Dream of Snakes Lila Tirando a Violeta

Lila Tirando a Violeta - Dream Of Snakes (500 words)

Over the last half-decade, Uruguayan music producer and vocalist Lila Tirando a Violeta has distinguished herself internationally through a series of releases for Hyperdub and N.A.A.F.I and audiovisual sets for Mutek, Primavera Sound, Boiler Room TV, and Unsound Festival. Along the way, she has positioned herself on the vanguard of an aesthetic that reframes South American melodies and percussion inside avant-garde soundscapes and hard-edged machine beats equal parts IDM, industrial, techno and gabber.

Recorded during the introspective quietude that followed her relocation from the Netherlands to Ireland in 2023, Dream of Snakes is Lila’s first album for the Berlin-based record and art label Unguarded. A cycle of visceral, experimental club tracks, the album merges Lila’s memories of South America with her present-day realities, filtered through a longstanding love of sci-fi and post-punk and a desire to bring dancefloors together without letting go of her distinctive musical voice.

After falling in love with the Emerald Isle’s lush countryside, Lila began making outdoor field recordings on daily hikes. “I started to feel a strong urge to create music that would inspire me to move around or at least feel the music in my body,” she explains. Having previously created two concept albums in quick succession, Desire Path and Accela (with Sin Maldita), Lila was more than ready to put pre-existing narrative and subtext to one side during creation. “I wanted to feel the music coursing through my nervous system, that same adrenaline rush I get when watching a David Cronenberg film,” she continues.

Before moving to Ireland, Lila experienced a recurring dream about snakes. Rather than being frightening, however, it was comforting. As she began to layer up her field recordings with synthesisers, urgent rhythms, voice and studio production, she found herself researching the meaning of her dream. “During this process, I rediscovered a song from my childhood, ‘Sueño con Serpientes’ by the Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, which my grandparents often played,” she says. In the song’s eerie, leftfield folk soundworld and impressionistic lyrics, Lila found a north star to return to while completing Dream of Snakes.

Opening with the nocturnal ambience of ‘Unworthy Praise,’ Lila collapses the boundaries between field recordings, synthesis, and percussion until they become indistinguishable before taking things in a technonaturalistic direction on ‘New Flesh. ‘Created with Björk collaborators SideProject, ‘Ostrich: Ñandú’ is a flurry of ostrich calls, synth arpeggios, and fast-paced man-machine rhythms. Up next, ‘Heavy Is The Soul’ sees her keeping up the intensity while drawing from her love of Goth-rock.

From there, Lila explores a Latin American slanted rhythmic ambient soundscape on ‘Retumba En Tu Piel’, blends breakbeats with mantras via ‘Rest & Relaxation’, turns the echoes of oblivion into a new wave/synth-pop inspired dancefloor anthem called ‘Eco del Olvido’ with Lighght. Closing with the frenetic cyborg rhythms and synth-squelches of ‘Eye Slice’ featuring JQ, Dream of Snakes lands in the sweet spot between braindance and the sweaty physicality of body music. It’s ready for the dancefloor and so much more.