Perila

Russian-born and now residing in Berlin, Perila produces experimental ambient music that functions as an intimate sonic diary, weaving together field recordings, spoken poetry, ASMR-like whispers, and ethereal singing. In addition to numerous solo releases, among them the 2021 album How Much Time It Is Between You and Me?, she has collaborated with electronic artists such as Huerco S. and Ulla Straus. She also works across multiple disciplines as a radio host, podcaster, curator, performer, photographer, and illustrator.

Aleksandra Zakharenko spent her formative years in St. Petersburg, where she performed as a drummer and vocalist in several local bands. There she helped establish radio.syg.ma, one of Russia’s earliest online stations focused on experimental sounds. Around 2015 she relocated to Berlin and began presenting a show on Berlin Community Radio under the Perila alias. By 2019 she had adopted the name for her recorded work, issuing her debut LP Irer Dent—a blend of ambient textures and spoken word drawn from her WET (Weird Erotic Tension) podcast—on Sferic. A series of limited cassettes and digital releases followed, including Air/Leather on the Trilogy Tapes and 2020’s Everything Is Already There on Boomkat Editions, the latter later pressed to vinyl. She issued multiple joint recordings with Ulla Straus (aka Ulla) and appeared on the self-titled album by Critical Amnesia, the breakbeat techno supergroup whose members include Huerco S., Exael, and Vtgnike. Smalltown Supersound put out How Much Time It Is Between You and Me?, characterized as an album of hauntological musique concrète, in 2021.