In conversation with: Blu Aloé

For the twenty-first edition of our mix series, we welcome Blu Aloé — Berlin-based artist and modular practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of dark drone, industrial techno and experimental sound design.

Born in New Zealand and raised in Cologne, she developed her practice within the city’s underground club culture before relocating to Berlin, where her work has grown harder to categorise and harder to ignore. Earlier this year Herde, her debut release on Regis’s Downwards Records, quickly sold out on Boomkat, announcing a rigorous and uncompromising approach to modular synthesis: one in which the voice is treated not as presence but as matter, granulated, eroded, displaced until it ceases to carry human characteristics and becomes stark texture.

That same logic governs this live recording. Built around her Eurorack system, the Morphagene and the Monsoon — her first module, and still the foundation of everything she does — the set moves through confrontational noise, dark modular drone, vocal practice and rigid mechanical techno before arriving somewhere more tenuous. In her own words, “an anticlimactic transition of states before notes dissolve into vast space”: no conventional climax, no resolution, only an accumulation that eventually recedes, leaving harshness and fragile intimacy held in equal tension.

Alongside the mix, we spoke with Blu Aloé about her musical origins, the textures of her sound, the discography preceding Herde, the potential of collaborations, and the setup behind this live recording.

Have a good reading and listening!

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☉ Blu Aloé emerged as a distinct project in 2024. Could you elaborate on the formative stages prior to this official debut and the specific catalysts that shaped your artistic identity?

“Lately I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot. For me, to be authentic as an artist means having a clear sense of self and where you’re coming from. We tend to realise only in hindsight that certain stages in life were pivotal.
Cologne’s club culture has been a big part of my life since my early twenties. Illegal raves under bridges next to the Autobahn, parties in a bunker or car repair shop, endless nights. Those were the wild years – self-destructive in a way. But looking back, they were crucial for my musical path. They went deep in forming my relationship to electronic sound, especially raw, industrial techno.
But there was also another quieter voice alongside it. My love for ambient, classical and cinematic sound grew deeper and served as a grounding source – still does. It probably traces back to when I danced ballet and played violin. And especially during the twenties it felt important to nurture that side too. During lockdown, I did a Brutalism livestream, my first ambient and modern classical set with a visual accompaniment.
I leaned into DJing and played at Tresor West, RZM festival in Spain and several Sydney gigs. The more time I spent playing music, the more I felt this pull to create something of my own. One day in Sydney I walked into a record store specialising in metal and punk and as I was digging, every record its own universe and art form, it just hit me. I felt strongly that I had a perspective to express too. And I just wanted to understand music from the inside.
I knew it was time to start making music. That’s when Blu Aloé came to life. Shortly after the release of my first single I performed it live at a Sydney warehouse party — it was my birthday. And Fadi Mohem was playing later that night.”

☉ Your sound reflects a confluence of dark ambient, drone, and industrial techno. Within your creative process, do these elements operate in a defined hierarchy, or do they manifest as a fluid, non-linear interplay?

“Intuition plays a huge role in my decision making. I feel most empowered when I trust my instincts – even when I don’t quite know where things are going yet. Some days I want to tap into the softer, more gradual drifts from one state to another, just letting elements breathe and settle. Other days I feel rebellious, I want to take risks and that reflects in anti-climactic cuts and bold moves between sonic elements. It’s all about balance at the end of the day… and Gude Laune (as Sven Väth preaches).
In practice that can look very different. It can mean pushing a drone to this absurd, discomforting extreme, so that when the barely-there ethereal vocal finally comes in, it just hits. I really love thinking in those power play dynamics, the tension between elements, who dominates, who recedes, when to hold and when to let go. But then I equally love a transition so smooth you don’t even notice it’s happening. And all of a sudden you’re just somewhere else and you have no idea how you got there.”

☉ To date, your discography consists exclusively of solo output. How do you view the prospect of collaboration, and do you feel that a shared artistic dialogue might expand your creative trajectory in the future?

“The more certain I become of who I am as an artist, the more freely I can invite another vision in. I think that’s the way it works, not the other way around. What really draws me to collaboration is the curiosity about how other people perceive the world and what they’re drawn to. Every artist has a completely different internal world. When those meet, something very special can evolve out of this.
I’m currently working on several collaborations and what excites me most is how different all of them are. Different entry points, different worlds, different outlets. And what’s been interesting is how clear it was from the get-go where each other’s strengths lie and how naturally they complement each other.
As a female artist in a scene that is still very much male-dominated, you develop a sharp radar early on. I have zero tolerance for collaboration requests that don’t come from a professional place. The reason I make music and the reason I see value in collaborating is because I see potential for exchange and mutual growth. The moment I sense that’s not the motivation, I step back without hesitation.“

☉ What conceptual and visual frameworks guided the construction of “Herde”, your recent outing on Regis’s Downwards Records?

“Coming from Liminal Space, which was very much about open modular exploration, I felt the urge to step into something more rhythmic, denser and primal. The image that stayed with me was a herd that was packed tight, moving in a kind of ritualistic way.
A painting by my friend Taylah Hasaballah captured exactly that feeling. It is dark, textured and the way she works with pigments that erode and shift over time, you see how something can still be there but slowly lose its outline. Like an individual disappearing inside a mass. It felt inevitable that it became the cover. And that’s really the logic of my EP too. A soundscape that doesn’t build towards anything, it just persists. My vocals work the same way – they’re rather a transcendental texture than something rational or present in the room. They appear and disappear in the same way one body disappears inside a mass.”

☉ In the notes for this live recording, you describe a movement through confrontational noise, dark modular drone and delicate lingering. Could you walk us through the specific setup behind this session?

“The starting point was (and always is) my Eurorack as it puts me into the most open-minded headspace possible and just pushes my boundaries. For all drones and textures in the live mix, I recorded my voice into the Morphagene first for abstraction, displacement and stretching. The Monsoon module then completely destroyed and dismantled the material. The Monsoon actually was my very first module and it’s still the foundation of everything I do. There’s something about it that instantly creates that feeling of vast open space. I love granular processing so much. To keep the structure in my very experimental way of working, the Octatrack holds everything together. With that I did the sequencing and the live sampling. And of course my voice that appears in many ways: from textural material to fragmented poetry.”