Loula Yorke is a composer and live artist who uses electronics, video and participation to create sonic artworks. Releasing work since 2019 that dances in the spaces where the personal meets the political, she’s been described by Electronic Sound magazine as a ‘DIY noisenik champion’ and recognised with a special commendation by the 2020 Oram Awards.

Yorke’s trademark improvised hardware-only live sets see her building abstract sonic collages into powerful beat workouts backed by kaleidoscopes of interlocking and repeating algorithmic melodies. She’s had radio play on the BBC and coverage in The Wire, DJ Mag, and Bandcamp Daily, where she was described in a review as “one of the most interesting voices in analog electronics”.

In 2021 she was commissioned by SPILL Festival of Performance to create Atari Punk Girls, an audacious and energetic live show centreing drone and dance musics, co-composed with a group of girls and minority gender young people. Audiences recommended it as an “unexpected highlight of the festival”. In early 2022 she performed a run of dates improvising as OULAN with poet-vocalist Una Lee, including Colchester Arts Centre, Cafe Oto, London, and the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast.

During summer 2022 Yorke is a guest composer for the Britten Pears Arts community youth choir, co-composing with young people on a piece for Firstlight Festival. In April she was announced as a Sound Generator artist for 2022, developing new piece for ambisonic electronics and laser: into the body, into the flesh of the world, supported by Sound UK.

contact: loulayorke@gmail.com.

Photo credits: Sarah Lucy Brown (top), Jeff Scott (above)