Author: Loula Yorke

A woman runs around in a blur wearing a green jumper

Some Reflections on 2025

I tried out a lot of new stuff. Some things worked and some of them fell by the wayside. The first half of the year was characterised by the monthly mixtapes and the liner notes. I tried my hand at some spin-off things: handmade zines and home-dubbed tapes; I pressed flowers and sent them to people in the post. I started and then abandoned a podcast idea. I recorded my daily life and created sprawling sound collages. I recorded hours and hours of improvised music based on sequential sequences.

Some of this music made it into my albums released via Truxalis this year, The Book of Commonplace and Time is a Succession of Such Shapes. Some of it made it into my debut album for DiN, Hydrology. One piece, SICL, even made it into my live-set.

I was offered some incredible gigs in 2025. I was flown to Spain to play in a glass atrium on a rooftop at night! I played to 750 people in a circular chapel in East London and to 500 people in romantic Regency splendour in Bristol! I started mentoring a degree student in modular synth performance! (Email me if you’d also like this to be you. I’m loving it.) I was interviewed by Mylar Melodies, 12k people watched it! And nobody said anything weird in the comments!

I made a couple of big adjustments to my Eurorack that gave my gigs in the latter half of 2025 a far more confident energy. I completely changed my approach to transitioning between tracks. I thought a lot about stage monitoring. I met a lot of beautiful musical souls, both in my phone and IRL. I started recording myself play the parlour organ and improvising with an absolute demon on the clarinet. I joined a music library.

I’m rushing headlong into 2026 in much the same way as I arrived into 2025: by releasing an EP of my best recordings from the year, the Live Compendium 2. I had a ‘works Christmas do’ with fellow East Anglian music-maker, Laura Cannell, who took some photos of me larking about. I decided to use these for the cover art. It feels very much the vibe I want to take into 2026. A little fuzzier and more chaotic. Blurry energy. Green.

Thanks to Electronic Sound and Moonbuilding for their unwavering support this year including interviews, reviews, and for including my albums in their 2025 AOTY lists. And thanks to all the artists who continue to wow and inspire me (special shouts to the powerhouses that are Laura Cannell and Jo Johnson on this one.)

It just leaves me to say HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone who subscribes to the Cottage Studio on Bandcamp, and to everyone who buys music – no matter the platform or the artist – YOU are literally holding the universe up right now. YOU ARE AMAZING. THANK YOU.

Best wishes for the coming year, Loula

The first sunset of 2026, from my garden looking out onto the green. Suffolk, England.

Jan-Mar 2025 round-up

It’s soooo easy to forget literally everything! (This round-up is as much for my own memory as it is to communicate what I’ve been up to with anyone else!)

Some lovely gigs supporting the likes of Pye Corner Audio, Seefeel, Scanner, and Wolf Eyes.

I released a live album ‘The Loula Yorke Live Compendium’, and three mixtapes – ‘February’, ‘March’ and ‘April’, including some actual tapes for these, which all sold out in a *flash* thank you!

I turned my written liner notes into a spoken word podcast, and I started doing listening parties on Bandcamp for new releases.

I had a couple of little press features – “Under The Influence” in Electronic Sound magazine where I chatted about my influences with Isaak Lewis-Smith; “Loula Yorke has better taste than I do” in Shawn Reynaldo’s epic dance music blog First Floor where I got to recommend a track to his readers; and I was part of a big feature on playing eurorack live in Sound On Sound magazine (life goals achievement unlocked!) put together by Robin Vincent.

Various bits of my music were included in indie interent radio shows across the world for which I am ever grateful 🙏

My liveset for Machina Bristronica has gone live on their YouTube channel, and it’s a banger!

I was invited to do a Live Q&A with Mylar Melodies at the London Synth and Pedal Expo about my practice, which is available to watch now too.

I was invited to spend a day at Magic Acorns in Great Yarmouth researching the role of sound in early years play with Charlotte Arculus, The Overload Project, Emily Godden and Frazer Merrick.

COMING IN MAY-JUNE-JULY: The Book of Commonplace, an hour-long sound piece (Cassette/CD/DL) with accompanying liner notes and physical zine to mark the anniversary of the monthly mixtape project. Which I’m starting work on today…. stop procrastinating by updating your website loula …

Onward!

NEW RELEASE: Loula Yorke Live Compendium

A white woman in a large black coat playing a modular synth under stage lighting. The photo is by Victoria Wai, taken at Boundaries Festival.

Neil Mason on the Loula Yorke Live Compendium

Live is where the real magic happens. When Loula Yorke is right there, in front of you, the doors to her sound world really open up.

This Limited Edition release features five pieces: the first three recorded at Make Much Wenlock Weird in early November, and the last two recorded at Boundaries Festival in Sunderland later the same month. The same sequences were used in the same order for both shows, but no two performances are ever exactly alike. The pieces have all been given titles, and, to varying degrees, have featured as untitled tracks in her unmissable monthly mixtapes. They are living, breathing, evolving works, each one finding its way to fruition though constant refinement. Sequences woven together in skillful hands to form new patterns every time.

You are here for time in Loula’s company. The sharing of her sound like this, to hear her weaving this utter magic into the air, is an intimate experience. You don’t know what’s coming or where it will go. Loula herself has a rough idea, a starting point, taking to the stage with a series of sequences that have plenty of room for improvisation, for choices to be made.

From the bright unfurling melodies and wide frequencies of The Open Independence Of Her Seas, via the soothing, evolving bass and meandering effervescence of The Magician’s Glass, right though to the final fling of her euphoric four-to-floor closer To Crossing Long Distances some 40-odd minutes later, this is an unique opportunity to hear the music of Loula Yorke finding a life of its own in a live setting. Who knows when these tracks will appear again. One thing is for sure, they won’t ever sound exactly like this.

Neil Mason, Moonbuilding

Blow Up Italia

A wonderful review of my latest album Speak, Thou Vast and Venerable Head has been printed in this month’s Blow Up magazine. Molte grazie 💜

Latest updates on live dates and mixtapes

Greetings,

I’ve got some   a w e s o m e   live dates coming up this Autumn, and an update on the September mixtape.

I’m kicking things off at Levitation on 5th October –an all-dayer in Bedford lovingly curated by label Castles in Space featuring so many incredible faces of the electronic musicsphere. My new flower-filled liveset will be in attendance.
Next up I’ll be bringing the vases to Machina Bristronica on 12th October Synth-expo weekender from thriving Bristol-Barcelona indie modular shop Elevator Sound that also includes a program of exceptional live music, excited for this one too!
Rounding things off in Shropshire with a headline show – Make Much Wenlock Weird on 8th NovemberA fresh series of events showcasing new, underground and alternative music at The Edge Arts Centre. This is a headline show so I’ll be breathing a little easier for this one. With support from Lucifer Sky.☀️☀️☀️

But for now, it’s still summer! Because I’m late! Which means the August mixtape is still availableto buy until 9AM Wednesday 4th September UTC+1, when it will flip over to being the September issue.

 “Each instalment builds on the last, a growing work gathering abiding interests… walking, walking, in fields and by the sea, voices drifting in and out, from the now and from before, domestic labour and artistic work, the outside and the inside, abundant birds, water everywhere… and of course woven through it all, great glorious slabs of synth. I like to listen ‘blind’ at first, walking the neighbourhood, then later a closer listen, reading the notes, revealing the sights and thoughts within.”
Bandcamp Listener, Al Shew (for which, thank you!!!)

The September mixtape has just gone out to Cottage Studio subscribers.If you’d like access to that now, thenyou can join them using this link.

I’m a guest on Songs of Our Lives

Songs of Our Lives is a podcast from Foxy Digitalis that explores the music that’s made us and left a certain mark. Whether it’s a song we associate with our most important moments, something that makes us cry, the things we love that nobody else does, or our favorite lyrics, we all have our own personal soundtrack.

Here’s what the host Brad Rose had to say about our episode 🙂

“On this episode of Songs of Our Lives, it’s Loula Yorke! Ever since our paths crossed a couple years ago, I’ve become a huge admirer of all the various components in Loula’s creative practice. Her new mixtape series is (along with her recent album, “Volta”) one of my favorite things happening in 2024. Plus, I’m not sure I’ve laughed more during an episode than this one! So, after talking through both of those things, we get into jamming to ABBA, Mira Calix and Oliver Coates destroying us, Candi Staton’s unheralded greatness, the diverging paths and intersections of dance music and punk, Kreayshawn’s drunk vibes, the honey in Erykah Badu’s voice, The Roches unhinged lyrics, how utterly bad ass Special Interest are, Liquid Crystal being better than Mozart, and so much more!”

Listen via Foxy Digitalis or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hear the full conversation exclusively on the Foxy Digitalis Patreon.