as a kid. So, yeah, my parents gifted me a synth and I was 15 back then, so it didn't last long because I opened it to see the circuits and improve it. I did some circuit bending with it, but that's how I first got in contact with music. As in making it, it's always been present in my life since I was born. My brother, which is way younger now, is a classical pianist, but that is, it was way after me.
Speaker 2:But I would say that, of course, like I was saying, it changed a lot when I got sick, which I was 23 at the time and I was feeling very bad since I was 18, but I couldn't detect what was going on precisely. So they thought I had some sort of mental illness or like they. They said a lot of contradictory diagnosis, until one day I lost my both my eyes. That's why I were but um, yeah, now I can. Now I can see, by the way, but not very well.
Speaker 2:So the thing is, when I was 23, I was in the icu for a while because I couldn't see, and they found like I had a condition which is called pseudotumor cerebri, which is basically my whole body, acting as if I had a bad brain tumor. But it's chronic and basically what it is just to sum it up very briefly is, um, it's pressure in the brain, it's like accumulation of liquid. So they had to do a series of procedures and I was a long time recovering my eyes and well, it comes and goes in waves, but yeah, I still have to see. Neurologists constantly deceive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a long, long process yeah, I'm so sorry to hear about that, but, like I guess, do you feel like it's something that's just part of your life now?
Speaker 2:I mean, it is, it is. It has become more manageable. That is definitely true. But I always have to be like, for example, in the gigs it's really hard with the lighting because I can't really deal with it. So I always have to talk to every promoter, you know, and try to ask not for strobes. So I think my work, it has become something really. Oh sorry, my cat is here that's all right, that's yeah oh my god, she's one. She's wanting me to play with her oh, hello, what's she called?
Speaker 1:nana yeah, hello, hello how old is she?
Speaker 2:um, she is a year and a half. I used it to foster, so I got her when I first got to Ireland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me and my partner have a cat that's a year and three months old. Oh wow, lovely, yeah, and he's just very, very playful. So I think with you know, thank you so much for sharing. I know it's not always easy to share these things.
Speaker 2:I was always quite open with it because it involved a lot of time indoors at the hospital. So I was months in the hospital and stuff like that. So the computer was my only way of communicating. I didn't have many visitors, so only my family of communicating. I didn't have many visitors, only my family, of course. So yeah, the internet was key and I was quite open about it. Now I don't talk so much about my personal life like I used to, but the internet felt like a companion in those times.
Speaker 1:So I was always quite open and don't mind talking about it and bringing some awareness on this weird because it's a very strange brain condition I think it's also what you're doing is very important, like, I think, um to establish that creativity is something that is a lot more universally able. People are a lot more universally able to kind of interpret ideas. Now, I mean, there's other parts of the music industry that are completely fucked, but, um, just being able to do stuff, and so there's a democratization. But at the same time as that, but with it, with that, it means that a lot of people, um, who do have, like health issues, are able to make music, but maybe feel that they can't you know so or that that maybe feel that there isn't an opportunity for their voice. So I feel like what you're doing is really important in terms of like providing that, yes, you can, and the music doesn't have to be. It can be whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, yes, you can. And like I even put in my writer please be patient during sound tech and all that. And it has really helped because sometimes, of course, nobody has, like they could think I'm wearing dark sunglasses because I'm one of those I don't know, so yeah, it has.
Speaker 2:It has been a tough process in time because lights can make me very dizzy and sometimes I get blocked on stage or stuff like that, but I found time heals a lot. When you have a chronic condition, it's just there forever, but you can get ways to deal with it. Small hacks and music is definitely something that helps me on my daily basis. Even I sample my own because I have a. Really you know that tinnitus has two forms. One is the ringing one, which is the most common, and then it's the pulsating one, which is more related to high pressure. So even my, everyone can hear my. If you got close, you can hear my. My heartbeats in my ear, which is crazy, and so I've sampled that on several tracks too. My top can hear my ear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I get that sometimes, if I like on my on a pillow, when I can hear my, my heartbeat through my ear. On a pillow, I can hear my heartbeat through my ear on a.
Speaker 1:It's like that, but it's 24 7 oh gosh, right, yeah, oh, my god, yeah. And I I mean, do you feel that the underground community of online people that you know you've collaborated with? There's been so many amazing people there like I mean going from like making the albums with hyperdub to working with, like I spoke with Lorraine James, for example? Last week yeah, yeah, I mean what? What do you feel like? What do you, what do you look for in a collaboration? What? What is a good vibe for you with a collaborator?
Speaker 2:um, I would like to say that I'm very, very open to collaborations. I know some artists like don't do as many collaborations but to me, collaborating, as well as being a form of socializing, something that has to be quite organic. I'm never looking for like a gain. Like you know, I've made collaborations with people before they blew up. For example, nick Leon he's amazing and now he's everywhere. Like I love to work with him. We have like 10 songs together, even under some aliases, and stuff like that. That was a pleasure for me. I never met him in person until like a year ago or two. So, um, yeah, and I collaborated with a lot of people I didn't meet, like Amnesia Scanner, then I met them, and Nicola Cruz, then I met him, and stuff likeola Cruz, then I met him and stuff like that you know. So it's yeah. I never look for a long like I don't look for an end game on collaborating. I just look to see if we are compatible and enjoy the process as much as I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right so you don't think too much about, like, how it's going to end up it's just no, and sometimes I've been quite lucky that it ends up.
Speaker 2:For example, I didn't know like that remix I was making for lane lorraine was gonna end up in hyperdab and after that hyperdab like was already in communication with me because of that remix, so I managed to release with them. So you know it's. I love how things happen organically and I feel that sometimes in the music industry there's a bit of a lack of that nowadays. You know there's always something. Someone is looking for something right, okay, what you mean?
Speaker 2:like someone has like a motive trying to to network your stuff, like that. I think that word you know I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a bit of, I think, some people. It is is like a necessity to network other people. You know it's like it's different focuses, I guess, isn't it, but definitely it can relate to that. Um, like I do you feel like because you've lived in different parts of the world, but you know online plays such an important role in your creativity. Are there any like particular scenes that like in real life, scenes that you know in your travels that you've really connected more with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely loved to play in Mexico City, like for the clubs there, the energy, the people, like I am a member of a label called Nafi that is from Mexico City and they are like the crowds there are amazing. I always, whenever I get called to play there, I go running this OM club because the sound system is the most gorgeous sound system. I think it's the club I play the most In Berlin. Yeah, so I feel the environment there, every party that happens there is so perfectly curated and the sound. I try to test songs that I never played before, you know, because I know the sound system will help and some person will understand.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and of course, the scenes in south america are amazing, like I mean, back home, uh, we had a series of parties like jadeo, or now what trotter tracks is doing in colombia. So I feel, yeah, that has been fascinating. And I also played in china and wow, I mean it's next level as well, like the scenes there, the club music there, asia is, it's fascinating yeah, and you talk about like um in south america and like latin rhythms play quite an important part of your music.
Speaker 1:I mean, do you do? Is there a sense of heritage there, or do you feel is it something very conscious or is it more like just a natural part of who you are?
Speaker 2:So, first of all, I'm really really happy about my colleagues getting the recognition they so long deserve it because, you know, there's a huge boom with Latin American music happening right now. But there is one thing that has been feeling quite pigeonholed. For example, I get often involved in gigs and they expect me to play reggaeton or cumbia. Oh right, okay, it has happened a lot. Oh gosh, because Latin America is such a vast and diverse continent like you can get so many hundreds of genres, traditions, dialects.
Speaker 2:It is often say like oh, uruguay is a tiny country but in comparison it's way bigger than England. You know Not many people take that into consideration, but regardless of that, yes, I feel like I'm really happy that South American music is finally getting the recognition it deserves, because it has so much more to give. There are so many genres that are just getting like. I'm obsessed with tribal music, guaracha, folklore, candombe. There's so many outcomes, so many possibilities and genres. So I just feel really happy about what's happening right now, besides the general misconception that Latin music is just right, it's honored.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's kind of like funny in a way to think of, like you being asked to play that, unfortunately, no, I mean funny in a sort of ironic, not very cool way.
Speaker 2:Um it stopped happening right a little bit after the hyper lab release, thankfully, but it used to happen before, yeah I like.
Speaker 1:I mean because your music is so forward thinking as well, do you, do you spend time ever thinking about, like, where you see music and also because, particularly because you're so connected to the, you know, to the web, do you, do you have like a feeling for where music's going to be headed in the next five or ten years or like in the future? I?
Speaker 2:think about that a lot, I would say. But in a way I feel like music I mean especially club music, kind of electronic music it always existed in a cycle of reinvention, you know. So what excites me the most about this is like tradition and experimentation keep colliding constantly. So I think new technology of course keep emerging, although we have to be very careful about ai. I don't like to talk about that much because you never know what. What's going to happen in the next month. I would was going to say a year, but month it's a month.
Speaker 1:It's a month. It changes week by week at the moment exactly so I I rather not involve that.
Speaker 2:But, for example, new equipment, even hardware, new scenes, teenage engineering is coming crazy, crazy new things, or um, it's endless possibilities and a cycle of reinvention. So I would say that it will be shaped by even deeper hybridity than what is happening right now. I think so much room for non-traditional rhythms and structures in dance music. We could even keep moving beyond that 4-4 pattern. There's so much more to explore in electronic music still, although it feels like we explored it all. But I think there's plenty possibilities and I don't like to to predict that much more because I could be entirely wrong. But yeah, of course I would say that it always needs heart on it. You know it can be all machinery. So yeah, like a blend of organic and in the future, yeah, yeah, almost knocked my glass over.
Speaker 1:I agree with you about AI. It's something that you know. It does change so quickly, so randomly that, like it's hard to make any kind of prediction. But I do feel like I agree with what about AI? It's something that you know. It does change so quickly, so randomly that, like it's hard to make any kind of prediction. But I do feel like I agree with what you're saying, that that hybridity is is the one thing that I feel that we know that we, we are we. It's going to be interesting to see how how many kind of sub genres, of sub genres-genres kind of all continually grow, which I guess is just like. It's a reflection of, just like human evolution as well, isn't it? It's the reflection of, like the planet's evolution that, um, you leave something out in the sun, like you leave a sandwich in the sun, and it turns into something else and the invention, a cycle of complete yeah yeah, yeah, and just sort of.
Speaker 1:Finally, I mean, what, um, if you could go back to your younger self and give yourself, uh, just when you were starting to make music, maybe just before you were starting to take apart that synthesizer and starting to, uh, you know, play around with it, like what piece of advice would you give to the younger you?
Speaker 2:Perhaps I would tell myself that not every gig is the end of the world, because I take my work very, very seriously and that used to drain me so much, like I thought I had to. Even if the basement gigs, like, even if the gigs I organized myself, I thought they were going to be the gig you know. So I was trying to take it to an extreme that was giving me so much anxiety and like I should have. Yeah, that would have been a good advice for my younger self, like enjoy the gigs, enjoy making music. I still take gigs as if the end of the world. So it would be an advice to my current self as well.
Speaker 1:Like a continual loop of giving yourself advice. Lila, thank you so much for speaking with me. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that was Lila Tarando, our Violetta, talking with me, paul Hamford, for the Lost in Sound podcast, and we had that conversation on March, the 7th 2025. Thank you so much, leela, for your time and thoughts there. The Dream of Snakes album is out this Friday, 25th of April, and if you like the show and you haven't already, please give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. It really, really really does help.
Speaker 1:If you like my work and want to check out more of what I do, you can listen to my radio documentary the man who Smuggled Punk Rock Across the Berlin Wall by heading on over to the BBC Sounds app or on the BBC World Service homepage, and my book Coming to Berlin is still available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity Press. Lost in, thank you should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning and the end of every episode of Lost in Sound is by Thomas Giddens, hyperlink in the podcast description. So, yeah, that's it. Whatever you're doing today, have a really, really lovely day and I'll chat to you soon, thank you.