Born in Baltimore, Maryland, artist Marlo De Lara received a PhD in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and an MA in Psychosocial Studies at the Centre of Psychoanalytic Studies at Essex. Their practice works within the realms of sound performance, visual distraction, and film. The works aim to blur the definitions of the (un)intentional and the myth of permanence. De Lara is a certified Deep Listening Facilitator and her research relates to feminism, representation of marginalized populations particularly within sound and music, and creative work as political action.
When I began my work with sound and music, I was interested in experiments on process and dancing on the line of intention and happy accidents. I then became more interested in autobiographically informed work, exploring my origin. I wanted to locate how having multiple homes and embracing the landscape of my various intersectional identities surfaces in my creative works. As I communicate to you now, I am sitting in Davao Del Sur, Philippines, in my auntie’s home. When the sun sets, the sky becomes a blending array of intimate oranges and pinks. The dogs bark and the sounds of motorcycles punctuate the quieting city. When I am here, I feel a uniquely specific sense of quietude that I cannot access anywhere else.
I put together this playlist with this in mind. Right now, we are sitting in a tsunami of unpredictable global events that feels never ending. I curate this playlist as an offering for connection to peace amidst the chaos. For me, within the body, it is rhythm and circulation, beating hearts, and breath rising and falling. This turning inwards creates a much needed pause. I hope the sounds evoke feelings of joy, rest, and love in a time when such states of mind are difficult to access.
neither from nor towards by Judith Hamann
Judith Hamann is a cellist/performer/composer from Narrm (Melbourne), currently based in Berlin. Judith’s recent work has focused on an examination of ‘shaking’ in live solo performance practice and the creation of new works for cello and humming, as well as electro-acoustic fixed media composition articulating collapse as a generative imaginary surface.
“4” from Tribal Sounds of the Philippines • T’BOLI by Vincent Moon
Tribal Sounds of the Philippines • T’BOLI is part of a films series by Vincent Moon, exploring tribal culture in the Philippines through the means of experimental ethnography. My family is from Mindanao and I am particularly touched by the ways Moon captured the T’Boli tribe in a respectful and artful way.”
Da Dah Du Moon by Semay Wu
Scotland-based Semay Wu, inspired by recordings of her father’s garden after his death in 2019, composed Unsteady Stones, a set of compositions made from the residue of recorded improvised performances from 2023 to 2024.
“Fire” by Ingrid Plum
If music is your medicine then this is for you. Dulme is a 4–part set release with a difference. Each part was released sequentially over the winter months, to coincide with Seasonal Adjustment Disorder (and daylight saving in the UK). Ingrid Plum’s elemental relationship to her spirit is soothing in its presence.
Burning Bright by NikNak
NikNak (Nicole Raymond) is playful, delightful, and profound. Her music is multidimensional. Embracing her identity as a self-proclaimed nerd and advocate for diversity, NikNak’s album Ireti, delves into Afrofuturism and explores the intersection of humanity and technology.
Ritual at Dusk by Susie Ibarra
Filipino American Susie Ibarra received the 2025 Pulitzer Prize. Her works are as varied as the biospheres of the archipelago. Her rhythm to me cannot be mapped in that it runs through her veins and beneath the earth’s surface. Delicate, dynamic and extremely focused, Ibarra finds expressive harmonics in gongs and brushes alike, with refreshingly melodic, even pastoral, results.
stage two by marlo de lara
In 2021, I composed a series of four pieces called the “pandemic scores.” For those of us blamed for the “Chinese virus” and for those of us targeted by conservative media coverage of the liberatory efforts of the BIPOC community, the violence had been documented but lacked the dimensions of lived experience. My series is both an inquiry and an aim towards reparative efforts for the survival of endangered populations of 2020-21.
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